Share your day three highlight, discovery, picture, key learning by replying to this post.
See today’s highlight email that is full of suggestions for the day 3. If you are not receiving these announcements, sign up now.
Don’t forget to check out the OEWeek Assets too. Special thanks to Judith Sebeseta @JudithSebesta for her regular posts (post 1, post 2) describing her OEWeek Asset discoveries.
One asset I’m pleased to see there is the “Education For All: Ten Years of Open Education Luminaries from Around the World” open book OEGlobal recently published. Published in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Open Education Awards for Excellence this book profiles all ten years of award winners and their projects. In addition a history of the evolution of the awards documents the fascinating ways in which open education has evolved and matured over time.
In a similar vein SPARC Europe’s OE Champions shares the real stories of thirteen open education champions across nine European countries describing their open education journey, successes, challenges, and plans for the future. Always so inspiring to hear directly from those engaged in this work.
OEWeek Day 3 has 49 events that celebrate and reveal the incredible open education work taking place around the world. Explore for yourself what open education is like in Lebanon, South Africa, Croatia, France, Romania, Mexico, Finland, United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, USA and more. Journey through the world of open education.
Share your OEWeek day 3 highlight, picture, insight or other observation here so we can all learn along with you on this journey.
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Amongst all the live events happening this week, we hope people take advantage of both exploring the contributed open assets mentioned by Paul (72 and counting) but also the asynchronous “Ask Me Anything” series here in OEG Connect.
Ask anything about…
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Absolutely my pleasure, @paulstacey ! It is wonderful to have an “excuse” to devote some time to experiencing a small slice of the amazing work that this community produces for the betterment of our students and our world – SO inspiring! I wish I had time to explore them all. Stay tuned for my next “installment…” (I’m like a kid in a candy story: what new treat is in store for me next??)
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Above, @paulstacey mentions the amazing OEGlobal resource Education For All: Ten Years of Open Education Luminaries from Around the World . It spurred me to check out the OEWeek Asset European Open Education Champions Project, contributed by @Paola for SPARC Europe. And am I glad I did! The project gathered an initial group of thirteen OE Champions from nine European countries, and recruited members of the European Network of Open Education Librarians (ENOEL), to sit down with them for a series of insightful in-depth interviews. For example, this statement about the Open community by @catherinecronin at the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning in Higher Education in Ireland particularly struck home for me: “Working in Open Education, our networks are global. So when you work in one institution, then go to work in another institution or organization elsewhere, your network moves with you. That’s very comforting and satisfying…” It is indeed. Read more about and from these inspiring Open Education practitioners and advocates here.
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Super excited because I just added (Liberated Learners – Simple Book Publishing) to OEWeek Assets! This is a for learners, by learners resource that is the result of an amazing collaboration from institutions across Ontario. For those that know it, this project is a twist on the wonderful Ontario Extend: Empowered Educator program, but designed to support learners as they navigate the world of digital education. Terry Greene’s thread explains it all: https://twitter.com/greeneterry/status/1496604005199486985?cxt=HHwWkoC9tbragMUpAAAA
Check it out!
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Thanks for adding that Lena, there is so much to appreciate on the Liberated Learners project, both in product but more as process. Terry and the team really extended Ontario Extend.
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I stumbled into a very valuable resource that is not (yet) in the collection, this came via the twitter tags:
https://twitter.com/aulibarchives/status/1501600452600860678
This looks invaluable for anyone doing open education research. The Athabasca Librarians provide this open search of 2778 published records by 4675 authors from 974 sources.
The Cloud data includes searchable records of journal articles (eg. papers in periodicals), reports (eg. from government or industry), books or other items in any medium. These items are available either directly from the Cloud repository or by links to their sources. Through the Cloud, Athabasca University Library aims to be a repository for all data related to open educational resources and the source of electronic copies of many references.
The Cloud’s documents will be of enduring value to the OER community of researchers and scholars, industry and government, writers, historians, journalists and informal learners. By providing free access to research initiatives, data and other information on all aspects of open educational resources, the OER Knowledge Cloud enhances research opportunities and access to knowledge, removing barriers, opening up scholarship and making research universally accessible.
The “cloud” provides as well temporal trends of keywords:
I’d be curious if someone who does more research than me can give it a solid review.
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My highlight, today, across four activities: many people are ready (eager, in some cases) to collaborate individually across institutional boundaries.
OE’s made of people.
Of course, OE’s all about sharing and collaboration. The shift I perceive is close to “Solution Mode”. The “How Might We…” phase during which we’re discerning some pathways to collaboration.
It’s like letting go of a burden.
“Burden of life” by VinothChandar, CC BY 2.0.
During one of these activities (might have been yesterday), @MelB mentioned a case in which puzzle pieces start falling together because of contacts between individuals. Several comments today (about platforms, recognition, even awareness of licenses and use of metadata) had to do with meaningful action which might not sound like much, in the abstract.
Some of it had to do with “going glocal”, as a global movement embedded locally.
Yesterday, during a Canadian panel, @mdiack was sharing about his MERLOT SkillsCommons H5P project, linking Baton Rouge and Dakar. This morning, @PerrineCoet facilitated a very stimulating session meant for profs in her region. @mariannedube facilitated a workshop which engaged people from different parts of Quebec. @Dominique and Marie D. Martel were able to draw inspiration from one another across Canadian provinces, beyond institutional barriers.
In other words, it now feels like we should inject blood in the interpersonal network which brings us all together.
“20-3 The blood vessels of the upper part of the thigh.” by Knowledge Collector is marked with CC PDM 1.0.
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My Day 3 started early. I frequently have 7am meetings, but today I got up extra early for a 5am OEG Voices podcast with OE Award Winners Gino Fransman @GinoFransman and Werner Westermann @wernerio. I was so glad I did.
Werner is from Chile and Gino from South Africa so the open education stories they shared are of the global south an essential complement to more prevalent global north stories. They spoke from the heart and direct experience. I found their remarks on open education profound and well said. They spoke frankly, including how difficult it can be and what keeps them going.
Throughout my OEWeek Day 3 I’ve been reflecting on two insights I walked away with from this podcast.
The first insight I’ve been thinking about is that open education is best understood through a process of doing. Advocacy and awareness raising are worthy but easily get bogged down in definitions of terms or legal implications of different open licenses. Sure terminology and open licenses are important but they aren’t the things that motivate people or generate interest.
For me this resonated with conversations we’ve been having at OEGlobal around how “openness” is a way of being. A verb not a noun.
A second insight is that open education entails being part of a global community, something largely absent in traditional education settings. Open education opens up the world. Connects us to other parts of the world. Forges global relationships with others similarly engaged. Engages an international community in a shared common purpose.
Thank you @GinoFransman and @wernerio for framing my OEWeek Day 3 experience in this way and giving me so much to think about. I see those insights manifesting in your work and the events and assets being shared by the global open education community this week.
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Yes!
Resonates well with some things that panelists Josie Gray and @ecarlisle were saying during the Middle of the Road session during the Open Symposium. Including the importance of not forcing openness on others.
Any insight on how we might relay that notion through other parts of the movement?
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I shall refrain of following my brain’s neural associative trail form “OE’s made of People” to the closing scenes from Soylent Green 
Thanks for these updates, Alex. I hope it inspires more sharing. Each time I look at the events listing I feel that struggle to pick one session to attend.
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It really feels like a decentralized conference, this year. It’s almost getting to the point where having the equivalent of Sched would make sense. With calendar invitations.
As for sharing, my hope is to do a kind of debrief with some participants… and report back, here.
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At conferences, whether online or not, I have enjoyed a counter-intuitive strategy…
Rather than browsing for sessions of interest, I pick one that seems far from anything I know about. I have found there is always something I can learn from a topic I know nothing about (this worked in my undergraduate education too, hence as a science major taking an elective in Art History, which turned out to be one the best courses I had).
Yesterday I was browsing and saw Post COVID Classroom Management - why and what shall be done differently to be able to manage kids again. I mis-read the language, I thought I was entering a session in Spanish-- yes sometimes I watch sessions in languages I don’t speak, but the presenter was speaking in English.
Also, I am not involved in elementary education, but am interested in the longer term implications on the upheaval of education over the last 2 years-- what happens in 10, 12 years when the elementary students enter higher education?
The other thing was when I got to the room, I was one of two attendees. Now we may always want a good sized audience.
Yet.
At one of my first conferences in the 1990s I walked into a room, and found I was the only attendee! The presenter seemed hesitant to present, but I wanted to listen. So rather than do a formal presentation, we had more of a conversation.
Years later, I wish more presentations were like this. When I am seeing screens of slides being narrated, it feels like this is all stuff I could read/watch on my own.
So in this OEweek session hosted by Oldiko Gyori, she was sharing parenting strategies aimed at addressing student behavior in/after the pandemic shutdowns (available from her web site, which is in Hungarian but Google translates as “Coaching Based Tools in Parenting”).
What was valuable is the other audience participant was an elementary teacher (I forget where she was based, but that does not matter), but it was obvious this conversation and topic were extremely relevant.
There was helpful classroom tools and strategies shared. Yet it reinforces my awareness/worry about how little we know about what the long term impact of the pandemic will be on us as a society.
But my takeaway is that we know the learning is not a knowledge transfer process (filling buckets with content), I think we need to factor that more into our conference activities- we seem still very presentation (aka content) focused. I find the conversational, discussion approach is more valuable… but that is for me.
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@enkerli Alex, if we want to shift from open education to opening education then we need to rethink how we introduce people to the field. If the focus is orienting a teacher or faculty member coming into open education work and wanting to understand OER I think of it as progressive steps such as:
Step 1 Show Me
Faculty and teachers want to see an open education resource pertinent to their field. They want to assess for themselves relevance, quality, and fit.
Step 2 Try It
Once something of interest is found, try using it. Try it out. Assess for yourself what it is like. See what students think about it.
Step 3 Revise / Remix It
Inevitably the use of open education leads to an interest in customizing it, modifying it to specific teaching and learning needs or a local context.
Step 4 Author Your Own
Success in the first three steps often leads to an interest in authoring your own open education resources. Do it and experience first hand what is involved. Use it.
Step 5 Share and Collaborate with Others
Share your resource with others in the same field. Collaborate with them on improving and curating your resource and a collection of other resources the group have found useful.
Step 6 Go from Local to Global
Explore the relevance and interest in the OER you have authored or are using in a global context. Add and improve your open education practice by bringing in other perspectives and resources from around the world. Connect with peers outside your institution, country or region and engage in knowledge exchange sharing open education practices and learnings.
Step 7 Diversify
Having started with open education resources diversify your open education practices to embrace other elements of open - open pedagogy, open science, open tools, etc.
Step 8 Advocacy, Mentoring, Guiding
Having built your own open education prowess help others develop similar expertise.
These steps are just off the top of my head but my point is that entry to open education should focus less on licenses and concepts and more on doing. Once engaged in doing the relevance of things like licenses and concepts becomes more evident. Learning by doing is best not only as a point of entry but as a means of further progression.
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@Enkerli Alex, I’m really heartened by your remarks grounding open education in people and the readiness for collaboration. I’d love to hear ideas from everyone around “How might we collaborate”.
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Wow. Read this when you posted it… and it remained with me since.
As with any “open recipe”, there’s both deep insight as-is… and an opportunity for a remix.
For instance, there might be some feedback loops around some of these steps.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
As Design Thinking becomes even more fashionable in our movement, it’s increasingly common to apply the Double Diamond to Learning Experience Design. Since we’re all learners, that LXD aspect fits in the work we do as colleagues.
Another adaptation I might try is to shift from OER to an open learning pathway as an entry point. It can get tricky when part of the process is to decide on milestones and destinations through co-design. So it’s an interesting challenge. Given our history of Open Pedagogy since the late 1960s, I’ve been trying to link back to educators in Quebec who were active at the time. Also a challenge.
Further to adaptations: shifting learning contexts. Most of us work in either Higher Education or in primary/secondary education (K-12 in the US and parts of Canada). Yet there’s a lot of OE which can happen through community groups or even large organizations. The work done by the public servants behind GCshare and CSPS Open Learning inspires me. In this case, the steps are very similar. The main difference is in how the work is structured and who’s allowed to experiment. For instance, the Open Government Partnership also involves a move from Global to Local. (All of these are part of our glocalization models.)
These potential adaptations really are in the spirit of remixing. Could make for some useful job aids. Assuming these posts allow for adaptations. 
Speaking of licenses…
I fully agree with your concluding remark and was glad to hear similar echoes from @GinoFransman & @wernerio through OEG Voices 32: An OEweek Conversation with Gino Fransman and Werner Westermann. Let’s focus on the doing. Including those “random hacks of OEness” which have outsized impact from low effort, right?