The Web teaches us every day that sharing creates value. We can all learn, grow, and develop; To create and innovate and give meaning to our lives in global networks based on transparency, authenticity and trust.
The future is already here. New forms of collective value creation are advancing around the world today in the same way that industrial production was advancing in the previous century, shaking up institutions, transforming our modes of education and our cultures, creating wealth and digital knowledge gaps, accelerating innovation and opening new hopes for the emergence of a better society.
The future of education is open. By taking full advantage of the ubiquity of the internet, new social technologies, and mobility, people can collaborate to create content, share knowledge, and develop new ways of teaching and learning that capture the attention and stimulate the imagination of new generations from any device, anytime, anywhere. The traditional model of a few talking and many listening is no longer viable. In the redarchy everyone speaks and everyone listens. The Age of Communication is not a world of experts but of global communities and ecosystems of open and shared knowledge.
Open education thus makes possible an alternative vision of education by providing educators and students with an ecosystem of knowledge, which facilitates collaborative learning as a social experience. It is about promoting a new learning environment, for life, more focused on the student than on the teacher and more focused on skills than on knowledge.
The shift towards open education is necessary and felt as such by the majority of the educational community. The idea of sharing knowledge and content freely and openly is not new. In fact, knowledge sharing is probably the most basic feature of education. The new opportunity of open education is to take advantage of the ubiquity of the internet and new social technologies so that all people, regardless of their origin and economic situation, can access, from anywhere and at any time, the best content and learn collaboratively throughout their lives.
A new education, for new students. Recent generations have developed new cognitive abilities and will not readily accept the learning systems of past eras. They live connected; they are interactive and quick in the use of new technologies; they are constantly updated. Their learning model is that of the social web, that is, they learn collaboratively, they do not expect master classes but open conversations, which allow them to develop in community the skills they need to survive in a global world.
New teachers, for a new education. In open education, the work of the teacher is, if possible, even more important than it is today. The role of the new and renewed teacher is essential, since it is the teacher who is the only one who, with his enthusiasm for the subject, talking less and listening more, encouraging collaboration and creating an emotionally safe and positive climate in the virtual classroom, can make possible the new paradigm of participation, collaboration and collective learning.
Open Education Association
These are times to question. I believe that we must be aware of the failure that any educational reform will mean if we limit ourselves to simply repairing some of the broken pieces of our current schools, such as the quality of teachers, the size of classrooms, technological updating and a long etcetera. It is really necessary to thoroughly review the principles and beliefs that underpin our teaching and learning models. In other words, what we need is not reform, but real educational transformation. A major challenge of this transformation is to break the exclusive link between the act of learning and a particular stage of life and place.
The response to the challenges we face must necessarily be collective. Hence the need for a forum open to all actors in the education system to ask ourselves the key questions for the future of our education and collectively seek the appropriate initiatives to make open education a reality in our country. Like any paradigm shift, open education requires true champions of change who act as accelerators in the adoption of new technologies and the new values of open education in our society.
Our country needs organizations such as the Open Education Association , which we have created with the aim of channeling the debate on educational change and including all the actors in the system, as well as communicating to society the need to get involved with education. A space for relationship and debate around educational transformation as an element to build a more democratic, more supportive and fairer society.
Education is today the most important determinant of social cohesion and business competitiveness. I encourage you, dear reader, to participate in the debates of the association, share your projects and build together the future of open education in our country.
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