Hi Jason. Great to hear from you, and thanks for your detailed comment. I think there are instances in the global South (look up the book on ROER4D Adoption of OER in global South edited by Cheryl Hogkinson-Williams and Patricia Arinto) where many of the limitations of MOOCs can be overcome via parity of participation- i.e. where teachers from a country participate in creating the MOOC or OER that fits their context in their language with technology accessible to them. I think other authors whose work is worth looking into are Taskeen Adam (I know she had a paper under review in journal LMT but if it’s not out yet I can introduce you). Also, check out a couple of blogposts by me commenting on recent articles on social justice and OER – particularly by Sarah Lambert and more importantly, by Cheryl Hogkinson-Williams and Henry Trotter. Those may provide useful frameworks.

Honestly, open has a lot of potential. It has helped me personally very much. I mean Virtually Connecting is a great example. But every open project’s benefits are contextual and rarely universal. Virtually Connecting is of no use to someone with low bandwidth or who cannot speak English or who is deaf for example. And that’s ok as long as we recognize its limitations and acknowledge for whom and in what context it performs a social justice function not otherwise happening.

In my country, they’ve considered doing teacher PD online. It can be designed really poorly and didactically. But it can also be designed to help build learning communities. What matters more than the PD design in this case, imho, is to tackle structural challenges that teachers face that prevent them from teaching the best way they can..and deep-seated cultural issues that may prevent trust and sharing.

Of course, if ever one offers tech as a solution, one must ensure equitable access and digital literacy to those who will benefit.

I hope this helps! Happy to keep discussing wherever and whenever!