The document discusses how social and participatory media are enabling new forms of open practices in education. It notes that today's educational context features a rapidly changing technological environment where new digital literacy skills are needed for both learners and teachers. Social and participatory media like social networking, blogging, and collaborative editing are being used to enable more open practices in areas like peer critiquing, user-generated content, and open dialogue. The document advocates for more adoption of open practices in areas like open design, open delivery, open research, and open evaluation to transform teaching practices.