Social networking affordances for open educational language practice

Abstract

Open Educational Resources (OER), as openly licensed content free to (re-)use at no cost, are attracting increasing interest from scholars and practitioners for their repurpose value in new educational settings, thus enabling Open Educational Practice (OEP). A topic that is under-explored to date is the role of social networking in OER uptake, affording ways for user groups to socially engage in meaningful learning, and bridging formal and informal learning contexts. This paper critically examines whether and how social networks enable open practice, focusing on the field of language learning and teaching in particular. For the purposes of the study, expert views in response to an open-ended questionnaire on OER/OEP for language education were collected between June and August 2014. The 18 respondents were scholars operating at the crossroads of OER and Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). Expert views were analyzed through a content analytic framework in line with three dimensions: the value of the social dimension in OEP, social network affordances in OEP and open learning pedagogies. The study examines whether open educational practice for language education can benefit from trends of user engagement through social networks (comprising reputation, recommendation and badging systems), and the potential implications for open language education. It also contributes to an understanding of changes in learning pedagogies afforded by principles of openness.