Open education

I have been complaining for years about how the schools have commandeered the word "education." There is currently another word that they are redefining, "open." While documenting my educational beliefs, I have explained how I want to open up education and how I would like to see society embrace the concept of an open learning environment. Colleges have been pushing the concept of open education, which contrasts substantially with my views.

When I discuss openness in education, I am talking about removing educational constraints. The open education movement is all about reducing the costs of resources such as textbooks within a schooling environment. Schooling is an educationally restrictive process, and directly defies what I consider to be educationally open.

The idea behind the open education movement is to develop resources that are free to use. For example, textbooks are being written that colleges can modify and copy without paying a more expensive for-profit publisher. More than likely, they saw open source software as an influence. This is why they view it as open education. The big problem with their term is that the education is not open. What's open is their access to resources. Education is still being constrained. Personally, I prefer open education to "open education."