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.
