Day 2 reflections
I have been reflecting a lot about what it means to be open and why it matters so much to me. Mister Rogers is the first person I can think of in my mind to really inspire me to advocate for an open and inclusive education system.
Additionally, I have been thinking about community. For me, open makes sense, but for others around me in my region, not so much. I am fortunate to have found a supportive community online to encourage me and inspire me to continue pushing for open education, equitable education, and publishing in the open.
This section of the course has encouraged me to think deeper about the community of practice and community of interest.
Honestly, I am struggling a bit, and have for a while, about how people interested in impacting open education in some fashion can “break into” it and join the community of practice. I have learned quite a bit over the past few years, but still find a lot of networks require people to know someone, or already be working in open education, before they can join. I am reflecting deeply about this funny paradigm: open networks being closed. I do say this with a smile, but wonder who might be missing out, or who we might be missing out on, if we don’t lower the threshold to join this community.
Second, I am reflecting on where we can be more open about open. I feel like sometimes I stumble upon another group by going down rabbit holes on the Internet. How can we collect these avenues and resources to better connect with outside parties and others already invested?
Thank you for your reflection Jackie. There are many open communities, I like the Twitter community, which can start just by following a group taking part in this course. There is also the Creative Commons Open Education community, there are monthly meetings or so where you can observe and read through the open agenda and notes, usually a good place to see where similar practitioners are in the world, and what they're working on. Here is the link: https://creativecommons.org/2017/09/05/invitation-join-cc-open-education-platform/
There will be a conference this October in Niagara Falls, New York, which is primarily U.S. higher education focused, with a bit of a global spectrum (there will be lots of Canadians attending for sure). Here is the link for that: https://openedconference.org/2018/
Conferences are expensive, and so is travel. There is the Virtually Connecting (VC) community that hosts "live from conferences" sessions with a variety of open education leaders and digital educational researchers, informal and fun Q & A with a global variety. Great work from this group, especially for those that cannot travel or for whom face-to-face conferences might feel overwhelming (it's difficult to be a newbie). Here's the Virtually Connecting link: http://virtuallyconnecting.org
Looking over some of the past VC sessions might help you get an idea of who's who in terms of networking and following along on Twitter. Always happy to connect in others ways!
Jenni
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