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Shaping Open Education

Navigating Change in the Best Interests of Learners

Joe Wilson #openscot

A view from a hard-nosed optimist.

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Work in the Open

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Why I’m bothered

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Why I’m bothered

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Esperanto

Esperanto didn’t fail because it was a bad idea—it failed because the real world is driven by power, culture, and history, not by linguistic efficiency or idealism.

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Why This Matters

• Attainment and resource gaps persist !

• System is frustrating for all – What skills do we deliver ?

• Social mobility remains limited –We are not empowering people !

How do we shape open education to support all learners and educators ?

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What started interest here

Experience as curriculum leader, senior manager in schools and colleges - poor resource sharing culture.

Experience as senior manager at SQA, SFC ,SFEU and CDN and working across Colleges , Employers , Universities and Training providers and Jisc

Bizarre procurements from Govt and associated agencies. The general School/College/HE divide is unsupportive of a sharing culture and does not support lifelong learning

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VOCA = A world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity - Tertiary ?

  1. Pace of technological changes
  2. Fiscal constraints
  3. Structural changes
  4. Learner expectations
  5. Impact of global learning

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The Triple Challenge for people

• Attainment Gaps – Deep and systemic

• Skills Shortages – Rapid change in labour demands.

• Social Mobility – Uneven and unequal.

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The Triple Challenge for institutions

  • Slow to change and respond.

  • Uneven spread of resources and all under fiscal pressure.

  • What is education for , for whom , and at what cost .

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Open Education: The Promise

  • More than free resources: it’s about access, agency, and equity.

  • Encourages collaboration, co-creation, and sharing.

  • Supports lifelong learning and micro credentials.

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Unesco and Open Educational Policy

This slide deck is licensed under Creative Commons BY 4.0.

The links and resources in this presentation are

Open and shared under a creative commons

Licence.

Discover Open Scotland

Est 2013

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Repeated Themes in Govt Correspondence

  1. Open Education = Open University X
  2. Open Education is nothing to do with us X
  3. Open Education is a service ‘Creative Commons’ that we’d ask you to sell to 32 local authorities X

  1. “ Open education and the sharing of learning materials is something that is in the philanthropic gift of Universities in Scotland “ X

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What’s Holding Us Back

  • Institutional inertia and legacy systems.
  • Low digital confidence at all levels.
  • Competitive pressures and fear of sharing.
  • Anxiety around AI consuming our content.
  • On specific challenges and useful developments ‘Once for Scotland’ usual beauty parade -

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Teaching Staff: Agents of Change

  • Central to implementing open education
  • Need time, training, and trust
  • Must be recognised and supported to become digital and open practitioners
  • Need leadership who understand and value new approaches
  • Shifts - that I thought would happen in 1990’s have still to really happen -

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AI: Friend or Foe?

Fears:

  • Deskilling, content theft , ethics , it’s cheating, environmental impact.
  • Enshittification, beigeness,
  • Moving too fast.
  • Corporate greed intrinsic and extrinsic.

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AI: Friend or Foe?

Opportunities:

  • Rapid forms of standards and qualification development
  • Personalised learning/better learning/ accessibility.
  • New forms of assessment - Writing no longer an adjunct for measuring acquisition of skills.
  • Reduced admin load
  • New forms of creativity and support
  • Local Models still to be really explored.

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 The AI Cognitive Amplifier by Visual Thinkery

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Much more than a Stochastic Parrot

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AI with everything

  • “Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to address some of the biggest challenges in education today, innovate teaching and learning practices, and accelerate progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4” - UNESCO, Artificial intelligence in education.

  • You are probably using it already and don’t realise.
  • Many of your colleagues are already using these tools.

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Current AI Platforms - that students used regularly

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Artificial Intelligence

Have you moved past policy yet ?

Do all staff and students have access to a short course showing them how to make most of Artificial Intelligence - that critically includes support and professional services staff.

Have you figured out best way to harvest and use your own information securely

Do you have a clear policy around academic standards and use of Artificial Intelligence

Have you reviewed your assessment methodology to minimise misuse of Artificial Intelligence

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Artificial Intelligence

Have you moved past policy yet ?

Do you work regularly and consult with students.

Do you use relevant Jisc surveys to benchmark your staff and students digital skills

Are you exploring relevant tools like ‘Teachermatic’ which could accelerate adoption and interest.

How about new Co-Pilot Agents here is example of teacher one

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What challenges are you facing and how are you coping with range of ethical challenges that AI presents

There is a whole workshop in this topic alone -

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Pragmatic Partnerships

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Vision: A People-Driven System

Imagine:

  • IT and Learning Technology working to common goal.
  • Educators who collaborate freely
  • Much faster standards and qualification development.
  • Learners with portable portfolios
  • AI supporting relationships, not replacing them

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Overcoming Inertia: Levers for Change

  • Empowering leadership.
  • Addressing staff fears.
  • Communities of practice.
  • Celebrating and rewarding openness.
  • Sharing stories of success and failure.

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Back Channel Padlet

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Opportunities

  • Tertiary Landscape - QAA Scotland now Universities and Colleges - where are they championing open education ?

  • Learning Design - Where are you institutionally ?

  • Micro Credentials - What’s holding you back ?

  • Are you passed policy and onto practice with Artificial Intelligence ?

  • Have you and or your staff understood UNESCO open educational policies yet? Have you and/or your institution figured out how to be open ?

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Learning Design �with the ABC Framework

September 2024

Kenji Lamb, Delivery & Engagement Partner, College Development Network (CDN)

Colin Milligan, Senior Research Fellow (Glasgow Caledonian University)

Susi Peacock, Quality Enhancement Specialist (QAA Scotland)

Joe Wilson, Learning & Development Consultant 

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Active,

Blended,

Connected

Learning Design - for all

Where are you in redesigning the learning experience ?

How visible are your processes ?

Diana Laurillard, London’s Institute of Education,

‘the shift to new learning requires a complete overhaul of traditional education.

  • One-hour lectures and workshops would need to be broken up into smaller 10-20 minute webinars, interspersed with practical exercises, question-and-answer sessions and discussion groups.’

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New standards for Lecturers and CPD Framework PDR

  1. Understand how to embed a range of digital technologies to enhance learning and teaching and assessment.
  2. Know how to use a range of learning, teaching and assessment strategies to meet the different needs and learning preferences of students.
  3. Part of registration for all lecturers and Professional Development Review

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What might it look like 

It is not about the tech but

how

it maps to changing your

approach to learning and

teaching - underpinned

by the technology

COGC developed

ABC Learning Design Model

from UCL

Google Sites !!!

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Where are your learning design challenges ?

It could be lack of coherent policy on blended learning ?

An unstable or confusing delivery platform ?

Staff time and or resistance to embrace learning design?

We solved this by working in partnership -

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EQF / SCQF / Microcredentials

Why it matters and what is holding you back ?

We are all unique - but we all have learners who need qualifications that sit within EQF

Colleges have - SQA providing academic pathways underpinned by national occupational standards.

All we do is built on foundations laid by SQA and all on the SCQF mapped to the EQF Job adverts with SCQF levels !

Colleges have had microcredentials for 30 years !

Minimum can 10 hours credit and levelled

Through SCQF - most courses can be credit and levelled.

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Green Shoots

Space Microcredentials - City of Glasgow College, Fife College and Edinburgh University.

Work of QAA Scotland - but what next ?

New MOOC Models - Glasgow University and Future Learn

Edinburgh University - across all MOOC platforms but now with Canvas and offers open courses too and #OER

Digital Badging Commission Working to improve application across vocational learning

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System level challenges

What we need to get better at

Faster development of standards and qualifications - is the optimum in many vocational areas 18 months.

Digital certification for all - no more paper.

How will you award credentials /badges internally and externally ?

Can you/ could you leverage AI ?

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Where is your institution in thinking about Microcredentials

Do you have a validation methodology ?

Are you offering these in other ways - perhaps less formally ?

Where will students use and display these ?

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Why are only the ancients pushing ahead here ?

Is your institution working in the open ?

Do you model best practice and work in the open ?

How does your Institution support this ?

Do staff or students have a place to showcase their learning and or learning materials ?

Perhaps this slide should have come first - learning design is about teachers and learners becoming co-creators

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Road ahead

What you need to enable

Co-Creation

Digital Skills and Digital Identities for all

Portfolios not exam halls

Personalised , Active , Blended and Connected Learning

Sharing Learning Materials beyond the institution

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Canvas

Was a Moodle Fan - this is not advertorial -

  • Greater use of forums
  • Quizzes
  • Feedback including audio and video
  • Embedded accessibility features
  • Increased use where relevant of Turnitin

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Sharing platform / repository

The Commons is a great Open Educational Resource (OER) that allows users to exchange ideas, educational materials, videos, software, and even textbooks. This freely accessed domain provides an all-access pass for individuals seeking course materials without cost or other restrictions. All instructors can upload their materials or upload an entire course into the directory as either private or public resources.

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Microcredentials at the ready

  • Canvas Instructure bought Badge
  • Provides instant creation of Open Badges
  • We build them in system
  • Students can earn and display where they wish
  • Soft or hard skills - you choose
  • Managed across institution

Example

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Digital Portfolios via

Folio in Canvas

  • Create and share a folder for each student
  • Use a naming convention e.g. “First+Last Name+Portfolio”
  • Students save examples of their best work
  • Now Folio acquired by Canvas
  • Life long - digital presence
  • See examples

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Canvas Data 2

You need a system that offers excellent analytics

Personalised pathways

‘Our ability to record, store and process information from learners in numerous non-testing situations suggests a paradigm shift in assessment and learning ’​

Source: Impacts of the Digital Ocean on Education

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What changed

  • Template helped scaffold good learning design.

  • An app that works.

  • The Blended learning model needs - different approaches to assessment and feedback - Sheila McNeil and Beyond Blended

  • Learners like blended learning

  • Pulled together learning design and all our available tools and ready for microcredentials

  • Canvas Commons gives us a global community of practice and repository and open with one click.

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Ongoing Challenges

Call to action

Today -

Tertiary Landscape

Learning Design

Microcredentials

Artificial Intelligence

Open Education

A platform that can enable change

Tomorrow - perhaps

AR/VR/XR still hard to make cost effective.

Resource and equipment sharing

Analytics

Personalised Learning

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ThingLink

Embed assessment - VR/XR in real world

I ( https://www.thinglink.com/)

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An active UK community around #OER Conferences

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My Optimist’s Manifesto

Social justice drives me.

Frustrations exist – but so does hope.

Change is always possible, and necessary.

You need to leverage benefits for sake of learners.

Stay critical. Stay kind. Stay open.

Remember Education is a love thing

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Call to Action

For educators:

Share openly, build networks and support peers. It starts with you !

For institutions:

Enable open policies and spaces

For all:

Work together for a more equitable system and as a community let’s get back to networking

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Thank You

“In the face of everything, we remain open.”

Open Education is much more achievable than Esperanto

Last century find me @Joecar and @Joecar80

Now mainly JoeWilson@joewilsons.net

  • #OpenEducation #AIinLearning #openscot

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With thanks over time to ...

In Scotland - Sarah Cornelius, University of Aberdeen; Sam Coulter, University of West Scotland; Linda Creanor, Glasgow Caledonian University; Kerr Gardiner, University of Glasgow; Marion Kelt, Glasgow Caledonian University; Natalie Lafferty, University of Dundee; Kenjij Lamb, College Development Network; Joe Wilson, joewilsons.net and many many more many of attendees at #oer conferences since 2012

Especial thanks to Lorna Campbell co-founder of Open Scotland who is normally my sensible filter

In open education work of UNESCO

Dominic Orr , Ben Jannsen , Sanjaya Mishra and so many more ..

In AI work of Donald Clark , Dominic Luks and many more

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Slide 2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriter#/media/File:Type.jpg r CC BY

Slide 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opaque_projector#/media/File:Episcope.jpg

Slide 5 Generated by author

Slide 6 Tsunami by hokusai 19th century - The Great Wave off Kanagawa - Wikipedia

Slide 16 @BryanMMathers, CC-BY-SA ALT https://flic.kr/p/RYDPXS

Slide 20 Stochastic Parrot Steam Punk generated by Grok

Slide 22 - generated by Chat GPT

Slide 39 Brexit http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=165944&picture=brexit C

Slide 40 What Next for Open Educational Resources https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps5wIh_HrkI Joe Wilson CC BY Built with Lumen5

Slide 61 and 62 Lorna M. Campbell, CC BY.

Images

#OpenScot Contacts

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My New job herding cats for Lorna Campbell

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Me

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References -

Hewlett Foundation OER Strategy https://www.hewlett.org/strategy/open-educational-resources/

Unesco Policy Guidance https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000371129

Unesco Dubai Declaration 2024 https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000392271.locale=en

SQA AI Policy https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/107507.html

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Current Projects

Joe Wilson Current work

UNESCO - shaping bid for project around better understanding of the open source code available for creation and management of Open Badges.

Working with UK Digital Badging Commission

Championing - Teachermatic and other AI platforms , Adaptive Comparative Judgement and Canvas by Instructure as means of changing the learning paradigm.

Following recent Dubai Summit working with Open Scotland to encourage more open educational practice in Scotland.

Supporting institutions and staff who want to digitally transform their practice and their learners’ experience

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Reusing & Modifying Our Materials

This slide deck is licensed under Creative Commons BY 4.0.

The links and resources in this presentation are

Open and shared under a creative commons

Discover Open Scotland

Est 2013

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Work in the Open