Open Education as a game changer – stories from the pandemic

Abstract

This document presents examples of positive initiatives and changes in education originated as a reaction to the closure of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and which are part of what is known as Open Educational Practices and Open Educational Resources. The aim of analysis is to gather information about the most interesting and influential Open Education initiatives which could inspire and hopefully permanently revolutionize remote education systems around the world. An important objective is to initiate a discussion on the role played by Open Education during the pandemic and to provide arguments to support public policy making. We describe initiatives from five countries – Greece, Italy, Poland, Uruguay and Brazil. For each country we provide: a) specific stories about the broadly understood Open Education in the pandemic to encourage discussion and inspiration. Each initiative is connected with a corresponding UNESCO Recommendation on OER Objective. b) the reactions by the governments to the pandemic and the actions taken, also from the point of view of using Open Education in remote learning. c) a brief description of the education systems in the days before the pandemic. Story from Greece: - Cooperation changes everything - the community of practice in Greece Stories from Italy: - How to open what is closed – the MOOC “E-collaboration at school and beyond” from Politecnico di Milano - The Didactics of Proximity - the municipality of Turin for parents and educators Stories from Poland: - Invite me to your lesson – a grassroots initiative for the exchange and cooperation of teachers from thousands of Polish schools - Wolne Lektury – a grassroots digital library visited by 1,500,000 readers per month in the pandemic - Pistacja.tv – how to teach millions of maths students during the pandemic - Remote Lessons and Open Educational Network - Polish government initiatives Stories from Uruguay:- Plan Ceibal and Portal Uruguay Educa - how systematic building of national OER repositories can help as a response to emergency remote education - RedREA (OER Network) - how to ensure the continued creation of open resources that feed national repositories Story from Brazil: - Mobile Apps in Education – teachers widely open to mobile communication with students Key conclusions from the study drawn on the basis of the records of discussions between the authors of the report and the activists of Open Education during a two-day workshop in October 2020: a) Resources, institutions and infrastructure built on the Open Education model provide resilience to educational systems. b) Teachers were the first responders during the educational crisis. Networks of teachers were quickly formed, using communication technologies available to them. These networks created and shared teaching resources, and provided teachers with mutual support. c) Grassroots initiatives require support to function for a longer time. Public institutions need to partner with informal initiatives, in order to make them sustainable and help them scale up. d) Actors of many types took action and supported remote education: non-governmental organisations, universities, city governments. Ministries of Education need to adopt a multi-stakeholder model to manage remote education which acknowledges this support. e) Open Education does not solely rely on sharing openly licensed educational resources. It also harnesses practices of collaboration, content creation, networking and mutual support based on values of openness, solidarity and equality. f) At the time of crisis, educators and learners used any technologies and resources available. Over time, remote education requires the provision of necessary public infrastructure, educational services and resources. g) The digital divide – lack of access to equipment and the internet as well as insufficient conditions for teaching and learning – became even more prominent during the pandemic