New framework for open - CARE

I've been caught up in a conversation - well, as digital conversations go - about a framework for stewardship of open educational resources (OER). This started with a tweet from Jim Luke (@econproph) that was retweeted by Robin DeRosa (@actualham). The blog post Jim wrote [OER, CARE, Stewardship, and the Commons] caught my attention since I knew nothing about the framework being described. I noticed that Jim will be speaking at both the OER18 and OEGlobal conferences coming up in April.

So I began to read and dig a little deeper.

The framework comes from Lisa Petrides, Douglas Levin and C. Edward Watson - Toward a sustainable OER ecosystem: The case for OER stewardship. It proposes the following:

"The purpose of the CARE Framework is to articulate a set of shared values 

and a collective vision for the future of education and learning enabled 

by the widespread adoption and use of OER. It aims to address

the question of how an individual, institution, or organization 

seeking to be a 

good steward can contribute to the growth 

and sustainability of the 

OER movement 

consistent with the community’s values."

The article continues to expand on the role of stewards to contribute, attribute, release and empower.  These roles are described as a 'duty of care to the broader OER movement'.

The framework is discussed by David Wiley in a blog post [The CARE Framework] where he makes several interesting points. His followup post [The CARE Framework, Take 2] continues the discussion. I appreciate Wiley's belief to 'release early & release often' since it brings attention to a topic worthy of examination. I'm not sure I would have found this without the various tweets referencing this topic. Wiley begins by clarifying his stance - he likes the framework.

Ah, to be a fly on the wall when Jim Luke meets up with David Wiley at OER18!

Stephen Downes weighs in on the discussion with two blog posts - The CARE Framework, and Schrodinger's OER - both being a brief response to David Wiley's blog post. He states that OER can be destroyed without stewardship that will respect, protect and not destroy it. He points out the threat of 'conversion' which impacts OER and OEM. This led me to a post by Stephen about defining OER - Open educational resources: A definition. This one I'll keep for future reference.

My take on the CARE framework - its an interesting addition to the conversation and puts the responsibility squarely on the individuals and organizations in the movement. If thinking about stewardship is the right focus, then there is lots that can be shaped by other stewardship movements such as global climate change and the environmental movement.

References

Downes, S. (2018, March 15). Schrodinger's OER. [Weblog post]. Retrieved from http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=67896

Downes, S. (2018, March 15). The CARE framework. [Weblog post]. Retrieved from http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=67893

Downes, S. (2011, Jul 14). Open educational resources: A definition. [Weblog post]. Retrieved from http://www.downes.ca/post/57915 

Luke, J. (2018, March 17). OER, CARE, stewardship, and the commons. [blog post] Retrieved from https://econproph.com/2018/03/17/oer-care-stewardship-and-the-commons/

Petrides, L., Levin, D., & Watson, C. E. (2018, March 4). Toward a sustainable OER ecosystem: The case for OER stewardship. [blog post] Retrieved from https://careframework.org/

Wiley, D. (2017, March 19). The CARE framework, take 2 [Weblog post]. Retrieved from https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/5528

Wiley, D. (2017, March 9). The CARE framework. [Weblog post]. Retrieved from https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/5487

Where do I start?

I'm struggling with decision anxiety these days.

It's as if I've never done this before, but I have. It's as if I've never had these issues before, but I have. I'm opening up a Domain of One's Own through Reclaim Hosting - it's a gift of ownership and agency from eCampus Ontario. It's an opportunity to start over, begin anew, build my persona with care and intention. Be at the helm of it all - push and pull, flip the switch, start the engines. It's a surprisingly scary place to be for someone who's been blogging, tweeting and building course sites for many years.

BUT WHERE DO I START?

This is probably what every newbie shouts when they first start blogging, or join twitter, or connect through Facebook, or any of those other social media spaces. I thought it would be easier than it is - each decision hinges on the one before. Each layer builds on the level already created. I'm reluctant to start or shift things around, but I know I will. I just need to figure out where to start. Which dial or lever needs my attention first.

In reflection on this in relation to my own teaching practice and my learning in the open, I'm wondering how to re-build courses under my new domain, or even if I should. I'm wondering how my previous domain can be disconnected or even if it should. Once you've got a digital footprint, or tattoo, how do you go about shifting it when you want to reclaim and revise the image or impression. In this digital world that doesn't forget, how do you reshape the space you call your own? I'm about to find out.

I've started with the 'splash page' where it's very basic info about me. From there, I created a new blog and connected it to a subdomain. Now I'm looking at the design and structure of my MAIN blog site as a representation of me. From there, I'll see how my previous WordPress blog site - Five Flames 4 Learning - can be integrated into the domain architecture and nestled into the cPanel space. Little steps, exploring the dials for now. More tinkering and playing to come.

Putting it in the Bank

Part of the Extend East activities includes adding ideas and thoughts to the 'bank' of information available to other extenders. For each module, there are a variety of activities or teaching & learning tasks to select from - it'll become a rich repository of great ideas, crowd sourced from extending participants.

The six modules follow the framework set up by this graphic [CC licensed] that outline mindsets and actions required by educators in current higher education contexts. These include

• Teacher for learning
• Curator
• Technologist
• Collaborator
• Scholar
• Experimenter

These are not new to me, but I'm engaging with them as an experienced educator who has more to learn. Since there are many opportunities in these modules to enrich my perspectives and reframe my understanding, I'm engaging as much as I can. I'll continue to contribute to the bank and keep a record of my 'deposits' to track my 'return on investments'.

My first four 'deposits' include

• Misunderstood

  Analogy for Learning

  https://extend-bank.ecampusontario.ca/examples/analogy-for-learning/

• Concept Map

  Mapping it out

  https://extend-bank.ecampusontario.ca/examples/mapping-it-out/

• Cornell Notes

  Combining strategies

  https://extend-bank.ecampusontario.ca/examples/combining-strategies-cornell-and-sketching/

• Driving a Car

  Lesson Plans

  https://extend-bank.ecampusontario.ca/examples/lesson-plans-are-like-learning-how-to-drive-a-car/

The first one, a blog post, caught the attention of Doug Peterson, who talked about this with Stephen Hurley on VoicEd Canada in their weekly podcast This Week in Ontario Edublogs. I happened to see the notification on Twitter and caught the live radio show, but will now go back and link in the 'banked' recording. I'm always excited when my blogs extend beyond and catch other's attention. I'm humbled by the power and potential of sharing my words and what they may mean to others.

Keeping Track #OExtend - Daily extends week one

At the end of the first week as an Eastender Extender, I can honestly say I'm having fun. It's not quite a MOOC but it's got me doing things, creating things, building connections and getting feedback on what's happening.

First: the daily extenders. These are quick tweets done daily to connect to conversations about the topic of the day. These usually take a few minutes to create and then a quick check in a few times a day to see what others' are saying. So far, it's been an interesting conversation:

• oext103 - an everyday metaphor for extend [Metaphorically speaking!! Breaking out of the snow and cold!]
• oext104 - Fit a big ambition on a post it note [Build global digital citizenship understanding]
• oext105 - What can you say except.... You're welcome. Share something that deserves gratitude [Rules of Netiquette graphic]
• oext106 - Worst learning outcome statements [Worst Possible Outcome: Students comprehend & perceive critical thinking factors to know & be aware of, while values are accepted, apprehended and understood. They grasp, have knowledge of, and learn the core concepts in course content through assessments.]
• oext107 - Overload [Cognitive overloaded. My brain on overload - when I'm on the red line but the info I need is at the end of the green line!] Tweeted with an image of the Tokyo Subway system.]
• oext108 - Simple Sunday Extend: Sock share [two socks image attached to tweet - Colour Me Rad and eCampus Ontario socks make a perfect pair]
• oext109 - Seek some hidden curriculum [Not explicit, hidden under learning events = become a networked, connected educator. #NoMarksForThis #WIIFM Leave the course with your own #PLN to #KeepLearning]
• oext110 - Celebrate a technical accomplishment [Celebrating this 'union' of two great knowledge organizers! It's my contribution to @ontarioextend #oext110]
• oext111 - What don't I know? [Admitting it here first! I don't 'git' what the 'github' is all about? Would love to know, but it's all foreign like wiki wondering and html language to me!]  added a Power Ranger giphy.

If you want to see all 9 in one place, the Ontario Extend leaderboard links to the daily creations by each of those participating. Interesting way to keep things organized. You can see my leaderboard HERE. 

Openning a DoOO

As part of my Extend East participation, I've been sharing with others through the #oextDaily tweets. I've created a couple of blog posts and linked them into the Ontario Extend Bank. I've been reading and creating while learning and building connections from content to knowledge. Yesterday I went another step into extending and created my domain.

While I've already got two domains that are mine - hjdewaard.com is my Weebly domain and FiveFlames4Learning is my Wordpress domain, this is where I hopefully will migrate and create a 'super domain' to connect them all under one location. Not sure how that is going to happen, but for now, I'm taking advantage of the eCampus Ontario offer to have my domain hosted by Reclaim Hosting. I've claimed a domain that is unique - hjdewaard.ca is now mine and only mine. Here I will craft my launch into a new digital identity.

After looking at many other digital spaces listed in the Ontario Extend Domain of One's Own documentation, and reflecting on my own unique style, I'm deciding to go with a launch space that builds from the primordial metaphors from David Thornburg's Campfires in Cyberspace. These have resonated with me over the years and as I was grappling with this last night, I can neatly fit the digital work I've done, am doing, and will be doing, into these metaphors.

In the next few days, I'll try to craft with care, knowing that this is a beginning and that one space to rule them all will not necessarily mean that all the others will end. My work on the blog site Five Flames for Learning will continue but I can collect and share all the multiple blog spaces I've created over the years under the hjdewaard.ca domain.

I am open to the challenge of Domain of One's Own. It's a chance to reframe my digital identity and reshape my digital persona.

Wrinkles in time

Today is the day that the movie of Wrinkle in Time opens in movie theatres. It's appropriate that I revisit this blog now, after a block of time away. I'll make an effort to continue posted here on a daily basis. This week has also been Open Education Week - which I've been participating in, in some small ways.

On Monday, I was one of the guest speakers in a webinar hosted by Katya P. from OCUL (Ontario Colleges and Universities Libraries). I unfortunately was double booked for this time and my efforts to do both at the same time did not work out as well as it could. My open participation was done from a dressing room in a wedding dress shop and finished at a table in a coffee shop.

On Tuesday, I participated in the eCampus Ontario Extend workshop with a colleague - we drove to Peterborough, Fleming College to attend in person. The three 'legs' of this program include 1. daily creates, 2. activity bank, and 3. Domain of one's own [Extend Studios]. This work will be done under the umbrella of six modules [Extend Modules] which will distribute badges as we create and produce content. I started blogging with the Ontario Extend category linking my Five Flames blog site to the RSS feed with other's blogs [Extending into the Open]. I collected a list of #ExtendEast participants on Twitter and shared it on my blog.

Today I'm participating in a webinar [#OER18 preview] hosted by Teresa MacKinnon in the UK with guest speakers Lorna Campbell, Momodou Sallah, and David Wiley. I joined after receiving a notification from Teresa about this session and was able to fit it into the day. The full day of Open Education webinars [Open Education Week Web-a-thon], this being only one of many being done today, has been organized by Jenni Hayman, presented using the eCampus Zoom resource. I'll also be joining Jenni for a few moments in an eCampus Ontario chat session.

It's been a busy week, since I have also suffered through a nasty head cold. This hasn't held me back but did have me staying home rather than driving to teach my class last night. I'm fortunate that my students are capable of creating and participating using digital technologies, so teaching from my home was not a problem. I set up the learning 'events' to engage the students with the content from the web page for the day. Open access, open learning.

Assumptions and Challenges

I've finished reading an article by George Veletsianos and Royce Kimmons about the Assumptions and Challenges of Open Scholarship written in 2012. With five years of change since this piece was written, I looked for shifts in understanding from this article.

They describe the current and emerging stances around open scholarship. This includes

• publication in open access journals
• providing and using open educational resources while leading and engaging in open courses and open teaching practices
• managing and maintaining a digital presence in networked participatory spaces

These forms of open scholarship are founded on ideologies and assumptions. These include:

• open scholarship has an ideology rooted in democracy, human rights, and justice
• open scholarship emphasizes digital participation focused on improved scholarly outcomes
• open scholarship is co-evolved with technological advancements
• open scholarship is a practical & effective way to achieve socially valuable scholarly aims

The authors continue to critically examine the unintended consequences.

Open scholarship requires a paradigm shift in "the ways we think about education, knowledge, learning, teaching and research" (p. 181). Future research needs to continue to explore the assumptions using "both theoretical and empirical approaches" while sharing the challenges that individuals face while engaging in open scholarship.