Tag / open

by Christian

Is open the new organic?

I can’t believe that it is June already, this year has been quite hectic on my end. I started a new job at Wikimedia Deutschland, where I am part of an awesome team of people who work to open education, science and culture and make them more accessible to more people in society. Especially in the realm of education, teaching and learning, we are thinking about the role ‘open’ plays in enabling participation and representation on the web and in society in general. We’re also thinking a lot about the role digital literacy plays in this context but that’s too much for just one blog post.

I keep on coming back to one thought, which originally emerged in a conversation I had with Jim Groom during this year’s re:publica conference. We took some time to hang out over coffee and, given that we both like to talk, it was hard to find an end. As Jim writes, a true highlight of the conference. We also got to do Virtually Connecting session, which I enjoyed very much.

Anyways, here’s the thought and it probably is not that original: ‘open’ is the new ‘organic’! 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

Where would you start?

tl;dr: I started to curate a list of topics, trends, literature, people and conferences related to open education, open learning and teaching, connected learning and many more. Take a look here and please do add readings, comments and links. Thank you!

Over the last years, co-workers and colleagues have frequently asked me something similar to this: “I’d like to read up on the recent developments in open education. Which resource can you point me to as a starting point? Which blog or text, which author or publication is most valuable to you? Where should I start if I wanted to dive into connected learning (depending on the context, replace with: open learning, digital pedagogy, open teaching, online teaching, personalization of online learning…)?”

Depending on who asks and on their context, but also depending on the amount of time on my hands, my answer can turn out quite differently. I usually come up with 2-3 references for someone to start with – depending on their background, their assumed expertise and interests or regarding their specific question. Of course, these recommendations are biased by what I have read and what I care about on that particular day and, even if I tried, it would never be an exhaustive list or overview. It would not even come close to doing this question justice. Now, most recently, I was not only asked for some recommendations on the fly, but for an exhaustive list of publications, authors, conferences and the like. And while I still certainly have not reached the status of an expert in any of these fields, I wonder what would have happened if someone I trust had provided me with a list of resources and people she admired when I started out in online learning and open education four years ago. Continue reading →