innovation

This article aims to share experience from a Swedish project on the introduction and implementation of Open Educational Resources (OER) in higher education with both national and international perspectives. The project, OER – resources for learning, was part of the National Library of Sweden Open Access initiative and aimed at exploring, raising awareness of and disseminating the use of OER and the resulting pedagogical advantages for teaching and learning. Central to the project’s activities were a series of regional seminars which all featured a combination of multi-site meetings combined with online participation. This combination proved highly successful and extended the reach of the project. In total the project reached around 1000 participants at its events and many more have seen the recorded sessions.

Several unresolved issues beyond the scope of the project became explicit but which are absolutely crucial challenges. Firstly, the evolution from OER towards open educational practices (OEP) and open educational cultures (OEC). OEP and OEC imply the establishment of national and international policies and strategies where the use of OER is officially encouraged, sanctioned and developed. Secondly it became explicit that the issue of metadata is crucial for finding OER and facilitating their use and reuse for teachers and learners. Thirdly, the sustainability of OER must be stimulated by ensuring the creation of material that can easily be adapted and reused by teachers in other countries and contexts.

The 2nd European Conference on "Learning Innovations and Quality" (LINQ 2013) has announced several high-ranking speakers to be present during the event on May 16th and 17th at the Global Headquarters of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome, Italy. Figures such as the esteemed Prof. Dr. Rory McGreal and Prof. Dr. Fred Mulder, both UNESCO chairs for Open Educational Resources (OER), as well as Christian-Friedrich Lettmayr, Director of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP), will contribute their experience to the conference. Their support of LINQ’s continuing mission to examine the intersections between learning innovations and quality will provide an excellent framework for the state-of-the-art research and project work collected through the LINQ call for papers and projects, ended on March 4th.

“Rory McGreal and Fred Mulder have long been crucial pioneers in the development of Open Educational Resources as UNESCO Chairs,” says Christian M. Stracke, LINQ Conference Chair and international ISO Convener for learning quality from the University of Duisburg-Essen. “We will be honoured to greet them at LINQ 2013 and to learn from their professional and academic expertise. Likewise, Christian-Friedrich Lettmayr’s familiarity with the inner workings of CEDEFOP will prove incredibly valuable to practically situate the newest research efforts submitted to LINQ 2013. We are certain that the discussion at LINQ 2013 will benefit enormously from their presence.”

More than 150 researchers and practitioners have answered the LINQ 2013 call for papers and projects and the contributions of the highest quality will make the conference programme insightful and exciting. Early-bird registration at the reduced rate of 90€ will remain open until March 31st, 2013. All interested parties active in the fields of new learning methods and design, Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL), quality standards and certification, human resources development, competences and skills, digital resources, learning materials, and online collaboration and communities are encouraged to register for LINQ 2013 and take part in the continuing development of learning innovations and quality. For more information on specific registration requirements and other matters, please visit the conference website at www.learning-innovations.eu. 

Overview of the important dates:

-          End of early-bird registration period (90€): 31st of March 2013

-          Conference Programme Ready: April 2013

-          Conference date: 16th and 17th of May 2013

For the latest information on the conference and to submit any pre-conference feedback, please visit the LINQ Facebook page at www.facebook.com/LINQConference and follow the LINQ Twitter account at www.twitter.com/LINQ_Conference. 

What challenges does fomenting innovation in schools currently face?

At the moment, youth unemployment in some European Union member states exceeds 50%. The preparation of young people for the labor market has to be improved, especially since companies hire their workforce primarily on the basis of skills. Collaboration, communication, and leadership skills should be at the center of schools’ education. 

21st-century learning should be competency based, because becoming prepared for life and work is crucial, more important than content knowledge alone. The problem is that pupils today are awarded grades based on content knowledge. They often progress to the next level despite low grades in certain subject areas, which actually signals a lack of foundational knowledge they’ll need in the future. 

Proper assessment should therefore not be bound to specific timing, but to understanding—that’s the true measure of achievement. Furthermore, it should take into account the learning of concepts and overall progress, instead of focusing solely on content results.

The research project Assessment and Teaching of 21st-Century Skills (ATC21S)­ proposes ways of assessing 21st-century skills and encourages teaching and adopting those skills in the classroom. Ultimately, the best results are achieved when learning is personalized. 

What role should teachers play in this transformation?

The role of teachers is essential, but they need training and support in order to move toward increasingly teaching skills and competencies. Teachers should listen more, and provide individual assessment and mentoring to their pupils. To this end, various different resources are available, such as “Education Competencies”, designed to help educators and administrators.

Coming back to the topic of assessment, we are not welcoming educators and curriculum developers to innovate if we do not change the way we assess what learners know and what they are supposed to know. Global assessment models such as PISA should be improved in such a way that they incorporate new trends currently taking place in formal and especially informal learning.  

Who would you say are the innovators in the education field?

Innovators in the education field are mainly individuals. Innovative teachers who have created their own educational resources often do not want to share their content; they don’t think about scalability and believe that this content only works for them. It’s crucial to show them how they can be examples for others. Microsoft has therefore created a network of innovative teachers and a network of innovative schools.    

I would also like to briefly mention our entrepreneurship program for young people. The Youth Spark Hub is an online space to explore and access all the Microsoft programs and resources to help youth imagine and realize their full potential.

How do we transform innovative teaching with scalability?

I recommend the scalability toolkit developed by Christopher J. Dede, Professor of Learning Technologies at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. Innovation in education is a global matter, and everything teachers do has a directly global dimension.