“Writing is working: being worked; questioning (in) the between (letting oneself be questioned) of same and of other without which nothing lives; undoing death’s work by willing the togetherness of one-another…A course that multiplies transformations by the thousands.”
(Helene
Cixous, 1994, p. 43)
About twenty
years ago, I encountered Cixous’s writings during my under-graduate degree in
English. Cixous (1994) talks of
differences and of inhabiting those differences and moving through them (pp.
35-45). The subjects which were covered
during the ‘Open and Networked Higher Education’ unit in this Master’s in Open
and Networked Higher Education programme, brought to mind these differences,
the relevance in the diversity of possibilities and the need to keep on moving
from one to the other without getting stuck in one place. This is an exploration of the journey of the 21st
century in higher education – all that it has been, all that it is, all that it is trying to be and
all that it cannot as yet, envisage itself to be.
Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on Unsplash
The 6 separate
blocks in the MONHE program have taken me through various considerations of the
way the digital world has revolutionized education, the spaces where and the
times when education can take place, the modalities whereby it can be carried
out, educators’ and learners’ roles, the learning theories and approaches that
inform the educational process, issues of hybridity and the concepts of
networked learning and open education. In
this blog post I seek to synthesize some of the main issues that have been
brought to the fore.
First and
foremost, I have explored the flexibility afforded to education by the
mediation of digital technologies. In a
world which continuously connects us to the digital realm, we have extensive
knowledge at the tip of our fingertips, myriad educational apps, blended
learning that can occur on-site or off-site or recorded lessons that we access
in our own time. This has led to an awareness that education does not have to
be synchronous and face-to-face at all times.
The Covid years have definitely brought some issues to light, but it is
now time to explore all the possibilities, because we want to, rather than
because we have to. In this context, self-directed
learning has all the potential to be discovered. Learners are empowered in their educational
journey by flexibly working individually or collaboratively, without the
constraints of time and place. The walls
of the physical classroom have come down, literally and figuratively, to allow
an open space of educational discovery, including the physical spaces which we
use at home, in libraries, on campus or in our cars, to access that other space
which has gained significance – the digital space. Bayne et al. say it best when they claim that
“we are the campus” (2020, p. xxix). The
physical classroom is by no means dead, but it is complemented, problematized
and/or appreciated by the very fact that other spaces have come into existence,
none at the cost of another. Also
because, the digital space may still replicate other hierarchies whether in
teaching approach (Bayne et al., 2020, p. 9) or novel hierarchies propagated by
the platforms used (Tubaro, 2016).
In hindsight, when I first read about us
being the campus, I realize that my first understanding was that we, the human
beings, are the campus. I have now extended
my understanding of the phrase as encompassing other non-human elements via the
exploration of sociomateriality. Indeed,
we as human are not alone in creating networked learning, and the campus has
come to constitute a vast array of elements, both human and non-human. We alone, as human beings, could never
actualize novel educational environments without everything else that makes education
possible, whether it is the digital spaces and connections, the texts required,
or the forums and networks involved. “Unpredictable
novel possibilities and patterns are always emerging.” (Fenwick, 2015, p. 84) The
human being is decentred, but not less important, within a wider spectrum of
elements that are equally subjects. This
leads me to the next significant point – educators’ and learners’ roles in
today’s HE.
The didactic
approaches which were once so prevalent in the classroom context, informed by
behaviourist and cognitive approaches to learning, are giving way to a more
horizontal educational approach, as exemplified by constructivist and
collaborativist approaches (Harasim, 2017, p. 14). The objective reality that was in the hands
of the educator to transmit, has given way to the subjective realities that are
experienced and shared by a community of learners. The hierarchies inherent to “the banking
concept of education” (Freire, 1996, p. 53) are coming undone as we realize
everybody’s potential, whether learners or educators, to contribute to the
learning journey (Cutajar, 2018, p. 91; Freire, 1996), and to the knowledge
commons that are prevalent in this day and age.
Picciano (2017) proposes an integrated model for online learning which
takes onboard the various learning theories, recalling that no one theory is
exhaustive or uniquely correct; better viewed as useful or not in diverse
contexts (Ormrod, 1999, p. 7). Digital
technologies have lent themselves well to exploring this horizontal method of
doing education, where the educator has become increasingly decentred. Should we foresee a future where the educator
is dismissed completely from the educational context? Cutajar (2019) delineates the importance of
both transmissive and participative pedagogies; Bayne et al. endorse the
“highly professionalised” (2020, p. 28) nature of the teacher’s role which is
not to be replaced by digital technologies; Biesta extols the educator and
their aptitude at offering “the gift of teaching” (2013, p. 457); Damsa and De
Lange think of the instructor as facilitating the selection of spaces, tools
and tasks “that are acknowledged to be conducive to learning” (2019, p. 10). No, the educator is not dead, but dichotomies
are. If anything, educators are transformed,
much like learners who are themselves a hybrid space allowing for constant
fluid transformation (Eyal and Gil, 2022, pp. 18-21). Considering and questioning all the parts are
key. There are probably more parts than
we can ever possibly see and not a simple matter of binary oppositions.
The deconstruction
of binary oppositions was one of the Oliver’s (2015) main discussion points in
taking up the issue of open education, which is informed by multiplicities
rather than dichotomies. The idea of open
is problematized and not simply viewed as the positive side to the closed. Open education, which is meant to enhance
access, inclusivity, and diversity within education, is oftentimes marked by
barriers that undermine those very values it tries to promote. So, whilst open education may be open for
some, it may close off education for others if they do not have the necessary
digital skills (Bates, 2019, p. 568; McGill, 2014), the digital technologies
(Bayne et al., 2020, p. 91) or other “personal preconditions” (Otto and Kerres,
2022, p. 59) which may be required to access such education. Widening the access to knowledge is paramount
in opening up education, but as Otto and Kerres denote, if that knowledge belongs
to Westernized traditions, then it is not a fair representation of the world,
and may constitute a new kind of imperialism (2022, p. 52). I discussed above the flexibility of access with
relation to space, but as Oliver mentions, the physical institutions may not be
the only circumscribed spaces (2015, p. 370); for some, the home may be equally
limiting. As Bayne et al. briefly state,
“[o]penness is neither neutral nor natural” (2022, p. 82). The term hybrid has also been put into
question, going beyond its denoting simple binaries of online/offsite or synchronous/asynchronous
educational activity. Hybrid educational
spaces can be viewed as multiplicitous, merging interactions of the physical, the
social and the constant digital connections (Eyal and Gil, 2022, pp.
15-18).
I have identified therefore in this conclusive blog, a weaving
thread that marked all the study blocks – that of considering different possibilities,
without resting in any of those possibilities as definite. All the elements that make up the educational
journey can be seen as undergoing constant hybridization, whether it is our educational
spaces, our roles as learners and educators, our modalities or our approaches
to education. Not least it should be our
thoughts about HE that are undergoing hybridization. We should be ever on the
move in the consideration of multiple possibilities for the “[c]reation of
something new together” (Norgard & Hilli, 2022, p. 26). These can be exciting times. I go back to Cixous here; I look forward to embark
on a “[c]ourse that multiplies transformations by the thousands” (1994, p.
43).
Block 7: Conclusion
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