Open Education and Second Life
By Scott Diener on Jun 19, 2008 in Free Education, General thoughts, Virtual Worlds, Web 2.0 and tagged Free Education, OECD OER, Open Education, Second Life
For many years, talented students have traveled from less-developed to more-developed countries to fulfill their educational aspirations. But herein lies a paradox: sending its best students to be educated in more developed countries often exacerbates a country’s problems because the education itself – be it a teacher’s certificate, a nursing degree, or a Ph.D. – makes it easier to find employment and often a more prosperous life in a developed country. So this “brain drain” has robbed – and is continuing to rob – many countries of their educated people. - Nina Fedoroff, Ph.D. -
Reading Dr. Fedoroff’s address to the Commission on Science and Technology for Development (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0806/S00092.htm), I am reminded of the travels my wife, son and I had in the late ’90s in our sailboat. We travelled from San Diego through the South Pacific, stopping at over 50 islands along the way. In case after case I was struck by the lack of infrastructure available for higher education, and it was apparent that there would likely never be such. If these people were to receive advanced education, they would have to leave.
But it isn’t that simple. Leave to where? The current (physical) global education system is simply not capable of sustaining the population that needs/wants higher education, and our societies are simply not capable of building enough universities to keep up. Think about this: according to the U.S. Census Bureau(http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/popclockworld.html), the population of the world increased by 77,191,241 human beings this past year, and if we were to build modest sized universities to educate them all (say, 30,000 student capacity each), we would need to build TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED SEVENTY THREE campuses. This year. And next, and next, and next….
In recent weeks I have been giving some thought to how virtual worlds (like Second Life) might be utilized to address such inequities in our global distribution of educational resources. Could we develop virtual universities that rival our bricks-n-mortar universities? Perhaps. Distance Learning programs are certainly not a new idea, and many organizations are offering these in a variety of delivery modalities. But many of these programs are nothing more than static content delivery, with a modicum of asychronous discussion thrown in. In the case of the universities with which I have been affilitated, these programs have almost always migrated to become ‘blended’ learning approaches, where students and teachers occasionally meet face-to-face in an attempt to recreate the more human interaction so necessary to deeper learning. That means travel.
More importantly, higher education…any education really…has become well beyond the financial reach for the majority of these new global citizens. Campuses are expensive, programs are expensive, and the content is expensive. And it is repetetive. That is, universities around the world offer custom-designed (read, expensive) courses that are virtually identical in content. Statistics, humanities, art, sciences, etc…we all teach very similar things, but we don’t share content much. We could.
So putting the two ideas together, what if we developed virtual worlds into virtual universities, where students come (real time) to meet, discuss, listen, research and create? What if the content of those universities is shared, open source content? I once attended a lecture by Leo Buscalia, in which he stated (paraphrased) “I can share with you everything I know, and I will still know everything I know“. I will not be diminished in the slightest by having shared it, and neither would universities. Again, this is not a novel idea – many groups are marshalling resources today to develop and distribute free content…free knowledge.
Over the course of the next few months I will explore these ideas, but for now, I hope the reader will look at these developments around global learning:
- OpenCourseWare Consortium - http://www.ocwconsortium.org/index.php
- UNESCO’s Open Educational Resources community – http://oerwiki.iiep-unesco.org/index.php?title=OER_development_and_publishing_initiatives
- OECD (2007). Giving knowledge for free: the emergence of Open Educational Resources. OECD.
- Commonwealth of Learning – http://wikieducator.org/Main_Page
3 Comment(s)
Great start with your blog — look forward to reading about your reflections and discoveries.
I think you’re right — open education resources combined with the power of social software has the potential to widen access to education in meaningful ways. To quote George Bernard Shaw:
“”If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”
Digital knowledge which is free, is infinitely scalable and I’m quite excited by the opportunities to return to the core values and purpose of education — namely to share knowledge. In some ways the emerging world of Open Education Resources is a return to the traditions of the academy — most notably the freedom and power to assume custodianship of knowledge and learning.
Already these technologies are making a difference on our planet. The world now has free and unencumbered access to the largest encyclopedia created in the history of human. This is an incredible step forward especially for the 4 billion people who are under served educationally and do not have access to textbooks. What’s astounding is the fact that that it only took about 3 years to develop the largest encyclopedia and its still growing!
I do think that environments like 2nd life have a role to play in these emerging futures. Sadly, the majority of learners we are aiming to reach across the Commonwealth with WikiEducator will not have the privilege of broadband access to engage in learning on 2nd life. So we’ve been focusing on developing the technology to produce customised, print-based masters of learning materials on WikiEducator. It’s a start.
I’d encourage resource rich institutions and academics to consider developing their teaching materials under licenses that enable users to adapt, modify and redistribute these materials. The authors will still retain their Copyright and IP rights — but at the same time making a valuable contribution to education as a social good.
So if there are any folk in your part of the world who would like to join in this important journey — WikiEducator will provide free training in how to do this.
Chat to you soon.
Wayne
Thanks Wayne. I’ll pass around the link to WikiEducator.
I think there is a place in the virtual university type facility in education. One of the problem I can see with distance learning is the lack of social interaction which simply through discussion forums can’t fulfill. We are social beings. So I think 2nd life could be quite interesting for this.
So look forward to see more development here.
I think internet has different brought the world closer, especially for me anyway. Most of my closest friends and my relatives are overseas, but on a touch of a button on MSN, I can talk to them, I can “see” them everyday (as they are online). And I’ve found A LOT of lost friends, people I know through Facebook! It’s amazing!
Sometimes I wonder if brain drain only has something to do with the lack of edudcational facilities or it’s the money and perceived successful life that has some impact on it, too.