Like many, I am interested to see what ideas emerge from AACE’s online conference next week on how to improve traditional conferences. I’ve signed up for the conference (which is free), and now need to join the Ning group. Looking forward to the discussion!
USU Open Education Conference 2007
Hooray to David Wiley and the group at Utah State University for finding such a great way to archive on the Internet the happenings at this year’s Open Education Conference. I’ve attended this in the past and quite enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to following this link and listening in on some of the presentations.
I echo Dave’s call to AECT–this would be a great thing to do for AECT conferences!
Tags: AECT, open education, usu, online learning
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For a course in Adult Education, I had the assignment of reviewing a movie where adult education/learning is a major theme. I chose to watch and review The Pursuit of Happyness, which was a movie that my wife and I found very depressing for the first two hours, but then fully satisfying at the end. Overall, we very much enjoyed it, although as a warning to parents, the language I read was offensive at times. I wouldn’t know because we used our trusty ClearPlay DVD player (love it!).
Following is a brief summary of my review of the movie and how it portrays adult education, according to some of the research literature. I’m posting it here, because I liked the movie, and I liked some of the issues it raised!
Summary
The movie, The Pursuit of Happyness, speaks on the nature of adult education in American society as much by what is not shown in the movie as it does by what is shown. The movie tells an adaptation of the true story of Chris Gardner, who struggles as a homeless single father while trying to complete an internship. This, he hopes, will bring the chance at a new life and “happiness,” which is spelled incorrectly at his child’s daycare facility, exhibiting just how dire his situation has become that he can’t afford decent day care. In my paper, I first discuss how the movie portrays Gardner as a nearly perfect example of both andragogy and transformative learning theories. I then argue that what the movie does not show is that adult education is not the cure for most people like Gardner, for most of the people in that homeless soup line with Gardner did not ever leave their degraded situations. Holford and Jarvis (2000, p. 655) acknowledge this to be the case, and write, “ But research shows that by and large adult and continuing education does not overcome patterns of inequality established in compulsory education. On the contrary, ‘He or she who has gets more throughout his or her adult life.’ (Quoting Belanger and Valdivielso, 1997, p. 166).” The movie does a masterful job of showing the challenges facing adult education for poor, working adults, but it unfortunately ends up romaticizing the possibility of education solving all of their problems.
References
Belanger, P. & Valdivielso, S. (1997). Conclusion. in P. Belanger & S. Valdivielso (Eds.), The emergence of learning societies: Who participates in adult learning. Oxford: Pergamon and UNESCO Institute for Education.
Holford, J. & Jarvis, P. (2000). The Learning Society. In A. L. Wilson & E. R. Hayes (Eds.), Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education (pp. 643-659). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Merriam, S. B. & Brockett, R. G. (1997). The profession and practice of adult education: An introduction. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Muccino, Gabriele (Director). (2007). The pursuit of happyness [Motion picture]. United States: Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group.
Tags: adult education, pursuit of happyness, andragogy, transformative learning
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How much will you pay to support openness?
I like to think that I support the open learning movement. I would love, for example, to see online journals succeed because that would mean knowledge would get published MUCH quicker, and it would be more accessible to those who need it –practitioners who don’t (or can’t afford to) read research journals.
So when I received the proofs for a book review that I am publishing in Educational Technology, Research, and Development, I read the following note from the publisher, Springer: “Springer now offers authors the option, for a one-time fee, of making the published version of their articles available to all readers free of charge from SpringerLink.”
“Excellent!” I thought. “Wouldn’t it be great if all authors supported this so their content was freely available?” While I think it is ironic and funny that I was being asked to provide content without compensation to the journal and then pay for the privilege of making it freely accessible, this was still a step in the right direction. At least this would make the content available to others. We can argue the business model a different day.
But then I saw the price tag that I would have to pay to make my article freely available–$3,000! THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS.
Forget it. I can’t support open learning at that price! Who can?
In effect, Springer is putting on the facade of playing nice with the open learning movement, but they have changed nothing. Charging that much money effectively disqualifies education professors from being able to share their articles with others.
Why not publish in an online journal? I have before. But c’mon, since I am a student without a job, and will soon be a professor without tenure, who can afford to publish very much in unknown and still unrespected online journals?
I want to support open learning and share my work with others, I do! Does anyone else feel trapped by the system?