1. 
Open Education and the Role of ICT
Mart Laanpere, head of the Centre for Educational Technology, Tallinn University

2. What is open education?

6. The role of ICT in open education
① Open content:
 Open Educational Resources
② Open practices:
 Open & Flexible Learning
③ Open environment:
 Online Learning Environments

7. 1.1. Content before computers
Curriculum
School subjects Textbook
Content
 Didactic
triangle
Teacher Learner

8. 1.2. Learning objects
 The concept of “educational software” did not work (lockdown)
 Learning objects: re-usable and searchable digital objects (e.g.
texts, images, video clips) with pedagogical purpose and metadata
(title, type, description, language, target group, difficulty…), separated
from the software
video
image metadata
Information
Objects (assets)
Learning
Pedagogical Object
scenario
Course

9. 1.3. Learning Object Repositories
 Problems:
 teachers (re)create millions of digital learning resources every
year, few can be found or accessed by other teachers
 Quantities go up, quality goes down
 Difficult to reuse without adaptation
 Solution: online databases for Learning Objects, standardisation
of Learning objects, recommender systems
 Examples: www.koolielu.ee, lre.eun.org, scientix.eu, merlot.org

10. 1.4. Legal aspects: intellectual property
 Technology makes it easy to steal content
 Textbook publishers are protecting their content
 Teachers are afraid to share their content
 Black & white approach: copyright vs copyleft
 In the middle: some rights reserved
 Creative Commons license:
 BY: attribution
 SA: share-alike
 NC: non-commercial
 ND: no derivates

11. 1.5. Open Educational Resources
 Ideological movement: David Wiley, George Siemens, Stephen
Downes, Graham Attwell
 Intiatives:
 MIT OpenCourseware: ocw.mit.edu
 iTunesU: itunes.du.se
 Khan Academy: www.khanacademy.org
 Wikimedia Commons: commons.wikimedia.org
 LeMill.net: authoring tool, repository and teachers’ community

12. 1.6. Content: conclusions
 Towards the school of tomorrow, school without
textbooks?
 Learning resource as an output of learning
process, not as an input?

13. 2.1. Open & Flexible Learning
1880 Correspondence studies Mail
1920 Distance education Radio
1960 Open Universities
Programmed learning Learning from
Audio & computers
1970 video Computer-Based Learning
tapes Learning with
Computer-Assisted Learning
1980 computers
1990 Tele--learning Video/audio- Learning with
CSCL
conference other people
2000 E-learning Managing online courses
2010 E-learning 2.0 Learning with Social Media

14. 2.2. CSCL: Content is not important
 Project-Based Learning: www.espnet.eu
 European Schoolnet’s eTwinning:
www.etwinning.net
 Simulation games, e.g. ICONS: www.icons.umd.edu
 Simulation games in Estonia: math.ut.ee/simud

15. 2.3. Informal learning with ICT
 Communities of practice (J.Lave & E.Wenger): situated
learning, learning as cultural immersion to a specific
community, legitimate peripheral participation
(AA, researchers)
 Connectivism (G.Siemens): learning is making connections
between nodes (information, data, feelings, images, persons);
learning may reside in non-human appliances
 Distributed cognition (E.Hutchins): social distribution, internal-
external distribution, temporal distribution

16. 2.4. Open courses
 Wikiversity.org: Wiki-university
 MOOC: Massive Open Online Courses, see
change.mooc.ca
 Agora courses in Tallinn University: anyone can join

17. 2.5. Outcome-based education
 Accreditation of prior learning and experience
 Competencies: measurable learning outcomes
 Acknowledging informal learning
 Revival of apprenticeship learning
 Three metaphors of learning:
acquisition, participation, knowledge creation

18. 2.6. Practices: conclusions
 Towards convergence of on-distance and on-
campus learning?
 Towards convergence of informal and formal
learning?
 Balancing learning and knowledge building, learning
in “belief mode” and in “design mode”?

19. 3.1. Digital Learning Environments
 The first generation of educational software:
content-driven, vendor-lock, platform-lock
 Early online environments: projections of traditional
classroom
 Learning Management System (e.g.
Moodle, Fronter, Blackboard, ITSlearning):
effective, hierarchical and closed environment
 LMS as panopticon

20. 3.2. Open Learning Environments
 3D-worlds: Second Life, OpenSim
 E-portfolio: collection of evidences of one’s
competence
 PLE: Personal Learning Environment (e.g. blog):
lepress.net/martlaanpere, edufeedr.net
 Outdoor Learning Environment: mobile learning
(Environmental Detectives with
GPS, smartphones, RFID, QR)

21. 3.3. Learning Environments: conclusions
 Towards digital learning ecosystems?
 Highly personal learning environments, but
integrated into various social platforms?
 Tablet computers will change everything: from the
architecture of schools to learning
environments, educational practices and resources?