Liberation in OpenLIVES Critical Pedagogy: “empowerability” and critical action

Abstract

his article will examine the educational experience of OpenLIVES at the University of Leeds by looking at its learning methods and contents, its ideological influences and coincidences and its transformational potential for students, Higher Education and society. Particular attention will be paid to the publication of student coursework online, in the form of Open Educational Resources (OER), as a key component of student praxis, as well as to the students’ freedom to explore different genres of audio research-based production in order to engage with audiences online. It will be argued that these two features of the OpenLIVES pedagogy enable us to fulfil some of the ideals of liberation defended by Critical Pedagogy and update and translate, in a 21st Century Higher Education context, the Gramscian ideal of “critical thinking”.

Keywords

• open practice
• language learning
• critical pedagogy
• genre theory
• OpenLIVES