To help you plan your participation the conference program schedule can be filtered by date, venue, session type, and session format using the Filter functions.
Filter by Date lets you look at a specific day of the program. Filter by Venue lets you look at the program by venue rooms where sessions are taking place. Filter by Type lets you look at the program by track. In addition to keynotes and breaks the program is made up of three main tracks or types of sessions Pedagogy, Roles, and Strategies. Clicking on a type in Filter by Type lets you see only sessions of that type in the program schedule. In addition, Pedagogy, Roles, and Strategies each have a set of associated topics. Topics appear when you hover over a type name in the Filter by Type area of Sched. Topics are clickable allowing you to further filter the program by topic. Session Format lets you view the program by types of sessions - Action Labs, Lightning Talks, Posters, Presentations, and World Cafes.
The conference program is rich and diverse representing the current state of open education around the world.
The Free Education Alliance unites organizations, institutions and individuals that promote Open Education. The alliance is both a forum and a driving force for political and social change in the diverse educational landscape of Germany.
During this session, I would like to talk about how the alliance of a variety of actors works together in order to set impulses in the German educational sector and how our suggestions on how Open Education can improve education, are being heard by decision makers. Also, I want to elaborate the advantages and challenges of the collaborative process within a divers alliance.
Although Germany’s national government agreed upon a comprehensive strategy for Open Educational Resources (OER), its actions testify to a clear reversal of that commitment. Even though the words 'open' and 'digital' are increasingly used in the political scene, digitization is widely reduced to a matter of technical infrastructures. German politicians’ initiatives in this field are short-sighted, vary from one federal state to another, and ignore the necessary advancement of open infrastructure and cultural change that is required for a practice of sharing and participation.
In order to “digitize education” governments and political decision-makers of the German federal states are focusing on the promotion and expansion of closed ecosystems and marketplaces. The means contradict the goal of teaching people digital literacies and the critically reflected confrontation with the internet. This promotion, which is geared towards the preservation of traditional and rigid structures, shows an outdated understanding of education within and for a digital society. A sustainable transfer of competencies – that can be realized through open practices such as working with or producing open educational resources – is rarely considered as an objective.
The Free Education Alliance shows how holistic educational processes can be promoted through Open Education using a Collective Impact approach.
