Open Education Rocks the World! (#AllAboutOpen)

Open Education Week (OEW) is coming fast upon us; the week of March 9th to be exact. This global, week-long event will touch hundreds of institutions and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of learners and professionals from all stripes of education backgrounds and interests.

It is hard to imagine a world without open resources in the learning space for all to use without accruing personal expense or jumping through admissions hoops. But when I had the honor of serving on the MIT/OCWC Advisory Board over 13 years ago, this reality was only a gleam in the eye of an emerging set of education innovations.

Fast forward to today where millions of learners access open resources in multiple forms, from MOOCs to mobile apps to videos. And they do it to achieve personal, informal learning goals, economic and career goals, or to meet more formal educational goals.

This free and open treasure trove of content has forever changed the relationship between learners, employers, institutions, and content. And in so doing, it is driving the un-bundling and re-bundling of the higher education/lifelong learning value proposition in myriad ways.

It also is giving learners far more control over their lifelong journeys towards increased civic, social, and economic literacy and strength. Some educators love it; some think it’s a passing fancy; and others think it is the educational equivalent of the Barbarians at the Gate.  But open is here to stay and it is rocking the world.

In honor of this growing trend, join me next Wednesday, March 11^th as I participate in #AllAboutOpen, a 24-hour Open Education Week Twitter event dedicated to promoting the open movement worldwide. Co-sponsored by the Open College at Kaplan University (OC@KU) and the Open Education Consortium (OEC), this event will help set the stage for the next generation of innovation and development in open education resources of all kinds.

Starting at 8:00 AM EST, for 24 consecutive hours a global selection of “Guest Tweeters” will lead 30 minute sessions on topics of their choosing related to the open movement. Using the hashtag #AllAboutOpen, add your perspectives on these topics to those of thousands of other Twitter event participants. The objective is to generate a worldwide “town meeting” with global perspectives about the future of open education resources.

Visit our website https://www.opencollege.kaplan.com/AllAboutOpen/ to see the schedule of “Guest Tweeters” and topics for the March 11^th Open Education Week Twitter event. And then rest up and get ready to rock the world!