Western Pacific University is a relatively new institute of higher learning. That is GREAT to see. Thank you for the introduction. I didn’t even know they existed until now. lol… Thank you also for the work you do as Chair in OER at UNESCO. All the best Wayne.
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To build a thriving community of teachers to create, adopt and share OER community coordinators would need a good computer or laptop with a fast and reliable network connection. teachers would need to be trained in their respective schools and these training can be in the form of PD’s and after about 5 to 6 PD’s and constant practice teacher would be able to build active communities. In my school there isn’t and active group but I feel the assistant head teacher in my school can help promote as it is in their JD to push for and promote ideas as such. I feel if the education ministry makes it compulsory for teacher in Fiji to be a part of the OER community teacher will make the effort to make free resources for all to use as the culture of sharing is already present among the teachers, this community will help teachers to make quality resources which when shared will have more impact.
- What resources and tools will be needed by community co-ordinators? Policy Plan, Strategic Plan, Teacher Guides, Media arm
- What steps are needed to launch and sustain active communities? **Ministry of Eucation to recognise the existence and importance of OER through linking with OER communities and institutions who are OER pioneers ** , Institutional Plan and Policies to be adopted based from the National Plan on this, **Support on Training and infrastructure to realise awareness and training for the use and sharing of OER **
- Are there existing communities that can help promote OER in your region? efforts from COL
- Do you have any other recommendations to support and promote an OER community of practice?
Trainings or e-meetings must be exclusively conducted for a country.
Establishing a ‘thriving OER community of practice’ is a strange theology to most people of Kiribati community. The people of Kiribati are cheerful, lovable and sociable. When it comes to skills, talent, expertise and knowledge, they seem to be so timid! Very hard for someone to share his/her knowledge, skill, talent or expertise. It will take a great deal of effort, understanding, and probably will cost a great deal to establish an OER community of Practice, in Kiribati. Where there is a will, there is a way!
Some steps to launch and sustain community in existence?
- regular or irregular but consistent meetings
- call for new project on a regular or irregular timeline
- contest and or campaign for existing projects
- invites for new speakers,
There are too many ‘communities of existence’ on the island of which I live. I wonder if these ‘COMMUNITIES’ can be identified as ‘community of practice’.
Some possible means to support and promote OER community of practice
- Seek support from local government funding to initiate the establishment of OER community of practice
- start a community of practice within your reach - Example in your interest of
- your profession,
- your peer group
- your social interest etc
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In Papua New Guinea we need more awareness and training on the use and creation of OER.
Forming a community is a big deal of its own, thriving a community is another. To establish a thriving OER community of practice surely need good creative thinking. Big funding should be a solution, to form a community, so we can establish a thriving OER community of practice. To establish such a community first the community must
- share a common interest
- be able to share together
- freely open to each other
- have a common understanding
- share without restrictions
- even willing to share what they have
Unless our community meet the above, establishing a thriving OER community of practice OPEN door will continue to half open. Full funding should be able to OPEN the community of practice.
To establish a thriving OER community, collective efforts is needed, due to COVID 19 elearning is the way forward and therefore it is not easy here in Papua New Guinea. Firstly awareness has to be made to the education ministry and, proper planning and is very much needed and the importance of elearning has to be appreciated. As for me I am learning from COL and I am very happy to come to know about online teaching and learning. I recommend that there should be a PNG OER Forum for ideas to be shared and awareness to be made so that there can be a change in the education system.
- What resources and tools will be needed by community co-ordinators?
As in Tonga, I believe that Open Resource or Online Toolkit could help community coordinators. In order to maintain active communities, people need to continuously be reminded on social platform or text messages. At the moment, I believe the only existing community promoting OER is the MET IT Division. The first challenge is trying hard first of all to convince school leaders, teachers and responsible stakeholders to shift their mindset from traditional approaches into accepting the fact that we have to integrate ICT and use OER as our mean of facilitating teaching and learning.
I agree that community is about sharing resources by adopting and adapting without reinvesting the wheel. Most syllabi, especially in government schools, are the same; therefore, why not just use the available resources instead of starting from scratch.
It’s about teachers teaching the same subject agreeing to collaborate on the use of resources and also sharing the amended content in cases where the content was changed.
Recently, we have been tasked to search content for an online pedagogy course we need to deliver online. Learning designers are thus divided into three groups to populate units as assigned. I’m currently working with two learning designers. We decided to open an online document, and assigned sub-topics to each other to search and then compare content at the end of the week.
Thus was a community of practice for me, even though we sit in separate offices, we all had access to the document and could guide teachers, and share resources/links with each other as we are collectively responsible for online content development. We decided to have forum discussions, video recordings via panopto, self-recordings o the key activities and a PowerPoint discussion.
The final step is for our supervisor to go through our material and provide feedback and guidance before this material is uploaded life. I believe that we managed to meet the deadline through the community of practice: searching, sharing, guiding and suggesting alternative materials.
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The higher education institutions in Namibia all fall under the umbrella of the Namibian Open Learning Network Trust (NOLNet), which is basically a community of practise. Therefore, at the beginning of each year they are required to share training calendars so the training can be synchronised. NOLNeT having all institutional calendars could mean that capacity-building workshops and seminars could be shared amongst member institutions. Invitations could go out stating, e.g., 5 people from each institution to attend particular training. The hosting of these facilitating workshops could be rotated, as all higher education institutions have a common interest regarding common regional facilities for students, etc. Sometimes the above ideal is realised, at other times not, as there may be clashes in the key activities of this institution.
I served on this committee for the past five years as a member of the executive committee. Its sometimes hard to have a single meeting organised due to non-availability of members. Although the aims of NOLNeT are good and clear, I think much more needs to be done to promote community of practise in my country.
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Through the commonwealth of learning (COL) projects, my institution, the University of Namibia, provided training on quality assurance, rapid development processes, and using OERs to search for e-resources. If we can source and secure funding, more such pieces of exercise can be made available. We usually use Zoom to offer virtual training.
They need a domain, community and practice.
Identify the need, people you can work with with the region and activities to sustain the community.
We have Elimu TV, Universities and the Ministry of education.
More training of teachers and learners in content creation is important