Open Education 2017

Tired of using a traditional textbook in my Legal and Ethical Environment of Business course that some students did not purchase and more did not read, I began developing a digital textbook that I have now used in eight sections of the course in the past four semesters. In addition to some original content, the e-book currently has more than 700 links to online readings, videos, websites, and other free open-source web materials that appeal to the learning styles and preferences of today's college students and allows them to personalize their learning. The format and content of the book encourage students to be more self-directed, as it requires them to determine which links to review as they attempt to master the material. To add more interactive content to the book, I have assigned students to create study aids, exercises and assessment tools, as well as Infographics that visually summarize course content. With their permission, I have begun embedding this student work into the book for all users, transforming the initial OER project and moving to a format more aligned with Open Educational Practices. This presentation will discuss the evolution of the e-book and why we selected this format instead of simply adopting an existing OER textbook. While demonstrating the book, I will also show attendees assignments produced by students and embedded in the text, before sharing student feedback on how creating and using these course materials has enhanced their learning experience.

What does open pedagogy look like in practice? Using open pedagogy to frame the discussion, presenters will share how they have designed their courses, Introduction to Sociology and Introduction to Literature, to create meaningful, engaging open learning opportunities for their students. The presenters will share reflections and insights gained from their teaching experiences as well as examples of open practices enabled by Open Educational Resources.

Course development, teaching, and dissemination of academic materials is nothing if not unpredictable when it is executed in a College Prison Program. Around the country, each prison has different rules and every warden and state offer varying levels of support towards the idea of educating individuals who have been convicted of a felony. Lockdowns, funding controversies, access to textbooks outside of class, limited to no access to technology and micro-managing of time can all influence the type of education and assessment that is possible in the development of a college level course in a prison setting. This presentation explores the pedagogical process of building a college course in Sociology that is not only accessible to Prison Inmates but highly-relevant to their specific experiences and, works within the extremely regimented needs of the Prison. Based on the values of accessible education, a pedagogy of inclusivity and a theory of intersectionality, this author will explore ways in which we can compile an archive of sociological and educational materials pertinent to the realities of incarceration. By providing students materials that are relevant to their world and their needs we can create an educational experience that truly empowers students to cultivate their minds; even within a system when all other power in their lives has been muted.

Today's fake news crisis and its connection to media literacy offers an opportunity to explore the concept of open pedagogy. In November 2016, at the height of the election season and in the midst of a national conversation on validity in media, the Stanford History Education Group released a report describing the capacity of students to appropriately interpret digital media. The results indicated an astounding lack of proficiency among students at all levels - far beyond what researchers anticipated. Overall, students in K-12 and higher education may be graduating without the capacity to properly evaluate digital sources of information.

With the rapid growth of digital media as an integral component of communication, students need explicit instruction in media literacy skills. However, institutions of higher education have not determined the means to provide this instruction, and the subject remains unattached to any specific discipline. At the same time, public faith in universities and colleges has dwindled, resulting in calls for educational reform. Students' difficulty in effectively navigating society's digital landscape may add to public concern that higher education isn't doing its job well.

In order to reinstill public faith, academia must embrace a focus on student learning and evidence-based pedagogical practice. An open approach to pedagogy may help the academy answer the public's call for reform. Openness has sustained innovations in the past such as the proliferation of innovations including scientific journals in the 16th century and the world wide web more recently.

Schmidt (2015) has recommended an interdisciplinary approach to media literacy instruction through the integration of brief media literacy tutorials embedded within the content lessons of various courses. In this brief session, three professors will discuss their pedagogical experiences integrating media literacy and OER into instruction.

Open Educational Resources (OER) provide openly licensed alternatives to commercial instructional materials. Proponents of K-12 OER suggest that their benefits include cost savings, increased access, improved quality, and increased teacher professionalism or empowerment. While the small body of K-12 OER research is growing, perceived benefits of K-12 OER usage have not yet been thoroughly proven. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand whether certain potential benefits were being realized by a group of secondary teachers using open science textbooks. In surveys and interviews, teachers were asked to describe their classroom practice before and after adopting an open textbook, including practices relating to openness. Teachers were also asked to rate the quality of the open textbooks they were using and textbooks used previously. Early analysis suggests that while teachers appreciated the flexibility and low cost of their open textbooks, adoption of open textbooks did not greatly impact classroom practice, nor promote open practice. The researcher will present findings from the study and lead a discussion about the implications for educators, researchers, and the future of open textbooks.

Developers of OER courses in the sciences are challenged by how to provide relevant, open laboratory content to students. The presenter will share how he overcame that challenge by creating a fully online OER version of BIO 100IN- Biological Concepts. He will share how he first altered an Open Stax textbook to include regional content, and how he created a series of open labs where students utilize common household items and processes to conduct in-home experiments. BIO 100IN is one course in the online, OER AA Liberal Arts degree pathway PCC faculty and staff are completing as an Achieving the Dream grantee.

The Digital Polarization Initiative, or DigiPo , is an attempt to build student web literacy by having students participating in a broad, cross-institutional project to fact-check, annotate, and provide context to the different news stories that show up in our Twitter and Facebook feeds. The effort is spearheaded by Mike Caulfield.

As a project that pushes students and faculty from a dozen different institutions into a single wiki community it forms a potential model for future cross-institutional open pedagogy work. As a project that focuses on the problems of our current "post-truth" moment, it shows ways in which open pedagogy -- the student and faculty production of openly licensed and published materials -- addresses concerns in ways that traditional pedagogy cannot.

Mike Caulfield will discuss the aims of the project, some of the sticking points of implementation, as well as how the pedagogy carries forward the best ideas of past open pedagogy projects to meet new challenges. Early assessments of the effort will be shared.

Spoiler alert: he will also attempt to recruit your class into the project. You have been warned.

The LCC Open Learn Lab is a domains-of-one's-own project in a community college aimed at supporting the 5 R's and open ed practices. DoOO at teaching-oriented schools such as CC's (as opposed to research/grad uni's) face particular challenges. Faculty are so teaching focused and so not-research focused, that pitches about creating own scholarly identity or authoring your own stuff aren't effective. In addition, CC faculty are so time-crunched (80% are struggling adjuncts & full-timers teach 32 cred hr loads/yr) that there's very little time for learning/exploring tech. To such faculty, domains and cPanels are fantasy talk. They need a short time-spent-learning-to-useful-impact cycle. They need innovations they can adopt in this class, this semester, RIGHT NOW.

Many faculty are receptive to OER-as-free textbooks. We extend that into remixing, sharing, and open ed practices through on-ramps or migration paths. Sophisticated techies can take the fast lane to their own WP multisites and domains. For the less tech savvy, we have a selection of tools/sites that create something useful for their classes on their own sites before having to fully understand WordPress or cPanel. They can grow and move along the on-ramp.

These quick-launch tools/sites are packages of themes/plugins/lyouts tailored to certain pedagogical uses. They play nice with the LMS. One of our most popular is simple course site for students to write-in-public . Faculty who start with this often then want to move to student blogs with RSS syndication to course hub designs.

We are building what we call packages or widgets : pre-formatted WP sites with set plugins/themes tailored to specific pedagogical needs. Think SPLOT with pedagogical suggestions. Our latest effort is a virtual lab notebook that pushes results to student sites.

The last part of this session will engage attendees in a discussion of strategies for better sharing such resources across schools, especially smaller, resource-str

We will share our graphic open framework that creates instructional web comix using APIs, github, google sheets, graphics curation, and creative writing .

While detailing how this project began at #opened16 with the goal of sharing playful and meaningful exchanges centered on domain literacy, we aim at engaging others to adapt and use our framework in their own praxis and/or classrooms.

Our session will focus on practical implementations of how making web comix can open learning opportunities for audiences in and out of formal learning environments.