Lately I’ve been talking a lot with Bekir Gur (one of my absolutely excellent PhD students) about open education in the context of his dissertation writing. For his dissertation he’s taking a critical view of the field of instructional technology and, in the context of several reviews that range from the dominance of psychologism in the field to the the field’s obsession with objectification (remember the IEEE LOM documents saying people are learning objects?), he is arriving at an interesting conclusion: open education, thoughtfully practiced, is one solution to many of the ills currently plaguing the field of instructional technology. Reading his drafts and talking with him has prompted a few interesting thoughts…