Open door classrooms

It was always the case, in every school I ever attended (9 in total) that once the door was closed, the lesson began and the teacher was in charge. Even now, as a classroom practitioner myself, I sometimes joke - 'close the door so people outside won't hear the screaming.' The connotation of closed door classrooms is that no-one sees or hears what goes on except the teachers and the students, who are all locked in, until the bell sounds. But this literal expression of a closed classroom can also represent an underlying philosophy. And I ask, are classrooms in schools, colleges and universities as closed conceptually as they are literally?

I have written and spoken in the past about openness and the need for open educational practices. I have enthused about the benefits of open scholarship, and the ability of all teachers to share their resources, knowledge and expertise without cost to others, to promote free exchange of learning. My last two posts have focused on the use of student owned devices in the classroom, and the fact that the use of sharing technology can extend your teach reach to a worldwide audience. It's clear that we need to open up classrooms in a different way. I'm not talking about taking the door off its hinges, or even taking the class down to the seaside for a lesson (although I would really have enjoyed that in school ...) No, I'm talking here about opening up what is happening in classrooms, so that others who are outside the immediate zone of learning can also participate.

It is happening in some schools. Many schools are using videoconferencing links to connect with schools in other countries to facilitate cultural exchange and language learning. The next step would be to enable live web streaming, dynamic social networking and Twitter backchannels to operate while classroom sessions are in progress. Think of all the archived learning resources that could be generated for later, on demand use. Think of all the live interaction, dialogue and discussion that could take place during such lessons.

What would be the barriers that would prevent this from happening? Teacher insecurity would be one (I don't want people from outside seeing what goes on in my classroom - particularly the parents!). Most teachers are used to people coming into the classroom to observe though - throughout their careers, from teaching practice observations during their initial training, to the head teacher dropping by to have a look at how their most experienced teachers are working in the classroom. Should this be a barrier?

Child safety/privacy is another concern. What if nasty people are watching in - what personal details might be inadvertently divulged? What if remote viewers start taking photographs? That would depend I guess, on where the classroom cameras and mics were pointed/situated.

One other issue I can think of is whether some schools might want their classrooms opened up for the world to see. Are they proud to showcase what goes on in their classrooms, or would they rather hide away what takes place? That depends on the teacher I guess, and the school, er.... and the behaviour of the students...

Here's the bottom line... with the advent of personal handheld devices, how long will it be before classroom learning is streamed out into the world regularly? How long will it be before open, worldwide classrooms are the norm rather than the exception?

Image source by Jack Hill

Open door classrooms by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.