Free OpenCon online Conference 25 January focus #K12 and #OER highlights #education #online

The best way to start the year is by promoting Openness either in education, development or academic work. Yes, it is all happening in January, so join or read up, which ever you prefer. Or simply keep informed with the @Open_Con twitter account.

OpenCon18 online on 25 January 2018

Athabasca University is organising a virtual, free K-12 Open Educational Resources Teacher conference on:

Date: January 25, 2018

Time: 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. MST (Mountain Standard Time = UTC -7)

Event URL: https://athabascau.adobeconnect.com/k12oc 

More information: http://bolt.athabascau.ca/index.php/oer-teacher-network/satellite-opencon-2017-building-the-k-12-oer-teacher-network/ 

Theme: “Building the K-12 OER Teacher Network”

Hashtag: #K-12OC2018

Open Education Resource (OER) novice and champions are invited. 

As a satellite offering of the OpenCon17 held in Berlin, the OpenCon18 will mark a first for educators, within Alberta and beyond. Presentations will range from OER fundamentals to the current K-12 OER landscape. Schedule:

10:00 – 10:25 MST	Understanding the Commons for K-12	Serena Henderson
10:25 – 10:30	5 min Break
10:30 – 10:55	Go Open: From the Ground Up	Kristina Ishmael Peters & Heather Callihan
10:55 – 11:00	5 min Break
11:00 – 11:25	Simple Curation: Using Online Tools to Collect, Organize, and Share OER Resources	Stephanie Slaton
11:25 – 11:30	5 min Break
11:30 -11:55	Opening Up 1-12 Education in Alberta	Frank McCallum & Lise Pethybridge
11:55 – Noon	5 min Break
12:00 – 12:25	The Multiply K-12 OER Media Project	Connie Blomgren
12:25 – 12:30	5 min Break
12: 30 – 12:55	Sharing K-12 Resources Across Canada: Silos, Gardens, or Open Range?	Randy Labonte

1:45 – 2:00

Building the K-12 OER Teacher Network – Next steps?

Facilitated by Connie Blomgren

Ending our virtual offering will be a unique dialogue – the “Berlin Remix”. A panel discussion has been organized so that the OpenCon18 K-12 Athabasca discussants (and attendees – asked upon registration) to view in advance a 20 minute video clip. This recording was part of the Berlin OpenCon17 conference where an international panel explored the broad topic of Inclusive Education and how OER responds to diversity and inclusion needs within education.

For our panel, the discussants will address this Berlin discussion and will “remix” two questions of OER curriculum creation. Within an OER curricular resource, how can educators consider: Who is missing? and Whose knowledge is reliable?

OER holds opportunity for rethinking how resources are accessed and used by K-12 educators. Come and join the “Berlin Remix” Panel Discussion - and one, some or all of the offerings! We hope to nurture a K-12 OER teacher network – and this virtual conference marks the first step of this journey.

Note: registration is suggested but not required. The K-12 OC will be recorded and archived on the BOLT Multi-author Blog.

http://bolt.athabascau.ca/index.php/oer-teacher-network/satellite-opencon-2017-building-the-k-12-oer-teacher-network/

OpenCon17 highlights

On November 11-13, the fourth annual OpenCon meeting in Berlin, Germany was held. OpenCon 2017 included a diverse set of panels, regional workshops, project presentations, unconference sessions, and a very first OpenCon Do-a-Thon. 

These activities are highlighted on a webpage here, so feel free to spend some time exploring and sharing them. You can also find notes to all sessions here, and a full Youtube playlist from 2017 here.

More on the Do-a-Thon

The OpenCon Do-a-Thon was organised in November 2017 and deserves a bit of extra attention: building off the concept of a hackathon, a do-a-thon is a work-sprint where people from different skill sets work together and collaborate on different challenges and projects. For OpenCon 2017’s do-a-thon, the focus was on building projects and solutions that seek to advance Open Access, Open Education, and Open Data. 

More information on the Do-a-Thon can be found here: http://doathon.opencon2017.org/  and to give you an idea of what they did, I am pasting some of the information here (feel free to look at the links, and see what the participants came up with):

1. Anyone can propose a problem to work on.

Is there a big question or challenge you want to tackle in Open Research and Education? Here's a chance to share it with the community and work together on designing a solution. Participants can submit challenges the day of the do-a-thon, but we'd love if folks could submit big questions they want to tackle in advance, too. Find out more about how to submit a challenge here.

2. Anyone can propose a project for others to collaborate on and contribute to.

Have a project idea you want to put into action? Or an existing project that needs development or support? The do-a-thon is a great opportunity to receive support and contributions from collaborators around the world. Learn more about how to propose and lead a project here.

3. Anyone can contribute their skills and ideas to existing challenges and projects.

Participate from wherever you are by contributing to one or more of the do-a-thon projects and challenges submitted. We expect that most of the action will take place on November 13th, but feel free to get in touch with project leads and see how you can help out beforehand! You can explore the growing list of projects and challenges we're working on here.