Interviews - talking about myself in the OPEN

I've had four interviews now, one video, two audio and one text. I have to admit my favourite was the text one, but it took the longest. I wrote and rewrote my responses to Doug Peterson's questions to make sure it read the way I'd want it said. I was thinking out loud without really talking out loud. Here are the links to these four interviews:

• 101 Open Stories with Jenni Hayman
• Getting Air with Terry Greene
• Que Sera Sarah? with Sarah Lalonde
• An Interview with ... by Doug Peterson

I blogged [What's Your Story?] before I did the interview with Jenni. As I was talking with Jenni, I was referencing the blog post to make sure I'd mention those key points I'd written about. So, in a fashion, I was writing this interview as well as doing the video recording. Writing and thinking go hand in hand for me. Drawing and thinking also works to tease out what's really being said.

Now, I'm returning to the audio and video interviews and getting a transcribed version, as part of my ethnographic study into my open educational practices - how I teach, what I teach and why I teach they way I do. Some insights will occur, I'm sure.

After reading Ethnography in the Digital Internet Era: From fields to flows, descriptions to interventions by Annette N. Markham, there will be some deeper inner dialogues about this work I'm doing. The frameworks described are already tinkling through my brain:

• internet as tool, medium, or network of connectivity; ethnographies of networked sociality
• internet as place or world; ethnographies of immersive environments
• internet as a way of being; ethnographies of the contemporary social world in a digital age

Concepts like 'boundary marking' and 'iterative oscillation' are bringing forward some issues I need to consider in this particular circumstance. More to come.

Open Education Conference

Today, I'm attending the K-12 OPEN Conference from Athabasca University. Here are the topics, links. I did register but that is not a requirement for participation in these sessions. The recording will be made available beyond these moments in time.

1. Understanding the Commons for K-12 - Serena Henderson (CC certified educator)

2. Go Open from the Ground Up  - google slides of the presentation. Some links and resources from this session

• Where can I learn more about OER?
• OER 101
• What’s #GoOpen?
• Office of Educational Technology #GoOpen Landing Page
• #GoOpen District Launch Packet
• Office of Education Technology Story Engine
• What are policy considerations for my state? 
• iNACOL Report OER State Policy in K-12 Education 
• CCSSO OER Portal
• SETDA OER Case Studie

3. Curation Made Simple, Stephanie Slaton, Instructional Media Specialist Austin Keon - "Do good work and share it with people" - Steal Like an Artist

• Pinterest - https://pinterest.com/givemOER  
• Airtable.com - free templates for collecting resources, like a spreadsheet, pivot table; takes more time to set up, more detailed for curation, detailed library; https://airtable.com/shrqzxqC9Q2OvLxj 
• Trello - search things by tags; https://trello.com/b/7qfBAwN1 
• Evernote - notebooks, can build card templates.
• Slack teams - share and communicate tools.
• Zapier.com
• https://givemoer.wordpress.com

4. Opening Up 1-12 Education in Alberta - Frank McCallum & Lise Pethybridge

• Where is OER now and where is it going - multi author/ web site/blog 
• Multiply K-12 OER Project
• oer.adlc.ca - repository site

5.  Multiply K-12 Open Educational Resources - Dr. Connie Blomgren & Verena Roberts

• redesign process ABOER (higher ed materials) resulting from funding
• created podcasts and videos 
• ABOER starter kit - google doc 
• ABOER champions kit - google doc
• UDL considerations in file formats to be used
• 5 R's of OER - Wiley's reuse, revise, remix, redistribute, retain
• resources - videos and celebrations of OER use and users
• OER podcasts - list of participants - playlist on Soundcloud 
• Marshal McLuhan - technologies as amplification

6. Sharing K-12 Resources Across Canada: Silos, Gardens, or Open Range? Randy LaBonte

• State of the Nation: K-12 eLearning http://k12sotn.ca 
• 
  
• 
  
  http://cider.athabascau.ca/sessions 
  
  
  http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/elearning/bank.html
  
  
  http://www.cforp.ca
  
  
  http://www.learnquebec.ca/home
  
  
  https://bclearningnetwork.com
  
  
  http://ocr.openschool.bc.ca
  
  
  http://teachbc.bctf.ca

One Day Late

I have subscribed to a couple of listserves and groups to enhance and extend my awareness about all things OPEN. The Open Education Digest sends me information weekly. I can collect them, return to them and link from them to areas of interest. Last week, because of my marking schedule, I put the newsletter aside and got to it today, only to discover that I had missed the day! Yesterday was the tenth anniversary date of the CapeTown Declaration. As I open the document outlining the ten key directions to move open education forward, I am delighted to see several that impact my movement into the OPEN.

I sent an application to join the GO-GN network and received a lovely email response today from Dr. Bea de los Arcos welcoming me to the community. I am happy to join this group since I know there will be lots of support as I venture into the PhD programme. I applied to this group without indicating that I am soon to be a student working toward a PhD so I was accepted on my merits as an openly active educator, which makes me feel even more welcomed. As I checked out the GO-GN twitter stream, I noticed this retweet from Rajiv Jhangiani leading to this report by Rory McGreal about Open Education Resources (OER) Applications from Around the World.

Autoethnography

While I'm pondering the nature of my action research, scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) project for the OER Fellows commitment, I've been reading about autoethnographical research. This form of academic inquiry fits this purpose and my style, but as I'm reading, several BIG questions and ideas are coming to light.

I've just finished reading 'Easier Said Than Done: Writing an Autoethnography by Sarah Wall (2008). In this work she shares her experiences in writing an autoethnographic work. The acceptability of her writing to the formal and informal reviewers, for both academic and journal publications caught my attention. Since I can anticipate that my story about open educational practices could become published works or potentially lead to further academic research, I will need to attend to some of the issues outlined by Wall.

An autoethnography, as outlined by Ellis (2000), should

• fully engage a reader in the flow of the story
• offer something new understandings of the context of the story
• share discoveries and author's insights 

Wall shares a realization that her work would need to "connect my personal experiences explicitly to relevant theory and 'legitimate' method". These are words of caution for me as I venture into self reflection about course design, open teaching methodologies, and sharing in open spaces.

Sources of data for autoethnographies were explored. These include interviews, observational field notes, documents, artifact analysis, research diaries, records, articles, letters, personal notes. The artifacts that are of most interest to me include reflective journals, emails, memos and sketches. Memories are also valid for autoethnographies. The notion of "head notes" was something new that caught my attention. Wall states that "headnotes are more important than field notes". With a reference to Margaret Mead, it speaks to my position in this SoTL work I'm attempting to capture - long acquaintance with her field of study and her 'lived consciousness' where she can "perceive and record aspects of lived experience that nobody else could".

Next Steps:

• more reading about autoethnography
• examine what data and/or artifacts should I be collecting? - i.e. tweets with/from students?
• continue sketch-noting observations and readings as artifacts of reflection in the open

References:

Ellis, C. (2000). Creating criteria: An ethnographic short story. Qualitative Inquiry, 6(2), 273-
277.

Wall, S. (2008). Easier said than done: Writing an autoethnography. International Institute for Qualitative Methodology, University of Alberta. Retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/160940690800700103

Functional Art - Chapter One and Two

The Functional Art by Alberto Cairo  Chapter 1 and 2 - graphic visualizations for reflection.

Chapter TWO 

Participatory Culture

This past week the focus for the classes I've taught has been on the concept of 'participatory culture' with resources from Henry Jenkins.
"Further to this, Jenkins, Purushotma, Weigel & Clinton (2009), in their book Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, outline the features of a participatory culture." MDL4000 - Winter Term 2.1 along with this image adapted from this work.

This now connects to some reading I'm doing from Catherine Cronin - Opening up Open Pedagogy, where she's defining open learning, open pedagogies. She mentions participatory culture which caught my attention. How do these defining characteristics connect to open pedagogies and assessments.

1. low barriers to artistic expression - educators can create and prepare creative lesson designs in a variety of contexts using video, audio, text and iconographic media. 
2. strong support for creating and sharing with others - in the open educational movement there are many others to reach out to when creating or conceptualizing teaching and learning. The most recognizable forum is in the OER textbook production area. The less active group creating and sharing areas are in syllabus creating and assessment designs, but my experience reaching out to Laura Gibbs for her open assessment design is one such example.
3. informal membership - Virtually Connecting is an example of how this works in the open
4. what is known is passed from experienced to novice - within the open educational communities, those who are working in open pedagogies are sharing their expertise with those who are shifting their teaching practice. Digital Pedagogy Lab is one such space where experienced and novice work together for a 3-5 day immersive learning experience.
5. members believe their contributions matter - for those who engage and support the VC community, they feel that their contributions provide opportunities for access to conference knowledge building conversations.
6. members feel socially connected - through the use of social media, members feel they know each other. When they do get to meet in physical contexts, the conversations pick up from those in digital spaces
7. not every member must contribute - within open educational communities, there is no pressure to participate, with invitations and opportunities provided where and when individuals are interested or ready to join. The OEORangers is one example of the invitational call which led to the OER Fellows to support and engage those who responded to the invitation to participate at a deeper level.

Are all open pedagogical advocates aware of participatory culture characteristics?

References
Cronin, C. (2017, April 24). Opening up open pedagogies. Retrieved from https://catherinecronin.net/research/opening-up-open-pedagogy/

Voices in the Air

Yesterday, the podcast that I had recorded with Sarah Lalonde last Friday, went on the air. The conversation was tweeted out to my students and several took time to listen. Some connected conversation happened in class today as a followup. Episode 35: Digital and Media Literacies

Today, as part of my class time, some students who wanted to try podcasting, were given the opportunity to do so. During this time, one student made the decision to also participate - confirming my believe that, given a safe and supportive environment, students will engage in using technologies and media that they may not have tried otherwise. I'm modelling and my students are engaging, moving into the open.

Moving mountains

I've used this title as the hook to my conference proposal for the Creative Commons Global Summit.

It's also been trickling through my mind in connection to podcasting and teaching the media class. Last night I had set up a google hangout with a teacher candidate, Sarah L. in Ottawa, to talk to my class about podcasting. Since it connected to the topic of participatory culture and new media, it was timely. She spoke for about ten minutes and then the questions started - as posted in a backchannel in Todays Meet, which everyone could see from their laptops. This talk went longer than anticipated, but it was student centered and focused on their participation in new media spaces.

A few students had also created a short sound file, or radio bumper, for VoiceEd.ca which I took, imported and worked with a music track to enhance the clip, and returned to them, as well as sending off to Stephen Hurley to use with his radio shows. Participation in action.

A few students have created a blog post for their making media assignment that they are tweeting out to other Ontario educators through the #OneWordONT project. One has also added their blog post to the Google Plus community set up for this activity. Again, participation in media spaces where other professionals and educators are engaging in conversations together.

It's not a push or pull action for the students or myself, more of an invitation to play. I set up the 'sandbox' and invite others to join WITH me as we try these media making opportunities together. The benefits is that they (the students) will leave at the end of this term with a connected network in participatory spaces where they can continue to chose to engage - in the open!

A read/write routine

As part of this open work, I'm trying to slip into a daily routine of reading something about open education, open practices AND writing something here in this blog every day. That's my goal. I'm not doing too badly, but the writing may shift and streamline as I get into the habit.

Yesterday I did read - chapter one in The Functional Art, and I did write - the chapter summary. But from an article I'd read previously, I did a quick sketchnote to capture the key points and ideas. The article was "What Millennials Demand from Education, by Professor Vermeulen: How Teaching has Changed in a Digital Age". The link to this article came from Rola who tagged me in Twitter. I read and retweeted, but then went back and reread to create a penciled concept map of key points. I redid the map using markers and crayons, and included a Creative Commons license and reference to the original article within the sketchnote. I'll take a photo using my iPhone, airdrop to my computer so I have it within my collection of sketchnotes. I'll also post it to Flickr where I'm curating my sketchnotes with CC licensing for re-use and re-mix by others. That's also where I'll include the original hyperlink to the article. Part of my practice in building these connections and interlinking web is to download or save articles as PDF files (deleting them once I've finished building the links) but making sure I've included the hyperlink within the pdf file so I can find the original source quickly.

I've decided that I'm going to do a series of graphics and maps for the book The Functional Art. I'll post them on a blog site and link them into a post here as I create them. I'll take a look at the Functional Art website and blog created by the author, Alberto Cairo.

This really does link back to the blog post I just wrote about The Web We Weave - Curation in Action. I'm weaving as I share in the open.

Models and Matrices

IN conversation with Jenni, she mentioned Rogers model of diffusion of innovations. In the article I read this morning it was mentioned as well - Extending the Territory: From open educational resources to open educational practices - so I've done a bit of checking and reading to find out more.

• Diffusion of Innovation on Wikipedia 

The article provides a definition of OEP which is useful for comparison purposes. Ehlers also describes matrices that outline constitutive elements of OEP and the diffusion of OEP. The OEP model is an interesting link for further examination on an individual basis. (adaptation and some rewording is done)

Positioning YOU in the OEP trajectory

1. to what extent are you using OER
2. do you have a process for creating OER
3. to what extent are you repurposing OER
4. to what extent are you sharing OER and OEP
5. to what extent are you working with open learning architecture

Creating a vision of openness and a strategy for OEP (for YOU)

1. do you have a vision for OEP
2. do you have strategies and procedures for OEP
3. do you have a model in place
4. are you involved in any partnerships or collaborations
5. what is the perceived relevance of your OEP work

Implementing and promoting OEP to transform learning

1. do you have an intellectual property rights, copyright and creative commons understanding for OER
2. do you have incentives or motivational frameworks
3. is your OEP work aligned to your practice
4. are you committed to OEP and do you have the right mindset and attitude
5. do you have tools to support sharing and exchanging about OEP
6. do you have quality mechanisms in place
7. what level of knowledge and skills do you have
8. what level of digital literacies do you have
9. do you have mechanisms in place to support yourself or students to develop OEP

I'll certainly take these questions for further reflection as I move deeper into self analysis of my work in open educational practices.

In Conversation

I truly enjoy learning in conversation with others. Sharing ideas, actions, insights all add to my own thinking, actions and curated resources. So, the first conversations I had this week with the OER Fellows, with some of the OEORangers, and with Jenni Hayman, all added to my knowledge construction.

The opportunity to meet for the first time with the OER Fellows, in Zoom, was great. We are a diverse set of open advocates with varying skills, fluencies and contexts. The plan is to next meet in person to do a deeper dive into our collective understanding of what it means to be an open educator in Ontario. We'll explore how we can support the open movement (OEM) to adopt and adapt open resources (OER) as we shift teaching and learning into open pedagogies and practices (OEP).

The conversation with others in the OEORangers group is a means to breaking out of institutional silos where work is often done in isolation with no ripples outward to other organizations of higher education. This conversation creates ripples across the college/university divide and builds connections between individuals (faculty, staff) who are openly advocating for access and adoption of OER.

In chatting with Jenni Hayman, I was able to dip deeper into my own work as an OER Fellow and try to understand my position in the 'grand scheme of things'. We shared ideas, contacts, interesting details and common interests. Planning for a series of webinars over the coming year fits into what I hope to accomplish and we tentatively looked at early July as faculty begin course design and syllabus production. Other bits of the conversation included:

• Bento Box series - 12 apps of Christmas as mentioned in the Catch
• Becoming an open educator - UK Open Education site; OEPScotland; Lorna Campbell
• Christina Peters - #GoOpen Fellow in the US; 20 states using OER?; zero professional learning about OER or OEP
• BCCampus OER toolkit (need to take a look for this)
• CCGlobal summit - she's working on session to develop mini-modules on OER and SDGs as learning outcomes, tied to UNESCO work; connected to Rory McGreal and Pedro ? from Peru as mentors
• EdX course on Media Literacy - Dan Gillmore on YouTube doing interviews with media experts such as Mimi Ito
• Roger's diffusion of innovation being applied to her research work on Open is an Invitation: Sense Making and OER. 
• REB (research ethics board) approval process takes 4 times longer than you think; each institution has their own process; 
• she's working with approval and distribution through teacher/learning centers to recruit participants in her study with pre-questions, workshops, webinar, post questions - has letter sent out already but awaiting REB from four institutions she's working with.

Curation as a critical literacy

Nope, I'm NOT Nostradamus! How online pop-ups can make individual users feel like luddites or idiots when using their 'open' resources is a lesson for all open educational resource curators to remember. Customer service and design principles need to be applied to curated resources for higher education faculty and staff who are interested in using OER, learning about OEM and building on OEP.

In an article (where the Nostradamus pop-up happened) this statement caught my attention because of a connection to some thinking about curation as a critical digital literacy:
"Because faculty are the ones who plan courses and teach using these materials, OER’s points-of-access needs to be designed for them. They need to know where to go to find the best OER materials. Once they get there, all the essential information needs to be at hand: which textbooks and resources are available, how to best combine materials, what devices are supported, how to get technical support, and what will the cost be for faculty and students."

This can also be said for building a collection of OEP - practices, pedagogies and purposes - for the OER's that are applied to course design. It's one thing to put an OER into the course, but a whole other side to how that is being used to engage and enhance learning experiences. This ultimately is a call for those in the OEM - movement, makers, mindful educators - to openly share WHY and HOW they are using OER in their teaching.

Voices Echoing in the Open

Yesterday, there were many interconnecting waves (sound waves, twitter streams) where voices echoed outward into the open. The 'tens of listeners' who may have heard the echo, may have gained insight or had an idea resonate for them. These voices certainly were opportunities to share my work, teaching, learning and experiences in the OPEN. Now I'll take a critical look and listen to see what I'm saying.

The Getting Air radio podcast that I had recorded with Terry Greene was published and shared on VoiceEd.ca while on the same day, I had agreed to be interviewed by Sarah Lalonde for her VoiceEd podcast show Que Sera Sarah? When networks and PLNs overlap, I thought to myself.

The podcast was mentioned in the OEORangers (#OEORangers) online meeting (using Zoom) right after Terry sent out some tweets about the episode. Sarah saw this tweet and made a connection. This enriched our conversation about the courses I teach at the Faculty of Education.

Love listening to this podcast as I get ready to speak with @hj_dewaard on #QueSeraSarah tonight ! Thanks for sharing Terry. https://t.co/I3TnmysEQW

— Sarah Anne Lalonde (@sarahlalondee) January 12, 2018

So, my next step is to transcribe these two conversations to see and hear what I really did say and how I said it..... as part of my action research. The hope is that I can reflect deeper by listening deeply. I've done this in reverse where I've written a blog post (Why I Listen, Your Voice is Compelling), then recorded it in order to think more deeply and write more accurately, as a reflective practice.

In terms of critical digital literacy, this falls into many categories:

• code breaking - figuring out how audio recording tools and devices create podcasts (Zencastr, Audacity, file formats, microphone inputs, settings on computer and software, editing options
• meaning making - relating, interpersonal, tone, voice, context, expressing, multi-authored, modes of communication, translate
• use & understand - creating, artefacts, confidence, explore, networks, audience, applying tools
• analyzing - deconstructing messages, analyzing authorship, questioning impact
• persona - building identity, multiple facets, participating asynchronous and synchronous, managing reputation, community (within open eduators), language and content

Your Inner Superhero Awaits

The eCampus Ontario THE CATCH is a newsletter that is published in the open and shares ideas, tips, and resources for anyone in higher education, but these can also be applied to teaching and learning in K-12 contexts in some way. This week's Catch included a couple of little items that I had shared - another way to curate and collect in open digital spaces.

The Open Source Super Hero Characters, which are recognized to be open source and in the public domain, caught my eye. I immediately found one on the main page listing, that I'll weave into my course in the coming weeks - Storyteller. Once on the page for the character, there is an image, their origin story, and a description of their powers & abilities. At the bottom of the page is this note: "Storyteller is an open source character created specifically for use by anyone. Feel free to use it any way you wish, author citations are not necessary."

Following the links for the image, I was able to download a full sized version for use in my course context, with a proviso to include the following statement when using the image: "The character of (Character Name) is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving (Character Name), in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed."

So for educators working on opening their pedagogical practices, there is a need for conversations about how to weave this type of resource into their course as a mechanism to engage students. I plan to use this character as a catalyst for the student's digital storytelling project and provide the link so students can find their own superhero, read their origin story and perhaps build a storyline with  classmates about their superhero's journey.

For educators working on opening their pedagogical practices, there is a need for a curated set of open source, public domain, Creative Commons licensed resources, such as the superhero characters. The challenge is finding the right resource at the right time. That's why newsletters and mail lists are an invaluable tool for teachers, educators and designers if they are openly shared.

Finding it in my stream

"Every metaphor does four things: 

It creates something new; it obsoletes something old; 

it rekindles something from the past, and it sets the stage for its own reversal."

Marshall McLuhan

This morning I received an email. This led to a twitter search for one of the people included in the email chain, someone new to my networks who has similar interests (@sam_bruzzese). This lead to looking at the twitter stream from this other individual to examine interests and activities. Which led me to an insightful tweet with a link. This link was to a document written by Marshall McLuhan in 1957 titled Classrooms Without Walls.

After reading this, I immediately returned to twitter and re-tweeted to send it out to others, tagging some individuals who may find it interesting, along with hashtags to extend the conversation. In the world of open, connected learning, this is how ideas and knowledge is built and disseminated. Over time, one share or one conversation at a time. The importance is to tag people in your network who may be interested in seeing the document or information. AND THAT is the challenge! Knowing your 'audience' in media terms. Knowing your network in connected learning terms. Responsive PLNing in digital circles.

With this one event, it heightens my awareness of the responsibility I have to share to people, not just circles or networks, but to individuals in my particular spheres of influence. This takes time, but it also requires me to dig a little deeper to find the connections when algorithms fail to find them. I rechecked twitter handles and hashtags, revisited email links, and even back checked the original site where the document was found in order to verify it's source. This led me to the Thornburg Center and a collection of other handouts from David Thornburg's collection of notes and presentations.

The 'feedback' from sharing the tweet continued, with some people sharing a quote that was meaningful (making meaning).

Bridging a divide

Today I participated in a Ministry of Education "Building Futures" day where the professional development topics are presented to teacher candidates by members of the Ministry of Education education officers and regional managers. The opportunity to bridge the divide from K-12 to higher ed is one that doesn't often come up often. One session was titled Innovation Design Process: Design Thinking in Classrooms and Schools. This was interesting because of the connection to my work in course design and Ideo course work that I've done in the past, not to mention the number of students in the room whom I've taught in some course or another.

At the end of this session, I thought it would be really interesting to have students design a course for media and or digital literacies WITH me rather than me designing it solely alone. It would also be interesting to see if this could be done in a 'sprint' style session similar to the sprint done by Claire Coulter and Ali Versluis with others from eCampus Ontario.

Meeting for the first time

As I begin this work as an OER Fellow, I'm aware of others who are on this journey with me. As we held our first collaborative meeting today, I'm happy to have experiences with others on these paths. Even though our starting points are different, our landscapes will vary and our destinations will not be in similar locations. It's not quite an affinity space, more like a band of intrepid travels finding company along the journey. We'll have common events and experiences in the coming months, but it will be a process of reflection that will make the difference for my own practice. How I share this journey may help map things so others who wish to traverse similar paths have possible route guides and markers. So my journey with intrepid travellers has begun.

Couros - PLN's and open teaching

Today, I've read the chapter from Alec Couros titled Developing Personal Learning Networks for Open and Social Learning (see references below). There is lots in this article that I saw reflected in my own teaching. As he lays our the theoretical frameworks, these mirror my own. As he describes the decisions made in course design are similar to my own. What really caught my attention was the description of open teaching:

"the facilitation of learning experiences that are open, transparent, collaborative, and social. Open teachers are advocates of a free and open knowledge society, and support their students in the critical consumption, production, connections and synthesis of knowledge through the shared development of learning networks." (Couros, p 115)

Couros provides a listing of typical activities which resemble those I have integrated into the courses I teach. Since this was written prior to my courses being developed, and the research was conducted as I was completing my MET, I am aware of the influence of this seminal work in the work I currently conduct in the Faculty of Education. (Analysis - interrogating, ideology, authorship, content, questioning)

References

Couros, A. (?) Developing personal learning networks for open and social learning. Chapter 6
Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120177/ebook/06_Veletsianos_2010-Emerging_Technologies_in_Distance_Education.pdf 

Veletsianos, G. ed. (2010). Emerging technologies in distance education. Athabasca University Press. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120177

Actions & Reflections

I've been tracking the CDL3239 students as they join into the Slack space and sending out a personal welcome using the @ function in the WELCOME channel. I haven't received any responses to these welcome messages nor have any of the students added any message of their own, other than one student who added a message about where she was located (since this is a course offered to TCs (teacher candidates) from both geographic locations). I've also been following and reviewing the survey results - with only 13 responses so far out of the 36 students in the course. Interesting to see the preliminary graphics and looking forward to more. I'm surprised so far with the fluencies demonstrated but maybe this is a result of the 'early adopters' phenomenon - those who respond first tend to be early adopters of tech and more comfortable with taking initiative? (Analyzing)

I'm also making some changes and adjustments to the MDL4000 course site prior to the upcoming face to face classes. I've reached out, using direct messaging on Twitter, to a TC in the Ottawa area who is active on Twitter, has participated in a number of openly accessible podcasts through VoiceEd.ca, and who has recently updated her web presence. She has agreed to drop into one of my classes (using Google Hangouts) to talk to my class about what she's been doing. My goal is to have students connect to others in the early stages of the profession who are models of active, open teaching practice as well as build connections for their own PLNs. If I bring these connections into focus, perhaps some of the students will revisit their blog sites with renewed interest in building their digital persona (part of the Persona component of CDL) and possibly even participate in the TC2 podcast series on VoiceEd Radio. (Use & Create) (Persona - identity building)

This ties into the Dial-It-Up diagram for the CLOSED - OPEN continuum. There are varying degrees of closed and open in each component of the courses I teach and how students participate in the course activities. For both courses, my approach if not one of coercion but more of active encouragement, supportive exploration, and models that show I have also tried these activities and that I have reflected on the experiences in open, digital spaces e.g. my blog, twitter. I tend to place opportunities and choices into the classes and activities or embed them within the assignment requirements rather than force students into spaces or places that are less comfortable or ones that they may not be ready to explore.

For example, Slack is a required space for the CDL3239 course but participation is specifically linked to collaborative feedback in small groups. Posting a response to the whole group in one of the open channels is not part of the grading or expectations. Posting a response in their small group conversations is graded, but only as a component of their overall project. It's an open opportunity that some engage in but others limit their participation to just the required contributions. There is choice and agency built into the expectations in the use of this digital tool, with code breaking as part of the process built into the course design.

For the MDL4000 course, participation in podcasting is not part of the evaluation unless students chose to explore this form of media production as part on a media-making assignment. Since some may not be comfortable with voice recordings, I do not require them all to do a podcast. But I have recently done a podcast for a VoiceEd.ca radio show, titled Getting Air, I share this with my students as a model. I bring into the classroom activities others (such as Sarah L) who are trying new media productions in their professional practices in order to build digital identity. Included in this is time in class for exploration into code-breaking using voice recording tools such as Audacity and GarageBand. Since I do require students to create a blog site as part of their course assignments, I provide choice and agency in how these blogs are used and how privacies/permissions are applied. I do not evaluate students code breaking abilities in blogging fluency. Rather, I look at the content that is relevant to the media and digital literacies that are part of the course teaching, as well as the progress over time, since the four required blog posts are required over a period of six-seven months. (Meaning Making - reading, relating, expressing).

This links back to Cronin's diagram for making decisions in the continuum from CLOSED to OPEN and how I, as the educator/instructor, negotiate through the macro, meso, micro and nano levels.

• Will I share openly? - my podcast; my voice in Slack; whole group or small group channels
• Who will I share with? - other TC's in other faculties; other faculty members in my own faculty; other faculties in Ontario and beyond; other educators in open spaces
• Who will I share as? - my persona as instructor at faculty of education; as a K-12 educator; as a fellow explorer in open spaces; as an OER eCampus fellow
• Will I share this? - deciding what to share and where to share it....to blog here in this space, on my professional blog space, on my course blog spaces (there is a blog attached to each of the course websites) and/or on my closed, private, journal spaces; will I share this on Twitter?

Cronin comes into focus

I'm reading (meaning making) and deconstructing (analyzing) Catherine Cronin's article Open Education, Open Questions in order to better understand the layers and levels she describes for open "individuals seek to balance privacy and openness in their use of social and participatory technologies at four levels (see figure 3): macro (global level), meso (community/network level), micro (individual level), and nano (interaction level)."

C. Cronin, CC SA

The graphic clarifies the negotiations that individuals (me, my students) continually make when teaching and learning with/about digital literacies. This is compounded by the pressures all educators face as they venture into the public eye of the profession. Teachers candidates who are new to the profession are negotiating through even tougher decisions as their persona as a student shifts to one of being a public teacher. Their decisions are based on multiple levels of emotional responses beyond the course requirements I may establish for them to shift into public, digital spaces. For example, I don't require my students to sign up and use Twitter but I do require them to sign up and use a blog as part of the course assignments. In creating their blog space, I do not require the students to make their blog public so many keep their settings on private or turn of search optimizations. I invite the students at two points in the course to allow me to link their blog sites to the course site - once at mid point and again at the end of the course. I don't assign specific topics for their blog responses but do require four submissions over the duration of the course. Many will post extensively and build the blog as a learning repository, while others may only do the required posts. For me, blogging allows the students to model and experience identity building, reputation management and digital participation, all elements of the critical digital literacy of persona.

Maybe I should include this graphic into my teaching - it may help students understand that everyone is in the practice of negotiating many layers within digital spaces. Something to consider.

NOTES:

Cronin, C. (2017, October 17). Open education, open questions. Educause Review. Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/10/open-education-open-questions  

The graphic is licensed under Creative Commons and openly available at https://www.slideshare.net/cicronin/open-culture-open-education-open-questions/24 

SoTL - what is it ... really?

Just reading a bit more about what this action research project is and how I should conduct this work. A colleague in the faculty shared her reflection on the process and outcomes of some work she had done while quilt making. She wrote "I kept a journal of my reflections while quilt-making. I analyzed my journal entries and developed themes that communicate what I think are important about the process and outcomes". I'll need to talk to her further about this project and how she conducted the analysis of her journal entries. (analyzying - interrogating, selecting, deconstructing). 

Reading about the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), I came across a description that clarifies the difference between good teaching, scholarly teaching and the scholarship of teaching & learning (see reference below, page 38). This one statement caught my attention "Teachers engaged in SoTL projects frame research questions, systematically gather and explore evidence, reflect on and refine new ideas, and craft the results in a form that is suitable for public presentation and peer review (Cambridge, 2001; Christensen Hughes, 2005)." This helps me reframe my thinking about what I'm going to do, but I need to carefully rethink the research question to make sure it leads my data gathering, not the other way around. This particular document is a good one to come back to for re-reading. Lots of great information here. (analyzing - interrogating; meaning making - reading)

I'm also reading and locating resources about research methodologies to clarify the steps I'll need to take in this action research project. Since I want to focus on my own teaching practice, I'll need to be aware of data management and analysis methodologies that will apply to this form of research. The document linked below has some descriptions as well as links to resources and books that can be helpful.

Reference:

Elgie, S., Childs, R., Fenton, N., Levy, B. A., Lopes, V., Szala-Meneok, K., & Wiggers, R. D. (2012). Researching Teaching and Student Outcomes in Postsecondary Education: A Guide. Toronto: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. Retrieved from http://www.heqco.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/HEQCO%20Researching_Student_Outcomes%20ENG.pdf 

Thinking about PLE's

I've been re-visiting this graphic I designed for a conference presentation last fall with a new frame of reference. How do I use these dials with my own work with students in classes or even with faculty when advocating for opening their educational framework. How does the factors impact decisions. Is there a connection between these factors and the critical digital literacies outlined by Hinrichsen and Coombs? Lots of little threads floating but not really weaving into anything yet... more thinking to come. Meaning making in action - relating disparate elements into something that makes sense.
Here's the graphic:

• Coming back to this graphic one day later, to add some details that I had handwritten before I'd started this blog space.

As I begin this research journal, I'll look at how I 'dial it up' into open education spaces, connect to the open educational movement, and how my teaching practice models open pedagogy. The goal is to openly capture my thinking, decisions, fluencies, and critical digital literacies on multiple levels. Catherine Cronin outlines these levels as macro, meso, micro and nano. 

• macro - global
• meso - community/network
• micro - individual
• nano - interactions

The sliding scales on the graphic depict the movement along a continuum based on influencing factors. These impact my teaching and learning with/about critical digital literacies in implicit and explicit ways. I'll examine each of these elements on the continuum in separate blog posts in the coming month.

Just a little SLACK

This is the second time I'll be using SLACK as a back channel conversation space for an online course. The course is Critical Digital Literacy. It is offered to Faculty of Education students in both Orillia and Thunder Bay. Students also range from PJ to IS (primary junior to intermediate senior) so they will bring a variety of skills and interests into the course. The main course site is built on the external web and mirrored within Desire to Learn, the learning management system, but last year I tried using Slack as a less formal, conversational space where students could interact and provide feedback to each other on their project work without feeling they needed to have their responses in sentence, paragraph, logical sequences where every word counts.

In order to differentiate between these two spaces, I use the words discussion & comments when referring to D2L and the word conversation & feedback when referencing Slack contributions. Since I wasn't as consistent in differentiating the purpose of these two digital spaces some students were confused about how and when to post in each of the locations. In both spaces, I structure groups to reduce the volume of posts and responses but the groups are structured differently in each of these digital learning environments.

Before the students are introduced to SLACK, I send out an email informing them of this alternative digital space and provide a two-page How-To-Guide that includes links to helpful video tutorials. Even if students have used Slack, this is a new application with new terminology and actions to take. As part of the critical digital literacy 'using' - problem solving and 'code breaking' - common operations, conventions.

Once the initial email has been sent, I follow up with the invitation from within Slack to the students - emailed to them within the application. As students enter into the space, I welcome them with a personal @mention. I've included an avatar image created in Bitmoji to enhance the playfulness of the space. This is also evident in the 'channels' that all students join when they accept the invitation - welcome, fun-but-random, q&a, sharing, tweeting. I'll structure the groups once the majority have responded to the introduction survey so I can combine students who may know each other or can support each other through similar interests.

The formality of the D2L space is evident in the formal language I choose to use in the welcoming announcement that students will receive when they enter the course learning management space.

Getting Air Time

Today - I'm listening to VoiceEd.ca radio show done by Terry Greene titled Getting Air (among others) to prep for my air-time debut. I've agreed to go on Terry's eCampus Ontario radio podcast. I'm jotting some notes to some of his common questions and lining up my 'must mention' items:

• think about what I do, where I work, how I teach and learn
• how I ended up in open educational spaces - OER, OEM, OEP
• metaphors for OPEN e.g. music
• connections in my PLN - bubbles that collide
• research connections - Hinrichsen & Coombs, Catherine Cronin, Veletsianos, Siemens, etc.

Next steps: re-connect with VoiceEd.ca organizer Stephen Hurley to get set up for blogging with/for this audience.

Quotes for reflection

Two quotes I've jotted down that are worthy of reflection:

• "Students acquire agency when teachers "create the conditions under which agency can flourish"" Will Richardson - blog post Playing at Agency
• "This is the right of agency. It does not give us power over another but gives us mastery over ourselves. And an education that does not encourage or facilitate this agency is not education." Sean Micheal Morris (http://www.seanmichaelmorris.com/)

Next steps:

1. also read Hospitality and Agency by Sean Michael Morris
2. talk to Terry Greene about application to host a Digital Pedagogy Lab session in Ontario.

Let it Begin

Here I go... my first journal style blog. I'll try to quick write to capture my actions, thinking, events and readings as I begin my research journey.

Purpose: Beginning my action research into open educational practices with a focus on critical digital literacies.

Today: toughest part of starting is picking the mechanism for doing this. I've chosen Blogger, connected to my personal gmail account since this will connect to other Google tools I am familiar using and have come to rely on in my digital toolkit. So, integration of tools and apps is the deciding factor. So, this connects to CODE BREAKING as a critical digital literacy - knowing affordances of each tool and how these affordances can support what I need to do, how I want them to work.

Next steps:

1. re-read and highlight the article by Catherine Cronin (catherinecronin.net) Openness and Praxis: Exploring the Use of Open Educational Practices in Higher Education. 
2. review the graphics I've done for Hinrichsen & Coombs article on Critical Digital Literacy (PDF file found here)
3. begin re-building my domain website to streamline and focus (frame) my teaching and learning