Open education has become a new trend of development, so it is an important topic that the whole world is studying. I would like to use China as an example to explain my view of open education. China has developed very rapidly and had a very significant difference in the past 100 years. The government is striving to connect with the world and develop multi-element teaching as much as possible. However, the national conditions of each country are different, China cannot completely copy the pattern of others. Therefore, we must analyze why China should use open education, how to use it, and what difficulties to overcome.
First of all, we need to understand what is open education. Open education is a new approach instead of teaching in closed education. It builds on collaboration, transparency, customizability, engagement and efficiency（YEAR OF OPEN, 2017). This approach encourages students to participate in learning activities, with students as the center rather than teachers. Its essence is that everyone has the right on education, which means not only the opening of educational objects, but also the opening of educational concepts and educational resources. Openness is reflected in open spaces, time, environment, curriculum, attitudes, resources, etc. We can use a variety of advanced information technology and multimedia to carry out highly liberalized teaching modes anytime and anywhere. This means that it breaks down the various barriers and difficulties of traditional teaching methods, such as age, occupation, region, qualifications, and learning costs. Students can choose the learning style they like or fit, and have free control over their progress. Textbooks, audio-visual materials, online classes and various multimedia-teaching modes are used in teaching. Students can also learn through a variety of interactive teaching aids such as voicemail, two-way television, e-mail, and online discussions.
Why use open education? What are the benefits of open education? One of the reasons is that open education can avoid high textbook costs and waste of natural resources (Open education-SPARC). This incident impressed me. As an overseas student, expensive textbook fees make us have to consider second-hand books or give up textbooks. Even the cost of books is increasing year by year. Fortunately, there are e-books and even e-books can be rented online. This method not only saves a lot of money, but also solves the problem of waste of trees, coal and other resources and recycling. So this is a powerful tool used by the world to protect the environment and resources. The second reason is that the application of multimedia can promote students’ initiative and interest in learning. Advances in technology have made open education better and more sophisticated. Education is no longer based on teachers, students can more freely choose when, where and how to learn what they are interested in. Knowledge resources around the world will be shared. So the benefit of open education is to break the limitations of the current traditional model. Taking China as an example, the region is vast, the provinces are numerous, and the population is dense, which makes education difficult. Because of as many as 56 ethnic groups and 34 provincial administrative regions, the knowledge acquired in each region cannot be synchronized and unified. The gap between the rich and the poor and the 1.4 billion population make education resources more limited and scarce. Therefore, open education with many advantages such as sharing knowledge, not limited by time and region, and free learning has become the first choice and the only way for China’s educational development.
Of course, for China’s national conditions, there are still some difficulties in the full implementation of open education. The population has become one of the biggest difficulties in our promotion. There are data showing that in 2007, students of all types and levels of higher education institutions in the country surpassed the United States to become the highest in the world. However, in 2005, the total number of people receiving higher education in China was 67.64 million, accounting for only one-twentieth of the total population of 130,756,000 at the end of the year. (Ding, Niu, & Han, 2010) Quality is another major issue when demand is so large. If quality does not meet requirements and recognition, the prospects for distance open education are worrisome. Clear positioning and the development of corresponding quality standards based on it is China’s current priority (Liu, 2016). So we still have a tough task on this road. My classmate (Han, 2019) points out “OER are suitable for future progress, as their quality and scope have already advanced over recent years”. Through the example of my classmates, I think that with more technical and financial support, the quality will continue to improve. Others have pointed out that infringement will become another drawback. In response to the issue of infringement, a non-profit organization in the United States founded Creative Commons to solve it. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses free of charge to the public (Yuanmeng001, 2018). At present, everyone is actively participating in and solving various problems that may arise. Even though there is still a long way to go, I believe we can overcome all kinds of difficulties.
We all know that education is the most crucial foundation for a country’s development. Open education model let everyone can freely and independently learn knowledge. Indeed, from the current situation in China, we still have to face many difficulties and confusions, but the benefits of open education are irreplaceable. Therefore, open education is an inevitable development trend in the education field of China and even the whole world. I hope that the advancement of technology can make up for and correct its shortcomings.
References
Open Education. YEAR OF OPEN website. Retrieved from:https://www.yearofopen.org/open-education/
Open Education. SPARC website.Retrieved from: https://sparcopen.org/open-education/
Ding, X. , Niu, J. and Han, Y. (2010), Research on distance education development in China. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41: 582-592. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01093.x
Zhenghui,L. (2016, December 15). Open education needs “bring order out of chaos”. E-LEARNING website. Retrieved from:http://zxxx.net.cn/Article/Detail/Overview/4440
Dongxu,H. (2019,November 9). Open Education and Creative Commons. Retrieved from:https://dongxuhan.wordpress.com/2019/11/09/open-education-and-creative-commons-2/
Yuanmeng001. (2018). Creative Commons. Retrieved from: https://blog.csdn.net/yuanmeng001/article/details/83856071
33's 