open education – what do we talk about?

the post by nishant made me think: he calls to look closely at the ideas, movements, and discourses of openess – with a view that differentiates between cultures and contexts, that exposes (hidden) assumptions of closeness, and that poses questions of (in-)equality. yes, indeed, we need this view. most of all, the chosen title “how can we make open education truly open?” made me think. after reading the post i thought about a title like “can we make open education truly open at all?”. by considering larger social, political, and cultural constellations the question at stake is: what is closed and what is open for whom and what in which context.  and then the question evolves, what it is that we want to ‘open’ (verb!) for whom and why.  its’ s exactly about the questions nishant asked “What is it that we are opening? Who are we opening it for? What is the Open working towards? in whose service and to what purposes?“ .  if we look at the larger constellations i wonder if it might be fruitful to reinvestigate and further push forward the whole discourse about “open vs. free” and its relations to the discourse “open education” in order to make clear from which point of view open education is regarded.

Tags: criticisms, culture, open education