At the WCET Digital Content Summit last week I was asked to describe how I work with faculty in Washington State to develop and curate materials for 81 of our system’s highest enrolling courses into the Open Course Library. I jokingly said two words: “herding cats,” and then I went on to describe the process and the great faculty, instructional designer, and librarian teams that have been involved. Of course, I only got quoted on the herding cats part. That’s the power of a sound byte.
Scott Dennis and I presented at NorthWest eLearn in Vancouver, WA last Thursday and Friday. As usual, I threw my slides on SlideShare before the presentation. On Sunday I got an email telling me my prezi was “hot” on SlideShare. 5300 views later I am wishing I spent a little more time on those slides, but glad so many people have been exposed to the great work being done by the faculty of the Washington State colleges. The first 42 shareable courses of Open Course Library will be available on October 31, 2011. These course materials have already saved WA students hundreds of thousands of dollars. And we’re just getting started. Can’t wait to share it at the 2011 Open Education conference next week.
Last week I gave a presentation on Open Education policy in Washington State at the OpenCourseWare Consortium Global 2011 meetings in Cambridge. It’s great to see both the Hewlett and Gates Foundations focusing on community college Open Education efforts. I am fortunate to work in a system that has well-defined governance structures, which allow me to build a solid case for how engaging in Open Education creates efficiencies and leads to increased, measurable student success. Here are my slides:
Today I reviewed some presentations from Open Ed 2010 and thought about the last several years of the Open Education movement. Here are a couple clips from the Barcelona conference, starting with a nice overview from my favorite OER advocate, Hal Plotkin:
Hal Plotkin: impressions about Open Ed 2010
Hal Plotkin at Open Ed 2010:
“Meeting President Obama’s 2020 College Graduation Goal – The Role of Open Educational Resources”
This week I tested a new hypothesis: I learned that it’s significantly easier to make friends in a foreign country when you bring a giant, inflatable pink flamingo along for the ride. You don’t even have to speak the language.
I met Floyd at the AECT conference last week in Long Beach, and we hit it right off so I asked for permission to bring my new friend to Barcelona to attend the Open Ed 2010 conference as well as Mozilla’s Drumbeat Festival. Even the airport security guards smiled a little. Several TSA agents gathered and talked quietly, looking over at Floyd from time to time. Mostly, they just couldn’t decide what to do.
I took lots of pictures. Here are some favorites of me and my favorite pink friend meeting lots of nice people in Barcelona. Floyd will be in Jacksonville, Florida next year for AECT 2011. He wanted you to know.
For those of you who are wondering, yes, I built my own battery pack from parts at Radio Shack so Floyd could go wireless. I wanted him to have the full beach experience.
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