Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

There are at least two important pedagogical motivations for open, peer teaching and learning.

First, open learning creates an atmosphere of mutual learning, contribution, and collaboration that not only enhances our engagement in the quality and content of the learning experience but provides a life-skill for future interactions--in the workplace, in everyday life, in the community at large.   Second, open peer teaching and learning takes advantages of the affordances of digital tools available at a given moment, giving participants hands’ on experience in using these tools and also a practical and theoretical lesson in the possibilities, limitations, challenges, and even potential risks of open, public, online communication and interaction.  As such the method of open learning uses a digital toolkit and is constantly reflective, a meditation-in-action about the tools themselves and all the attendant issues the tools give rise to.