Garden Crossroads by Paul Stacey CC BY-SA
Hi, I’m @paulstacey (Paul Stacey). I submitted a wildcard proposal for the OEGlobal 2024 conference called Reimagining Open at the Crossroads which, to my great delight, was accepted.
My proposal activities aim to carry forward the work of @catherinecronin and Laura Czerniewicz who gave a joint keynote entitled “The Future isn’t what it used to be: Open Education at a Crossroads” at the March ALT OER 2024 conference in Ireland. Their keynote situated open education at a crossroads in a polycrisis world and issued a call for the open education community to take action to move forward from that crossroads. It’s a bit unusual to carry forward a call to action from one conference to another and I gratefully acknowledge Catherine and Laura’s permission and encouragement for me to do so.
Carrying this call to action forward builds on the indigenous concept of “braiding” introduced at the 2023 OEGlobal Conference in Edmonton Canada. In many local Indigenous cultures, particularly First Nations, braiding is a significant cultural practice with symbolic meaning, including the feeling of connectedness to the “creator, their ancestors, and the land”. At the 2023 OEGlobal conference, braiding was used to connect together different tracks and sessions and to capture this spirit of connection and belief in a better future for all through the power of open education.
My Reimagining Open at the Crossroads activities seek to connect and braid the keynote Catherine and Laura gave at the ALT OER 2024 conference in Ireland to the OEGlobal 2024 conference in Brisbane. I’m super pleased to see this concept being carried forward more broadly as described in Braiding Again at OEGlobal 2024.
Catherine and Laura’s call to action has a five part framework:
-
Name & Analyse - troubles of Open Education
-
Challenge & Resist - hegemonies
-
Make Claims - for just, humane & globally sustainable Open Education
-
Courageously Imagine - & share fresh possibilities
-
Make Positive Changes - here and now
For more on each of these five parts I encourage you to read their excellent essay.
One of the things I especially like about their call to action is the encouragement to generate and share ideas using alternative genres like storytelling, poetry and artwork. My wildcard proposal involves a series of asynchronous activities using alternative genres.
All Reimagining Open at the Crossroads activities are scheduled to take place online here in OEGlobal 2024 Connect leading up to and during the OEGlobal 2024 conference. Everyone is welcome to participate in these activities whether you are attending the OEGlobal 2024 conference or not.
The Reimagining Open at the Crossroads schedule of activities is:
- Activity 1: Reimagining Open at the Crossroads Through Music, online launch date October 14, 2024. Open for your participation here.
- Activity 2: What if?, online launch date October 21, 2024. Open for your participation here.
- Activity 3: Make Claims, online launch date October 28, 2024.
- Activity 4: Pathways and Connections, online launch date November 4, 2024. In person version will take place at the OEGlobal 2024 conference in Brisbane, Australia on Wednesday, November 13th from 11:00am-12:00pm.
- Activity 5: Pathway Sharing. Online and in-person pathway outputs from activity 4 are invited to be posted here in OEGlobal 2024 Connect. Making pathways visible makes it possible to connect with others who are following the same path, both those in person attending the conference and those participating virtually. Connections can be made simply by replying to a shared pathway, providing a link to your pathway, and identifying points of mutual interest.
I hope you join in on these activities and braid your reimagining open experiences, insights and aspirations with others.