ID: 32255
What if open learning began not with content, but with the world each learner already brings? Open education has done transformative work in widening access to knowledge, resources, and participation. But in an age of artificial intelligence, when information is increasingly abundant and instantly available, a deeper educational question comes into view: what helps learners make meaning from what they encounter, connect it to their own lives, and locate themselves in relation to one another and the world?This session explores that question through a story-first approach to open learning. Rather than beginning with abstract content, predetermined curricular structures, or decontextualized competencies, this approach begins with something personally meaningful to the learner: a language, a family story, a migration history, a food tradition, a place, or another lived point of connection. From there, learning expands outward into broader historical, cultural, ecological, and interdisciplinary understanding. The aim is not simply to make learning more engaging, but to create a form of education that is more humanly relevant, contextually grounded, and responsive to the realities learners already inhabit.At the center of the session is the proposition that openness must now do more than expand access to materials. It must also create conditions for curiosity, connection, recognition, and agency. When learners are invited to begin with their own worlds, openness becomes not only a matter of availability, but also of relevance, participation, and meaning. This has important implications for how we think about global learning, intercultural understanding, and the future of education in diverse, multilingual, and technologically mediated contexts.The session introduces a story-first model for open learning that is designed to be adaptable, translatable, and usable across settings. Participants will consider how such an approach might complement and extend existing understandings of openness by foregrounding lived experience, human connection, and local context. The session will be especially relevant to educators, designers, and institutional leaders interested in the relationship between AI, global learning, and more meaningful forms of open education.After a brief framing of the core idea, participants will be invited into guided reflection and discussion around one central question: What would change in open education if learning began not only with open content, but with the world each learner brings? The goal is to generate both practical and conceptual insight for participants seeking more human-centered, future-facing approaches to open learning, approaches that preserve the values of openness while making space for identity, context, curiosity, and connection.
