Wikipedia defines open education as the sharing of knowledge freely via an internet source. Doesn't what we experience on an everyday basis when we search for information on Wikipedia or use an online translator to decipher another language fall under this category? Colleges and universities that make their lectures available online seem to extend this idea, and, yes, the question of free education comes up as we've seen in previous posts.
When thinking of open education in terms of identity, community, and design, my mind is drawn to the deschooling movement as a much grander extension of this. The deschooling movement is based on the belief that public institutions are not the best sources of education for students - we know the smaller stage of this, which is homeschooling. In more radical ways, the movement suggests moving schooling from outside of these institutions and putting in in the hands of communities of people. The role of expert is distributed among the community. Students take up responsibility for their own learning. Their identities are no longer linked to public schooling. Distributed knowledge at it's best. I wonder how deschooling and open education converge?
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