Open Education 2017

The world's nations have adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and committed to 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs

This session will explore how and why the global open education community can and should work with their national governments to mainstream open educational resources (OER) and open education practices (OEP) in support of solving the SDGs, our collective global grand challenges.

Why connect OER and OEP to the SDGs? (1) OER can be the education resources to teach the public about and are continuously updated by working on SDGs. (2) It would connect education institutions, educators and students to solving SDGs; forming a new, positive connection between governments and their public education systems. (3) Global challenges / SDGs are constantly changing and OER and OEP can be updated in real time. (4) As learning spaces shift to OEP, students can contribute to improving the open curriculum, work on complex and authentic SDG challenges, and have their work be used in their fields. (5) As working on SDGs is meaningful and the stakes are high (e.g., climate action, zero hunger, gender equality, no poverty, etc.), students are motivated to work smarter, learn more deeply, have an opportunity to contribute to society – by producing, revising, and sharing OER about SDGs - while they earn their degree.

I recently explored the OER + SDG4 connection at UNESCO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvfC8A1oW30 and I look forward to working with Open Education Conference participants to explore these ideas and opportunities more deeply.