11 Dec 2020 When we step outside our comfort zone to try something new, it opens us up to the possibility of failure. Fear of failure can be crippling. Becoming an open educator is new territory for me, and it’s inevitable that these experiences will be uncomfortable as well as exciting.
I don’t want to be held back by fear, so it’s time to look at what I’m so afraid of, and challenge myself to change perspective on my fears
So what could go wrong? Here is a (by no means complete) list of my fears and worst case scenarios, and how I am reframing them to help me move past the fear and take action.
Being ignored
Worst case scenario: No-one adopts my OER, shows an interest in what I’m doing, or wants to join me
It would be demoralising to discover that others don’t see any value in the ideas I think are so novel and interesting. Equally, failing to engage collaborators or build a learning community would mean I’ve wasted my time. I also worry that it will take so much effort to build relationships with those who are interested that I won’t have energy for the work itself!
Alternative viewpoint: By taking the plunge, I might discover that what I’m doing is actually just what is needed, and no-one else is doing it yet! People I’ve never heard of may join me as allies and collaborators, allowing us to achieve more together. This is one of my main motivations for switching to open
Being exploited
Worst case scenario: My OER are used by a commercial company who successfully exploits them, whilst obscuring access to the original, free version
At the other end of the spectrum from being ignored lies the possibility that others will take credit for my work, and reap benefits that I feel are my dues. Depending on the open licence I choose, I might be able to challenge them in court, but either way it would be deeply frustrating and feel like I am failing both the community whom I trying to help, and myself, for not managing to protect my OER and earn a living from it.
Alternative viewpoint: By applying skills and involving networks that I lack, more diverse commercial activity could radically increase the reach and impact of my OER, even if I’m not given credit. Startups based on my OER could provide an alternative livelihood to those in struggling economies, and I would welcome that
Making mistakes
Worst case scenario: That I’ll be exposed as a failure, and my mistakes will be out there for anyone to find, in perpetuity
We all make mistakes. When those mistakes happen in the open rather than in a safe, contained space, the risk feels far greater. I’m becoming more comfortable with making mistakes when teaching. I know it’s valuable for learners to see that you can be an expert, and have confidence in yourself, without being infallible or all-knowing. I need to go through this same mental and emotional process for working in the open.
Alternative viewpoint: Everyone fails at some point, especially entrepreneurs! Making mistakes and failing is nothing to be ashamed of. What matters is what you do next, as my mentors at IgniteNI remind me. Making mistakes in public, or talking about them openly, increases the chance that others will learn from them, or even advise on how to avoid them in future. The more public a mistake, the more likely people will see it, and the more positive influence it could have!
Criticism and judgement
Worst case scenario: People will criticise me: my approach, actions or beliefs
No-one likes to be criticised, especially if the criticism feels unfounded. I fear being judged, both in general and more harshly judged as a consequence of people not knowing the context of my actions, or me as a person. This is more likely when working in the open, as people will learn about my work through various routes, not just directly from me.
Alternative viewpoint: I can learn from criticism as long as it is specific and I approach it with an open mind. I can ignore criticism that doesn’t help me improve. I think the likelihood of being trolled is low
The unknown
Worst case scenario: That I will inadvertently expose myself and my collaborators to unknown future risks
The good old “unknown unknowns”. Changes in social norms, laws and the political landscape could all affect the future viabilty and risks of our work, but to devote energy to worrying about this is futile!
Alternative viewpoint: As a result of our work, unforeseeable positive consequences and opportunities could arise for me, my collaborators, and those we seek to help
Summary
It’s clear to me that many of these fears are natural, evolved responses underpinned by the fear of rejection, and exacerbated by the reach and anonymity of the internet. We’ve evolved to trust people we know (family, neighbours), and distrust strangers until we have ascertained common ground. To work openly is to extend trust beyond those with whom you share a physical or closed virtual space, to a faceless, numberless ‘many’. Working openly feels like a performative action - I’m no longer just trying to do my best for those with whom I have a compact, but am courting the attention of the world.
Tackling my fears will become easier with practice, and support from others who believe in the power of open. Simply being aware of different interpretations is the first step to changing my viewpoint
See last week’s post for my hopes for adopting open educational principles.
04 Dec 2020 Releasing my wildlife conservation courses as Open Educational Resources (OER) could increase my impact as a conservation educator. In this post, I further explore my hopes and aspirations. Imagining success helps me to focus my energy on the right steps into open education for me and my startup, VerdantLearn.
What do I hope for? What does success look like? What do I stand to gain?
For me, success would be hundreds of thousands of conservation practitioners able to more effectively conserve and advocate for biodiversity, while feeling more fulfilled and supported in their work. In addition, those recruited to available jobs would be better qualified, and better represent the diversity of people who have a stake in conservation. Ultimately, my grandiose aspiration is that biodiversity and ecosystems are better protected because I release my resources as OER, not just in one small corner of the world, but globally, across cultures, and tackling a wide array of threats to the natural world.
My second aspiration is to build a community around my open resources, of both learners and educators. As I was reminded when listening to a recent episode of the OEG Voices podcast, there is no clear boundary between being a learner and being an educator, especially in open education. We are all learners, and everyone is capable of teaching. Collaborative learning works best when we acknowledge the limits of our understanding, humbly look to others to help us surpass those limits, and share what we know with generosity. As a community of wildlife conservation professionals and technical experts, together we can improve the learning materials and activities, ensuring they make sense and are relevant to all of us. Together we can work to keep them current in response to advances in our understanding of conservation solutions, useful technology, and evolving analytical methods. I’m still figuring out how this devolved responsibility might work, but it gives me hope that once out there, my OER could develop a life and longevity of their own, no longer limited by my time, imagination and expertise!
In my most optimistic moments, I believe that adopting open education will revolutionise my capacity building work, and power the success of my startup. From a self-centered perpsective, it could enhance my reputation and access to partnerships; help me identify co-creators; relieve me of the burden of forever updating courses so I can concentrate on better ways to make a difference, and attract clients to my paid-for services. Commercially-speaking, you could consider OER an extreme form of content marketing, allowing learners to see the knowledge and enthusiasm they would have access to if they decided to do a tutored course with me. I hope to demonstrate that it’s possible to build a commercially successful company whilst releasing learning materials under an open licence. By documenting my thought process and the practical steps I’m taking, maybe others can learn from my actions, decisions, mistakes and achievements.
I hope to succeed, but if I fail, at least it won’t be because I never tried
Tune in next week when I’ll be sharing my fears about diving into open education, and the risks it may entail.
27 Nov 2020
My move towards open education represents a radical paradigm shift, not just in how I teach, or how I operate my startup, but in how I view myself and my value in the world
In the past, my self-worth was strongly bound up in the learning materials I created. To transform this limited view of myself entails active cognitive effort. This involves challenging my assumptions about what teaching is, how learning happens, and what my role is as an educator. I need to recognise that my wealth of experience, knowledge and skills doesn’t just allow me to create learning materials, but also improves the quality of interactions I have with learners, how I facilitate collaborative learning, and the way I solve problems as a course unfolds.
I started this journey of reimagining myself years ago, but committing to open educational practice brings the tension between my old and new perspectives into sharper focus. I am working to free myself of the idea that my identity and sole value are as a repository of information to ‘transmit’, and continue to embrace my new identity as a facilitator and enabler of other people’s learning efforts.
It’s an existential struggle!
A short post today, but fundamental ideas merit their own space and consideration 
20 Nov 2020 I’ve previously touched upon my reasons for adopting an open approach to online courses, but I’d like to explain my motivation further here. I focus particularly on why I want to create Open Educational Resources (OER), as explained below.
Creating OER is the obvious starting point for me and VerdantLearn, but it’s certainly not the end point, or sufficient in itself
My main motivations for adopting openness are to maximise my impact on biodiversity conservation, and to promote social justice. The most obvious advantage of releasing course materials as Open Educational Resources (OER) is that more people, and a greater diversity of learners, can access learning opportunities. For VerdantLearn, this means more wildlife conservation practitioners are able to do their vital work using current techniques based on sound science.
Whilst removing barriers to participation is more complex than simply making access free (gratis), it is one step towards social justice. I’ve only just started exploring ideas and research around open education and social justice, so I hope my understanding of this complexity will develop and inform my work into the future.
OER can (at least in theory) enhance access to learning for those who are traditionally excluded from higher education or continuing professional development due to financial or geographic constraints. In addition, basing courses on materials that others edit and expand can also diversify those courses, and should make it easier for marginalized voices to be heard. Historically, higher education materials (and history more generally) have been predominantly written by white, and male, authors. We need to shift that balance, to ensure that learners feel their interests and lived experiences are recognised and represented. We also need to empower them to contribute to evolving the materials themselves. However, OER creation raises potential labour issues - not everyone can afford the time or has the capacity to contribute. I will try to remain mindful of that bias, and learn more about the underlying power relations behind OER creation, contribution and use.
A further presumed benefit is that open access to high quality OER can help to level the playing field between institutions. Specialist courses can be offered even where staff have limited opportunity to create learning materials in those subjects. However, adopting OER is not necessarily straightforward (a topic deserving of its own blog post!), and as an OER creator, I need to keep future adopters in mind and try to design my OER in such a way that facilitates their adoption.
I would love to be using other people’s OER rather than starting from scratch, but try as I might, I struggle to find relevant OER for skills training in either natural and social sciences, on the niche topics needed by wildlife conservationists (and also appropriately licenced for my purposes). So my initial efforts will focus on creating OER myself, and finding collaborators to broaden the scope of courses beyond my own expertise. If you would like to work with me on this, or know of relevant resources I may have missed in my search, please contact me! You can email me, or start a conversation with me on social media.
13 Nov 2020
‘Open’ has many interconnected meanings - let’s bring some of them to the surface
I’ll use the word ‘open’ frequently in this blog series, so it’s worth clarifying what I mean before I dive more deeply into the implications of working openly. Here are some relevant examples:
- Open source software - software for which anyone can view the code, replicate it, and/or contribute to improving it.
- Open educational practice - many definitions exist, but I favour a focus on inclusive collaborations between educators to design curricula that use and promote Open Educational Resources (OER)
- Working in the open - operating in a transparent fashion, as in the ‘open startup’ movement where companies choose to share key business metrics, salary schemes, or business decisions publically
Openness denotes being free, but the word ‘free’ in English is in itself ambiguous; it means both given away for nothing, or being able to do what you want. The French language distinguishes between these two concepts with the words ‘gratis’ and ‘libre’. Gratis indicates ‘without payment’. Libre comes from the same etymological root as liberation, and means ‘without restrictions or limits’; “free as in free speech, not free beer”.
When I use the word ‘open’ in the context of education or technology, I’m referring to libre, not gratis. Of course, being able to give something away for nothing is itself a form of freedom! I am developing a business model that enables me to release learning materials to study without paying (gratis), but I’m more interested in the consequences of making courses free for both learners and educators to share, re-use and improve (libre).
http://www.opencontent.org lists five rights for a work to be considered truly open:
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Retain - the right to have your own copy
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Revise - the right to modify your copy
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Remix - the right to combine your original or revised copy with other work
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Reuse - the right to use your original, revised or remixed copy publically
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Redistribute - the right to share your original, revised or remixed copy with others
This would be analogous to not just owning a copy of your favourite book, but being able to write your own ending, weave in chapters from another book you love, podcast yourself reading aloud from it, and give copies away to friends.
Choosing an appropriate licence for openly-released content helps to enforce these user rights, but choosing the ‘best’ licence is a surprisingly complex and thorny topic, and one to which I’ll return in the future.
This definition of open content is the gold standard to which I aspire, but I aim to be open beyond simply releasing open content. For example, I’m writing openly about my thoughts and journey in order to start conversations about these issues, and how they relate to tackling the biodiversity and climate crises. I also want to be transparent about how openness is an important motivator for me, and influences my business decisions.
Further reading
Wikipedia on Gratis versus Libre
Wikipedia on Open Educational Practices
