Hello,

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the article about the history of 'open'. It really opened my eyes to the idea that, as mentioned, this is not a new concept. It made me think back to my own experiences. I have taken a distance education course - it entailed big packets of course material being mailed to me, me mailing back assignments and then going to a set location to write the final exam. How times have changed! I also think to the mid-2000's when I felt on the cutting edge as I set up an e-learning classroom. This meant that students used devices and were able to access websites. I introduced Google Classroom to my school and became the e-learning specialist. Now I teach online courses (as well as face to face) and the 'openness' of all the learning is leaps and bounds ahead of where I was 20 years ago. And now I see that there is still so much for me to learn and still so much more room for growth. 

I am thinking about the connection between e-learning and open education resources and how the learning is so much more collaborative and students have the opportunity to become so much more engaged in their own learning and in the learning of others. I keep coming back to the notion of today's learning and its connection to the coffee houses of the renaissance time. It's a shared community of interested and engaged learners that have something to give and something to take.

Okay, so I'm not an artist! And this is the first time I tried a new sketch app. My thinking was that from the left (say 9 o'clock), we have groups of people sitting around talking, learning from each other - coffee houses. Then it moves to formal education where one person is the expert in a classroom. Then moving to still one person the expert, but using a variety of online sources. Finally, we are sitting around talking, albeit online, and learning from each other. Not really circular, but you get the idea! :)

Julie