You can't stop wildflowers spreading!

Warwick's wildflower roundabout Summer 2019 CC BY 4.0 @warwicklanguage

It is now a year since the end of the Warwick International Higher Education Academy (WIHEA) #knowhow project ended. The metaphor for talking about open practice which we employed was based around wild flowers and I took a moment last week to revisit the campus roundabout which was one of the enduring images used to promote our activity, delighted to see that the wildflowers are back and blooming. The disadvantage of funded projects is that they often disappear once the funding runs out leaving little in the way of legacy. I'm pleased to say that our legacy continues as many of the project outputs are open and freely available, but they are sometimes changed by circumstances beyond my control:

• WIHEA has a set of project pages for #knowhow (sadly the G+ community is now only visible to those who are part of our GSuite)
• Our You Tube channel is open to all, as it our blog (frozen in time it reflects the experiences of project members)
• Dissemination of open practice is available on my website and my slideshare feed. 

The recent open education conference #OER19 shared many great ideas for the development and implementation of open educational practice which I have started to investigate now that my exam marking has finished. These conferences, supported by ALT, leave lasting footprints year after year modelling the advantages of open practice. Their CEO Maren Deepwell is committed to open practice and shares her learning as she participates in a range of educational activities and events. She is one of many open practitioners in my personal learning network (note to self I must update this as it was last done in 2017) who inspire me. She is a sower of seeds. Learning is lifelong, sharing that learning can help others in their journey. It is not a competition or a race which depends upon beating others by withholding information. We thrive through collaboration and co-creation. This may require compromise. There will be times when we become more vulnerable than we would like to, times when we have to admit we get things wrong, times when we have to as for help. Some of us have to learn this the hard way.

 Through posting openly online I offer an imperfect work in progress. As you will see in this recent update to a previous post on an EU project called Video for all. I hope others find it helpful in some way. I will be presenting at Eurocall 2019 on open practice, continuing to sow my seeds. I may have little control over where they fall and whether they grow but you can't stop wildflowers from spreading. 

Stating the unspoken #oer18 #knowhow Sowing the seeds for a fairer world.

Having returned home from the #OER18 conference where I presented this session I have decided to clarify some points which I may not have made clearly on the day as time was short and I had to rush to run another session elsewhere. 

I shared the experience of running a small staff and student investigation into open educational practice at Warwick. I believe there are aspects of the way this was done which were exemplary and effective. There were also aspects which could have been improved were it not for internal tensions and confusion over roles, responsibilities and mission. I am not blaming anyone, just looking to surface the points where barriers appear which can prevent us from achieving our aims. 

What went well:

• the bringing together of people from different parts of the institution over coffee to share our perspectives
• the freedom for participants to choose which project aims they wanted to contribute to and when to do that
• the agreement to create a metaphor and communication channels we could all embrace and understand
• the open validation and publishing of contributions, leaving a legacy which can be built on by all.

What could have been better:

• the insecurity of some participants due to job changes and political climate (Brexit, funding etc). 
• the lack of shared understanding of open education and evident suspicion of a hidden agenda.
• confusion over whether the project's internal communication should also be cleared by our external communications as it would be openly available. 
• Delays in funding had a knock on effect on spending, staff and student time is limited and when funding is delayed and time limited it can prevent the possibilities which we had planned being realised. 
• internal alignments of this project were clearly with agendas such as those of academic technology, skills development and research support and yet there is little evidence of follow up from those areas.  

I can see that the emphasis on compliance in institutional discourse creates fear and lowers confidence, it cripples innovation, makes individuals afraid to take risks. If we are to realise the win-win that is open educational practice we must bridge the gaps of understanding, sharing and mainstreaming (as identified by Nacimbeni et al, 2014) at the most basic of grassroots levels to align practice with a clearer confidence in our mission and greater understanding of our values. 

CALLing to TELL ALL !

I have been invited to meet with trainee language teachers at the Centre for Professional Education here at Warwick this week and I will be taking the WIHEA #knowhow message with me. I will be telling my personal language teaching journey and will also attempt to demystify a bunch of acronyms. This is in order to make it easier to see the paths that exist to finding suitable networks to support their work in schools. My professional journey has involved twists and turns and sharing will I hope make it clear that the most interesting journeys can arise from indulging in a little "flâneurie".

The session will demonstrate heutagogical principles, providing a set of resources for exploration covering "old school" Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), Online Intercultural Exchange (OIE), Mobile Assisted Language learning (MALL), Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL) and many more! Possibly the most important acronym we will meet however will be the PLN - Professional Learning Network.  Embarking on a career in teaching will leave very little time to draw breath. Connecting with others who can support and share the journey will ensure that each individual will not find themselves alone as they make their way through the challenges that lie ahead. A vital network for me when I started that journey as a Secondary School teacher to Head of Languages many years ago was the Association for Language Learning (ALL) which still is there today. Life is more complex 30 years on and the haystack we know as the internet not always the easiest place to navigate. Together we will explore the many possibilities for creation and curation. I hope I can provide a touchstone which will help to illuminate their future path.

WIHEA #KNOWHOW progress

Easter break ending, we must pick up the pace again on the #KNOWHOW project. Having carried out some action research (#LERMOOC) during the break I am determined to get the word out around campus of this opportunity for staff and students to understand and take advantage of the potential of open practice to enhance lives but also ever more aware of the need for strong support. 

First things first, the break has not been without progress on the project front. The #LERMOOC opportunity produced a cognitive review of the project plan which should give a real wake up call to project participants, highlighting as it does the size of the task ahead. Communication with my team is a priority and I will try to get a face to face opportunity for that next week, meanwhile an email and a shared page will start the term. 

We're going to take the metaphor of seeds (which complements the image above, I have been the mother hen incubating her project eggs so far). Once these eggs hatch they will need the product of our germinated seeds if they are to grow and thrive.  Time for the the eggs to hatch, the seeds to be sown and watered, and for each of us to get nurturing so that it is clear across campus and beyond that Warwick is open for learning!

Investigating the student experience

I am about to start a second #WIHEA project with an even more ambitious remit that the previous one and I'm delighted to have many of the first team on board as they have already proven themselves to be great co-researchers. The focus of the earlier project was upon how language teaching and learning is changing in the digital age. We found essentially that there are far more opportunities to connect and interact than before and that, despite the learning curves involved in navigating digital spaces incorporating digital approaches (when done well) helps to extend learning and brings access to new literacies which had not always been fully explored in a learning context elsewhere. 

This project will be focussing more on the nature of such approaches and the issues that arise when we embrace open online resources and practices as part of the learning landscape. We are reaching out to a wider Warwick audience for this, involving our careers and skills professionals, Education and Linguistics as well as a fully open audience through a G+ community here. The project, #knowhow will offer opportunities to explore how we manage our professional digital identity, how to manage issues such as copyright and ownership online and of course how to understand the various micro-cultures that operate within the digital environment. The "students" in this case are all of us, whether we are staff or students as we are all learning together. 

I have enrolled on the #lermooc as a way of finding a community of practice to support this work as there is a tight budget and deadline ('twas ever thus) and I need to ensure that I find time and space to reflect on what we discover. I usually find my reflection is facilitated by the input of others. As an open practitioner myself I am keen to understand how working in the open may be perceived by others so I look forward to a challenging but ultimately informative experience.