Bridging the curricular divide: Open Education Resources and the digitization of Guatemala’s National Basic Curriculum

• In Event: Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: Bridging the curricular divide: Open Education Resources and the digitization of Guatemala’s National Basic Curriculum

Proposal

Open Education Resources (OERs) constitute any medium of teaching, learning, or research materials (digital or otherwise) that reside in the public domain and have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation, and distribution by others with no or limited restrictions. Since the early 2000s, awareness and use of digital OERs has increased exponentially with approximately 1.4 billion licenses issued as of 2017. This rise can be partly attributed to OERs’ unique potentials towards improved access and usability of digital learning, particularly within education systems exacerbated by learning gaps and low resources. Still, OERs do not address systemic inequalities within the education sector, including disparities in resource allocation and teacher quality. However, one type of OER – wikis – does hold the ability to support both capacity building and equitable knowledge distribution for teachers.

In 2005, the Guatemalan Ministry of Education introduced a new National Basic Curriculum (CNB). In 2012, to facilitate wider access, the Online Learning Initiative (OLI), a nongovernmental organization committed to closing the divide between educational competencies, planning, and resources, converted the reformed curriculum into cnbGuatemala.org, a wiki site. With the uptick of wiki users within Guatemala and other Latin American countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, OLI conducted a comprehensive review of the site’s impact. The research sought to understand who is using the platform, how it is being used, and the potential for further democratization.

Utilizing Actor Network Theory as a conceptual frame, the investigation relied on four data sources: historical documents, website traffic, user surveys, and focus groups. Findings demonstrated that cnbGuatemala has a global user profile spanning more than 50 countries; however, the website is mostly visited by users from Latin America. In 2020, the number of non-Guatemalan visitors increased from 25% in 2019 to almost 40% of total users. Data from Google Analytics also highlighted how cnbGuatemala was used as reference material for curriculum and content across countries though content preferences differed between Guatemalan and non-Guatemalan users. Overall, non-Guatemalan users gravitated toward their preferred curriculum content, some of which was created by USAID to support its early grade reading initiatives. The survey results suggest that within Guatemala, the website was used across a broad spectrum of education professionals, grade levels, and curriculum areas. However, there were areas of over-representation worthy of further analysis. Three OLI focus groups illuminated the diversity of ways in which cnbGuatemala was utilized or underutilized by visitors.

These findings contribute to the national (Guatemala) and regional (Latin America) conversation about the potential of OERs and their localized impact in education policy and practice. The experience of cnbGuatemala.org illustrates the potential for relatively low-cost OERs to dramatically and immediately expand access to key tools in education reform and link the curriculum to improved classroom practices. More practically, the findings show that cnbGuatemala.org has the potential for scale or replication in other national contexts. The poster will highlight our data, as well as limitations and opportunities for further OER development and use.

Author

• Kate Maloney Williams, University of Maryland College Park