Category / English

by Christian

Dimensions of Openness, #OER17 and an old podcast episode

tl;dr: I tried to pin down some thoughts from a podcast we recorded a while back and slipped into a comparison of OpenEd scenes in Germany and the rest of the world, especially the UK and the US. I then pulled myself together and even managed to link to my own work that I presented at #OER16

In the middle of December 2015 Markus Deimann and I invited Martina Emke as a guest to our podcast (we record the Podcast in German as it is our native language). While Markus and I usually just ramble on about what has been happening in between recordings (a theme we copied pretty much from the early concept of the mostly fabulous TIDEPodcast), we aimed to focus the discussion a bit this time. At the bottom of this page, I embedded the podcast recording.

At the time of the recording, the OER17 conference committee were still reviewing the submissions and it became pretty clear that this will be an inspiring conference which will send its delegates home with new perspectives, ideas and experiences on everything open in education. After last year’s OER16 which was themed around Open Culture, OER17 now tackles important questions around the Politics of Open. As many have noted before me, a theme that could not come with better timing.

Also, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research had just launched a program aiming to foster and facilitate production and use of OER in the German educational landscape. In short, a project called OERInfo is supposed to make OER in Germany more visible to educators and other stakeholders while a decentralised effort to qualify educators is undertaken within educational institutions. Leuphana University, where I am employed, is part of a joint project with two other German universities that combines an approach of Service Learning with the use of OER. This program by the ministry is very much focused on content as well as training of staff. More far-reaching concepts like pedagogy, connectedness, a shift of dynamics in the teacher-student relationship or learning in networks find only little, if any mention in this program. I think you can safely say that most experts and initiatives in Germany are content-driven, while also considering licensing and infrastructure to host and disseminate the content. Continue reading →

by Christian

Different Contexts of Open Licensing

tl;dr: I worked with students and refugees on questions around licensing and copyright and they perceived ‘open’ to be default. We also talked about different contexts of open, motivations and risks.

It has been a while since I last updated this space. With the beginning of the new year, I caught a persistent flu and I have been quite busy catching up on the things I missed because of that downtime. So I started the year a bit later than most others and one of my first gigs back from bed in the real world was a short workshop on copyright and open licensing with refugees and students at the University of Hamburg.

I have been working with this group for the whole semester now. We talked about storytelling, about narratives and about privacy among many other things. As we approach the end of the semester and some of them will publish their work online, I did not want to miss the chance to introduce them to some basic principles and ideas around copyright. Continue reading →

by Christian

A call to action and the dark side of publishing

Darth Vader, Library Page

tl;dr: I published a call to action in the Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory and I provide some additional context and thoughts.

In the early summer of 2016, Markus Deimann asked me whether I would consider to author a contribution to the Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory, a Springer Publication. Three thoughts almost immediately struck me as odd. For one thing, I never really thought about publishing anything academically. I hold a Bachelor of Science, a degree many ‘serious academics’ don’t take too seriously. Many people I talk to wonder how I can work at a university although I only hold a B.Sc., some simply assume that I have a PhD for some reason. I was invited to conferences and workshops because people held that belief and most of them then try to re-negotiate conditions like a reduced rate when they find out that they were mislead to assume that I have academic credentials. So imagine my surprise when I was asked to write an article for an encyclopedia (thanks again for the opportunity, Markus). More importantly, maybe, I never found much joy in writing papers – never understood how people could love doing this. This might change, you never know. If you take a look at the list of authors for this publication, you will see that all of them are achieved academics who have a serious track record in science and research. To be included in that list is an honor and it seems weird.

My most immediate thought, however, was this: I never considered writing something for a publication administered by one of the large science publishers who would then own the copyright and lock my thoughts and ideas behind a paywall. Continue reading →

by Christian

Giving to causes I care about – edition 2016

tl;dr: I give to organizations, causes and people I care about because it makes me sleep better. And because this is a crucial time to do so.

I am not going into too many details what the year of 2016  lots of people I care about and work with. John Oliver already did a great job. The global rise of ‘alt-right’ racist and fascist movements, a new level of hate speech online (or at least a new level of awareness of it among people who look like me), the proclaimed age of post-truth. All of these developments have made the people I follow in the realm of open and online education question both their strategies of coping and teaching but also their approaches to openness and safety in online education. Continue reading →

by Christian

Quick Note on Storytelling, Security and Privacy

In a post from Nov 17, I tried to give an update on what happened after my Ignite Talk at #2016DML. As I mentioned then, I joined Cornelia and Anna to co-facilitate a small group of students and refugees who started working on storytelling in teams of German students and refugees. Over the last couple of weeks, teams and tandems were formed and some were split up again. Usually, this happened when some of the refugees could not attend the class anymore for various reasons: some moved, one found a job, one decided to attend more German language classes. Continue reading →

by Christian

I was Virtually Connecting from #OEB16

tl;dr: I was Virtually Connecting from #OEB16 and I am trying to give two main reasons why this was an essentially important part of OEB – at least for me.

I wrote a short blog post about my first time as onsite buddy of Virtually Connecting (VC). In my previous post, I noted a couple of reasons and motivations to virtually connect and now, after participating in four sessions as onsite buddy of VC, two main motivations kept on creeping up on me during our sessions at #OEB16:  Continue reading →

by Christian

Hack the Edu System – 6 Weeks after my Ignite Talk

tl;dr: I promised regular updates after my Ignite Talk at #2016DML and this is the first post that is meant to catch everyone up who is interested.

It has been six weeks since my Ignite Talk at the 2016 DML Conference. After the talk, many educators and practitioners reached out – not only from the conference site but also from elsewhere in the world. Some gave feedback directly as comments in the Google Doc (resulting in a slightly edited draft), some tweeted and some sent me email. I promised that I would try and keep everyone in the loop and so I will try and sum up what happened since #2016DML. Continue reading →

by Christian

#2016DML – a look back

tl;dr: I visited the annual conference of the DML Research Hub #2016DML and I tried to pin down some of the many experiences that stuck with me. This should be a much longer post than it actually is.

When I was introduced to the DML Research Hub and the inspiring people in its wider network by Nishant Shah, I was a bit overwhelmed by the complex and critical questions contributors to the blog and to the ‘twittersphere’ (is that still a word?) were asking around digital media and pedagogy, connected learning and its impacts and influences on learning and teaching in general. Leuphana Digital School had been around for a bit longer than one year, we had finished our pilot course and we had also tried out how to apply its infrastructure to the freshmen week at Leuphana. We were still in the process of figuring out things on our own and we had no real capacity for the conscious and planned integration of others’ theories, ideas or practices (see my related post “Where would you start?” for context).

While attending a DML conference seemed out of my world by then, imagining to present during an Ignite Talk session would have blown my ‘2013 self’ out of the universe. So, in October 2016, I had the privilege of attending and presenting at the conference and, while memories are as fresh as they will ever be, I want to take the chance and ban some of them onto the web. Continue reading →

by Christian

Hack the Edu System – Ignite Talk at #2016DML

tl;dr: I gave an Ignite Talk at #2016DML in which I talked about access to Higher Ed for refugees in Germany. In the transcript below, I am inviting you to give feedback and to suggest ideas. If you want to dig in deeper, there also is a Google Doc with first ideas.

Here’s a recording of my talk

As I write this post I am on my way from Hamburg to Los Angeles, both excited and a bit nervous about the upcoming #2016DML conference at UC Irvine in California. This is the the first time for me to be presenting at an Ignite Talk session and I don’t have that much experience at international conferences to begin with. When I submitted my proposal, I would not have imagined for it to be considered and so I didn’t pay too much attention to the format itself. I followed an “I’ll see about that when I get there” attitude. So, I am on my way now and I have decided that this will also be the first time for me to publish a blog post about a talk I am giving. I am doing this for several reasons: Continue reading →