A Virtual, Free K-12 Open Educational Resources Teacher PD Offering
Date: January 25, 2019
Hashtag for satellite conference: #K12OpenCon
OpenCon URL: OpenConK12Athabasca
On January 25, 2019, the Centre for Distance Education will host a virtual Open Conference promoting the development and integration of open educational resources (OER) in K-12 learning environments. As a satellite offering of OpenCon.org, and centered around the theme, Stories of Change: Curriculum, Teaching & Open Educational Resources, OpenCon 2019 K-12 Athabasca brings educators together from Alberta and around the world. Conference presentations covered a wide range of topics including understanding Open Educational Resources in K-12 under the new Alberta Curriculum, Teacher & Librarian Instructional Partnerships using OER, as well as panel discussions about OER knowledge and curriculum creation. Many thanks to Athabasca University, Dr. Connie Blomgren, Dan Wilton, Serena Henderson, Connie Levina Yuen, presenters, panel members and attendees.
OpenCon Schedule
| 10:00 – 10:25 MST | What ARE Open Educational Resources? An Overview
Click to access: |
Dr. Connie Blomgren, Assistant Professor |
| 10:30 – 10:55 | OER in K-12: Successes, Challenges, Lessons Learned (and Learning…)
In 2012, Washington state passed legislation directing the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to create a library of openly licensed courseware and promote OER awareness and adoption. Over the past six years, the K-12 OER Project has evolved in response to stakeholder needs. Learn about some of the successful strategies we have used and challenges we’ve experienced along the way.
Click to access: |
Barbara Soots, Instructional Materials and Open Educational Resources (OER) Program Manager |
| 11:00 – 11:25 | Tribes, Tradition, Technology: Harnessing OERs for Historical Inquiry (Spokane Grantee)
Tap into the vast frontier of OER to create powerful inquiry for students. Participants will gain content knowledge using primary sources, build historical empathy, and practice innovative historical pedagogy. Participants will also gain understanding of the lessons learned during our four-year journey as open educational resource social studies curriculum writers, cultural liaisons with local tribes, and trainers of Washington State’s “Since Time Immemorial” curriculum. https://www.oercommons.org/groups/central-valley-school-district/1368/ Click to access: |
Leslie Heffernan, Curriculum Coordinator |
| 11:30 -11:55 | University of Lethbridge Curriculum Lab K-12 OER resources & the new AB curriculum
Work with pre-service teachers has demonstrated the value of being able to quickly and efficiently isolate quality resources specific to a particular grade, outcome and subject. Any teaching resource (including OER) is only valuable when it is easily accessible at the time of need. This presentation will share strategies used in our pre-service teacher curriculum materials center to try and address this challenge. Specifically, the following questions will provide the focus: What tools do we provide for connecting resources to curriculum? How are we preparing for the shift to new provincial curriculum? What are the opportunities for growth and collaboration?
Click to access: |
Beth Cormier, Curriculum Librarian |
| 12:00 – 12:25 | Teacher & Librarian Instructional Partnerships Using OER
Learn about the cohorts of collaborating teachers and school librarians who have been working on the forefront of curating and creating STEM OER in their schools. Drawing from established open education principles and learnings from the project, School Librarians Advancing STEM Learning, this session will engage participants in strategies and approaches central to Open Educational Practice (OEP) and explore exemplary OER units created by school librarians and STEM teachers to build inquiry and literacy skills in their classrooms in K-12 districts in New Hampshire and North Carolina. https://twitter.com/OERCommons Click to access: |
Amee Godwin, VP, Research & Development
Cynthia Jimes, Director of Research & Learning |
| 12: 30 – 12:55 | Open Experiences as an Elementary Teacher Librarian
Click to access: |
Sarah Hammershaimb, Ed Doctorate student |
| 1:00 – 2:00 | Toronto ReMix – Panel
(See section below for panel materials) Click to access: |
Panel Facilitated by Dr. Connie Blomgren (Assistant Professor, Athabasca University)
Panel:
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| 2:00 – 2:15 | Building the K-12 OER Teacher Network – Next steps? |
Dr. Connie Blomgren (Assistant Professor, Athabasca University) |
3. Register Now!
To register for this free, open virtual conference, go to http://bolt.athabascau.ca/index.php/oer-teacher-network/join/ or use this online form: https://goo.gl/forms/auPd8jp8NDqLDONC3
Toronto Remix – Panel
For the OpenCon 2019 K-12 Athabasca offering, we have asked four open advocates to remix topics discussed at Toronto’s OpenCon2018. To prepare for our Toronto ReMix Panel, the panelists have viewed the following 2 videos and also looked to our theme (Stories of Change – Curriculum, Teaching, & Open Educational Resources).
Stacy Allison-Cassin (@stacymallison; Associate Librarian, Digital Pedagogy, York University). Associate Librarian at York University. She has held a variety of roles, including digital pedagogy, digital humanities, and cataloguing librarian for music. She held the W.P. Scott Chair in E-Librarianship from 2015-2017.
OpenCon 2018 LIVE – November 2, 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghe7ZW0-Ku4?t=58m18s
(Watch from 58:18 to 59:04)
Peter Musser (@the_musser; https://www.petermusser.com/ ). Graduate Student University of British Columbia, School of Library, Archival and Information Studies. He presented at OpenCon 2018 Toronto about using an online video platform for Open education. Check out his YouTube channel, Stacks & Facts (a channel about library and information science). In the video, Peter discusses the DIKW pyramid (data, information, knowledge, wisdom Information Science pyramid).
What is Information?
Although OpenCon primarily serves a higher education audience, many of the topics discussed resonate with K-12 educators. From their viewpoints as librarians or members of the K-12 community, the four panelists – using the two videos as a springboard – will remix the OpenCon topics and provide their commentary and ideas as part of furthering OER stories of change.
Guiding questions include:
(1) How do we support the development and use of open vocabularies with and for Indigenous communities?
(2) What do distributed, community-owned digital infrastructure and workflows look like?
(3) How does the Open Community support Indigenous sovereignty within the context of digital infrastructure?
(4) How does the DIKW pyramid relate to K-12 curriculum building for teachers, librarians and others who support open educational resources?
OpenCon 2019 Resources
Following the OpenCon event on January 25, 2019, a list of Adobe Connect recordings and resources will become available on this page. Please find relevant resources for each session in the OpenCon Schedule table above.