The document discusses the evolving nature of education towards openness and networked learning, emphasizing the role of Creative Commons licenses in sharing and creating open educational resources (OERs). It highlights the need for academic staff to engage in digital practices to support students in navigating informal and formal learning environments, fostering authentic interactions and collaboration. The concept of the 'third space' is introduced as a place where student and teacher experiences intersect, promoting a community-oriented approach to knowledge sharing.

1. WORKSHOP FOR ACADEMIC STAFF - #CEL263 & GMIT
Navigating the Marvellous: considering openness
Catherine Cronin  @catherinecronin  NUI Galway  Oct/Nov 2014

2. “I don’t think
education is about
centralized instruction
anymore; rather, it is
the process [of]
establishing oneself
as a node in a broad
network of distributed
creativity.”
– Joi Ito @joi
Slide: CC-BY-SA catherinecronin Image: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 yobink

3. Image: CC BY 2.0 dlofink

4. I use & adapt OERs in my teaching.
I create & share OERs
using Creative Commons (CC) licenses.
My students create & share OERs,
using Creative Commons (CC) licenses.
I support my students in connecting &
networking with others beyond our class.

6. At its best openness is an ethos
not a license. It's an approach to
teaching and learning that
builds a community of learners
online and off.
Jim Groom
@jimgroom
“

7. Networked Individualism
Social
Networks
Internet
Mobile

8. 2005 2013
Source: Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, 2005-2013

9. There is a divide between formal and
informal learning.
Students navigate the dissonance
between these – with or without our
support.

10. …furtive thinking and behaviour around open-web
resources such as Wikipedia masks the level of use of
non-traditional resources and also masks the methods
learners use to increase their understanding of
subjects, creating what we have called The Learning
Black Market. The point at which learning takes place
is often not being discussed because either explicitly
or implicitly learners are being told by their educational
intuitions or perceive that the educational institutions
view that their information-seeking practices are not
legitimate.
David White, Lynn S. Connaway,
Donna Lanclos, Erin M. Hood & Carrie Vass
Evaluating digital services: a Visitors and Residents approach, JISC InfoNet
“

11. Seamus Heaney Lightenings viii - video by Eoghan Kidney
vimeo.com/4831035

12. Networked Teacher
Image: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Alec Couros

13. Networked
Educators
Networked
Students
Physical
Spaces
Bounded
Online
Spaces
Open
Online
Spaces

14. CC images: cdessums, infidelic, sholeh!

15. Networked
Educators
Networked
Students
Physical
Spaces
Bounded
Online
Spaces
Open
Online
Spaces

16. We proposed the idea of a Third Space where
teacher and student scripts – the formal and
informal, the official and unofficial spaces of
the learning environment – intersect, creating
the potential for authentic interaction and a shift
in the social organization of learning and what
counts as knowledge.
Kris Gutiérrez (2008)
University of Colorado, Boulder
“

17. Open practices give us and our
students opportunities to cross
boundaries of geography, culture,
institution, term, education sector,
community, and/or power level…

19. @CT231 #ct231

22. #icollab
We’re now looking at the ‘tag-team model’ of education: the
projects never end, as there is always a cohort to carry on, and
lead into the next group, and when they overlap that’s great –
that’s where the genuine collaboration happens. Traditionally,
we deliver modules/courses, neatly chunked into 12 weeks,
with units of assessment, leading to grades etc. and that’s the
way things are (generally) done. I’m not saying scrap all of
that, but I do think that modules are best served as
springboards to other things.
Increasingly, students are connecting across levels and
cohorts through Twitter and now we have ex-students getting
together with current students, undergrads coming to postgrad
classes (and vice versa) as they’ve connected online and have
a genuine interest in getting involved in other groups/further
curricula outside of their taught modules.”
Helen Keegan (2012)
@heloukee
“

23. #icollab TAGSExplorer
thanks to @mhawksey

24. Individuals, students and educators,
can be nodes in a network.
Groups and learning communities
also can be nodes, e.g. via #hashtags.

25. #studentvoice
Openness...
“
I learned a lot more about writing to the public. Before
this I would have been less likely to express my views to
a group of people online whereas now I would not have a
problem in doing so.
By posting publicly it opened up our world to other
academics or people who are just interested in the
topic... I don’t think anyone would have thought that the
author of one of the works we were researching
would get involved.
“

26. #studentvoice
Social networks...
“
“
Before studying it, I used Facebook and Twitter mainly
just for keeping in contact with people, but since have
discovered they both have much more to offer.
They are places to discover new information and boost
your knowledge. That both education and socialising can
be rolled into one.

27. Learners need to practice and experiment with
different ways of enacting their identities, and adopt
subject positions through different social
technologies and media.
These opportunities can only be supported by
academic staff who are themselves engaged in
digital practices and questioning their own
relationship with knowledge.
- Keri Facer & Neil Selwyn (2010)

28. “We have to build our half of the bridge…” Colum McCann
Image: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Tim Haynes

29. Thank you!
Catherine Cronin
@catherinecronin
about.me/catherinecronin
slideshare.net/cicronin
Image: CC BY 2.0 visualpanic

30. References
Cronin, Catherine (2014). Networked learning and identity development in open online
spaces. 9th international Networked Learning Conference, Edinburgh.
Facer, Keri & Selwyn, Neil (2010). Social networking: Key messages from the research.
In R. Sharpe, H. Beetham & S. de Freitas (Eds.) Rethinking Learning For A Digital Age.
Routledge.
Gutiérrez, Kris D. (2008). Developing a sociocritical literacy in the Third Space. Reading
Research Quarterly, 43(2), 148-164.
Heaney, Seamus (1991) Lightenings viii, Seeing Things. Faber and Faber.
Ito, Joi (2011, December 5). In an open-source society, innovating by the seat of our
pants. The New York Times.
Keegan, Helen (2012). A new academic year: global, connected, creative – and not
(quite) a MOOC.
Pew Research Internet Project (2013). Social Media Update 2013.
Rainie, Lee & Wellman, Barry (2012). Networked: The new social operating system. MIT
Press.