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Worldwide households making broadband Internet connections, by selected countries, Q2 2002 (as a % of homes connecting via PC):

Hong Kong, 66%; Germany, 45%; Sweden, 43%; Netherlands, 42%; Spain, 22%; Brazil, 22%; France, 22%; Italy, 20%; US, 17%; UK, 14%; Australia, 10%

source: The eMarketer Daily

Politics & Economics of Open Source Learning

by Jeff Cooper <coops@pacificu.edu>

Education Technology Specialist, School of Education , Pacific University

INDEX:

    .01 Introduction

    .02 Personal History

    .03 Current Online Choices

    .04 Education as a Human Right

    .05 A Possible Future Scenario

    .06 Personal Direction

    .07 Conclusion

.01 Introduction (return to index)

Please consider this a living document. The following heavily hyperlinked article broaches a subject that merits discussion, but from all my years online, I have yet to see any webpage or threaded listserv discussion that begins to address the issue of Open Source Learning. A google search comes up with dozens of links on Open Source Learning, however none address what I am looking for: tuition-free, student-centered accredited course of online graduate level study. Certainly elements exist of the above, but not all combined. This paper will look at the global need for open source learning on all levels of academia, and you the reader will be encouraged to write me with any suggestions, better hyperlinks, recommendations, or any other offers of support. This process of continued revision, academic scrutiny, professional support, and feedback forms the crux of what I view as a viable possible future for education: namely the creation of process-focused online virtual portfolios which may be easily revised, as opposed to result-oriented static papers, which, once written, remain artifacts rarely to be revised or updated. Please be advised that your input will remain critical to this work up to the time I die, since this work constitutes the next step of my life’s goal: facilitating global education.

.02 Personal History (return to index)

I have been in school my entire life. Starting with Eleanor Griffith’s Nursery School when I lived in Berkeley at age 4, later studying Rhetoric at Cal, receiving my teaching credential at San Francisco State and teaching in the Bay Area for 10 years in between, up to and including my current position in the School of Education at Pacific University, it has been a rare month or year that I haven’t been inside some sort of classroom. However, I have yet to pick up several important “tickets” in academia, the critical M.A. or Ph.D. degrees. Why not?

There are numerous reasons of course: family obligations, lack of time and money, to name but a few. However, a more deep-seated reason may be my resistance to the institutional nature of academics: apply, get accepted, pay tuition, take classes, get grades, and graduate. Although the student may make certain choices in regards to the program, or may choose specific classes, in all cases the institution dictates what the student needs to do to complete a program. This approach to education fulfills the needs of the institution, but not necessarily the needs of the student. Many accept this route as a necessary task to attain a greater good, whether that is further education, a better job, or something else.

Institutions have always held the upper hand, since students compete for the right to be accepted, are transients within the institutions, and have very little influence upon curriculum. Tenured faculty enjoy more power to affect change, but the institutions counter through the use of adjuncts to teach classes and keep faculty dissent in check. This paper does not condemn academic institutions, however, since they will always exist and hold important social roles. Instead, the focus will be on alternatives to traditional educational tools that the Internet offers us, the possibility of “Open Source Learning.”

.03 Current Online Choices (return to index)

Currently there are thousands of online courses, offered either as extensions to traditional institutions at Harvard or Berkeley, through virtual universities such as Capella & Athabasca, or full-fledged graduate degree programs at Cal State Hayward, Boise State and Pepperdine. Cooper Union has the right idea in giving free tuition to its students, but extremely limited enrollment makes it the third most difficult university to enter in the U.S. Noncredit classes are also available from a variety of sources including Barnes & Noble University and a wide array of other education providers (community colleges are a good resource), some for free, some for a fee. Over the past seven years I have visited hundreds of sites concerning distance or online education; many links to these sites can be found in my Distance Education folder in my public bookmarks.

Discussions over delivery methods of distance education abound at such listservs as the World Association of Online Educators, Synctrain, and the Distance Education Online Symposium. Methods for delivering online education range from text based virtual environments such as Tapped In and Diversity University, to higher education solutions like WebCT and Blackboard, to higher-priced multimedia and business solutions such as Centra, Webex, HorizonLive & Placeware. Yet with all these resources, the opportunity to engage in a tuition-free student-centered multi-site credited course of study does not exist.

.04 Education as a Human Right (return to index)

According to the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

    Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. (Article 26)

As with many human rights, this one remains a lofty goal with much work to do. Furthermore, the word “merit” translates oftentimes to “money,” although some advances have been made in allowing for education of the impoverished. Merit also means high grades through high school, which again reserves spots for the elite few. De facto over 90% of the world does not “merit” higher education, if you believe that merit requires access. Article 26 should be amended to include that all humans deserve access to educational resources which should be free and open. Jürgen Habermas in Theory and Practice argues “free and open society requires free and open communication.” I picked this up in a seminar taught by Hubert Dreyfus (and his brother Stuart) over 25 years ago at Cal; I embrace this belief and carry it forward into today’s discourse surrounding distance education.

Habermas uses this point to argue that capitalism bases itself upon the rhetoric of private property from Locke’s On Civil Government, which in turn was an effort to (successfully as it turns out) incite the colonists to rebel against England. Whereas Rousseau argued for a “common good,” (a philosophy not a rhetoric, according to Habermas), Locke’s foundation leads to contradictions in civil government and capitalist society; over time these contradictions lead to the entanglement of “capitalism with freedom,” although the two have nothing to do with each other. We have become so immersed in this rhetoric that we cannot see fit to look critically at its inconsistencies; it is analogous to asking a fish what the water is like. Recent raiding of company coffers by corporate leaders, George W. Bush’s “you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists” false dichotomy, and the conservative myth of a liberal media add up to a society that remains blissfully unaware that we delude ourselves by thinking we enjoy free and open communication, or a free and open society. We do not live in Orwell’s 1984, where people live in fear of Big Brother’s retribution; instead, we live in tacit compliance by with state policies and a military-industrial-media complex that may destroy the very security it purports to enhance.

.05 A Possible Future Scenario (return to index)

Free and open communication in today’s word means Internet access; no other way exists. Connecting billions of people to the Net will take decades, perhaps several centuries... but it offers a way for people around the world to become educated at minimal cost. This means world support for hardware, software, and connectivity. Wishing for this goal may make me appear naive; I simply put forth the logical conclusion that if you want an educated world, you will need to use the Internet to facilitate the communication necessary to achieve it. Giving computers to one’s citizens does not necessarily mean access, as Malaysian officials have unfortunately found. My naiveté does not mean I am unaware of incredible barriers to seeing such a system come to be. Rather, I believe it is time for dialogue to embrace the possibilities heretofore considered impossible, namely, education of billions where before space and resources allotted openings only for relatively few.

Here are a few thoughts along the lines of how this communication could be achieved:

    1) Small cohorts of 20-100 would work collaboratively designing Individual Education Programs for its members. These Programs would be approved by the cohort at large and perhaps then submitted to larger bodies for continued monitoring or contract approval. Currently I am fortunate that Steve Eskow has offered to help mentor me in this contract process for my own program. This cohort would act as the first overseer of the individual student’s development. At least one certified educator and preferably more than one should be a member of the cohort. Community leaders and others could supplant the certified instructor if necessary. Student-centered online learning ensues, based upon the needs of the individual student.

    2) Additional small cohorts (with different members) based on individual student needs develop mirror sites for course discussions of online courses. Cohorts could meet in small online groups in a variety of ways. Educational MUVEs spring instantly to mind since they require little bandwidth, can run on a 386, offer text based transcripts of meetings, and have open source programs and clients. Electronic “living document” portfolios would be built by the individual members for ongoing assessment.

    3) Although assessment would ideally come from course originators, since they have the most insight into their own curriculum (usually), other forms of rubric based online assessments would be developed for accrediting ongoing student work.

    4) Students would explore other small cohorts and larger online developing “colleges” where there work could be shared, and they could collaborate with others.

    5) Eventually a student’s portfolio would reach a level where they could apply for CIM or CAM status on the high school level, or higher degrees at the collegiate or graduate levels.

These ideas represent a crude beginning to the work which must be done to have an educated global community. Others, such as Parker Rossman, have laid a much more thorough framework for what the future of online education may look like, see his work: THE FUTURE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: For All Worldwide, A Holistic View. I had the pleasure of joining in a discussion with him at the Tapped In Carnival this July. He doubts that America can present the leadership necessary for such a global vision of education; I fear that given our current military-industrial-media state that he is right. However, I do believe that we still live in the greatest country on earth, and would like to prove him wrong. In many other countries I would be imprisoned (or worse) for presenting the political viewpoints contained herein. However controversial, I feel that it is time for America to awaken and take a more proactive global stance in regards to universal education.

.06 Personal Direction (return to index)

I offer the following sites for your perusal, to see something of the work I have done, in hopes that you may find it useful for your own educational journey. You have my full permission to use any or all of what you find, with the one request that you credit me as the original source:

    1) Educational MUVEs: The Use of Educational MUVEs in K-12 Education. a LInC Presentation in Engaged Learning.

    2) Mr.C’s MUVE Links: Over 100 links for the use of Educational Multi-User Virtual Environments.

    3) Edutech InSites: My first submission to the Berglund Center for Internet Studies, which offers supporting ideas and links for the K-12 educator.

    4) Summer Internet Workshop: A summer course for middle school students with ideas for K-12 educators on how to integrate the net with curriculum.

For my own part, I offer the following as a beginning point, open for further discussion, in regards to pathway I would like to undertake:

    1) Develop online K-12 staff development skills, techniques and programs.

    2) Work with organizations such as geekcorps, and individuals such as Steve Eskow, (President of both Pangaea Network and Electronic University Network), Seth Anyomi (Director of the African Christian Mission), and Seth Agbo (Assistant Professor of Education Pacific University) in the hopes of attaining global internet connectivity.

    3) Continue to facilitate online collaborative project based learning projects for an international community of students and educators.

Finally, here are a few places I am very interested in for my own professional development. Please feel free to email me with suggestions of your own, especially if you have an interest in open sourcing your own curriculum:

Pepperdine Courses The Practicing Professional, Learning and Technology, Curriculum and Technology Masters program $39,000 for a year program.

Cal State Hayward Courses in Online Education (granting a certificate not a Masters) prices range between $600 and $800 per class and will rise in Fall 2002.

Boise State Courses include teaching online, Technology Supported Problem Based Learning in the K-12 Classroom, and an Online Integration Specialist Certificate with 12 units of work.

Open source learning will lessen international tension through education, and reduce the technology gap which currently means both educational and economic poverty for billions. This education must become free lest we maintain a status quo that denies this human right to so many.

.07 Conclusion (return to index)

I recognize the controversial nature of my stance, that education should be free and open to all, and that the net offers the only current solution to global ignorance and poverty. I recognize that many would prefer to dismiss my argument out of hand rather than address it directly. The Internet represents a tool capable of all but eliminating the issue of lack of space in current educational institutions. Imagine billions of users on millions of servers working collaboratively and independently for self-improvement and a better world. Individuals should welcome the opportunity to work together and learn from others regardless of institutional or national boundaries. Academics on all levels should embrace this concept, breaking down classroom walls and sharing their wisdom with the masses. Institutions should not view this as a threat to their existence, but rather as an opportunity to expand roles beyond concrete walls into the virtual expanse of global awareness.

Robert Dahl in Polyarchy argues that democracy cannot exist without an educated citizenry, a citizenry that actively and effectively participates. If we are indeed serious as a country about the desirability of having democratic countries around the world, and also don’t want to give up our own freedoms through our own inertia and inactivity, then we need to do what we can to give the world’s population access to free and open education.