Crowd-based Open Online Education as an alternative to the Covid-19 educational crisis

Abstract

The suspension of face-to-face classes in universities and schools derived from the current health crisis related to Covid-19 has prompted a process of migration of academic activities to virtual environments. This has revealed a general lack of understanding in both the family and academic environments regarding the relationship between distance and virtual Education, generating tensions between families and educational institutions. This article presents some theoretical insights about Open Educational Practices (OEP) from an emerging perspective by revising their connections with Distance Education and E-learning. The current international discussion on OEP is mainly focused on technological integration and expanding free access to knowledge, while today’s inter-connected world requires more flexibility, sharing, collaborative feedback and autonomy in learning. A fresh perspective on Open Educational Practices based on the participation of students in crowd-based collaborative learning communities is proposed as an alternative to face in-house confinement context challenges.

Keywords

• open educational practices
• collaboration
• e-learning
• communities of learning
• distance education