Day 1 Reaction Blog
Written by Katie Pierce, a member of the #OpenEd20 communications team.
As a first time attendee to the Open Education Conference, I have been looking forward to this conference for months. I started attending with monthly community calls over the summer as a way to learn more about open education. The community calls offered a great way to get involved and let my voice be heard. When the call for volunteers came, I decided to join the communications committee where I could put my experience in social media to use. Joining the communications committee turned into a whirlwind of activities, but every moment was an invaluable learning experience. From selecting a branding image, to writing blogs posts, to reviewing proposals, I learned something every step of the way.
“The community that brought this conference together believes not just in open education, but in the culture of open and bringing everyone to the table.”
Like most attendees I started the conference attending the welcome session and “What Does Open Education Mean to You?” Attendees came from around the world. I saw a few responses from Canada, across the United States and another from South Africa. So many responses centered around creating a better future, with equitable access and learning opportunities for all. Despite our varied backgrounds, perspectives, and differing cheeto preferences (Puffy cheetos, all the way!). This session showed how we are all coming together to learn from each other. Gathering together resources from multiple perspectives, like Sherry Jones searching for philosophy texts from around the world to enrich student learning. There is so much more to learn if we step off the beaten path. Or, Danyal Hayat talking about meeting students' unique needs through laptop lending and finding resources that take a student’s situation into account.
“The model of assuming students come equipped with the same resources hurts everyone, but open education can make education more equitable.”
For the afternoon I decided to attend “Open Educational Resources as Tools to Foster Equity”. At my institution we hosted a similar session for faculty last month, but I believe this topic should be an ongoing conversation. This session delved into open pedagogy, licensing options for students, and simple changes to make OERs more inclusive. Since it fell at the same time frame, I will definitely be watching the recording “Heard at a Tenure/Promotion meeting”. This topic is starting to come up at my institution and I want to see how other universities are approaching this.
Next, I attended Z Degrees at 5 Colleges in 12 months. Their widespread effort to create no cost degree paths took planning, collaboration, and encouragement across campus. They created a short video capturing their efforts which would be great to share with administration. While my institution is still a ways away for us, this is wonderful to see more universities doing this and paving the way for others.
I am looking forward to a quick break and some networking with “Mad Tea Time”. The sessions continue into the evening where I hope to learn about #Honoringindigenouswriters and Creating a Health Assessment for a Nursing Program. This conference is such an amazing opportunity and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the week holds. This may be my first time attending, but I will definitely be returning next year.