Forward now to June 1’s Open Education News and Stuff email – getting closer to caught up!  Funny how we were wishing for summer weather at the beginning of June, and now in mid-October we were just a week ago wishing for fall weather to come.  And here we go:

Good morning, everyone.  I hope you are all well as we head into June, and hopefully some real summer weather (but not TOO hot!!)

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about purpose especially as it relates to Open Education – what is our purpose in wanting to use OER, open textbooks, open pedagogy.  We have an opportunity right now as the college embarks on creating a new strategic 5-year plan to put Open Ed in the forefront of how we can better support students, diversity, decolonization, and all the other values our college aspires to.  Of course, doing the work is hard and demands time and requires support – doing the work of care and supporting students means the institution needs to better support faculty.  I have no solutions for you here, but some thoughts and resources for you to consider as you continue your own journeys opening up your teaching practice.

First, I wanted to share with you my reflection post on the Open Education Sustainability project which we wrapped up last month: Camosun College Open Sustainability Project: My Final Reflection – eLearning blog at Camosun College (opened.ca)

And here is a piece from Brenna Clarke Grey I was reminded of at a recent workshop, which I feel relates to all the work we do to support students and each other, including the work we do in Open Ed: The people have the power to redeem the work of fools: a toolkit for resistance  

And here are a couple of resources around Ethics and Open Ed.

• A framework for the Ethics of Open Education 
• Care in the Open: A Framework for Practicing an Ethics of Care 
• Centering Diversity and Inclusion in OER 
• Diversity Equity and Inclusion in OER 

And finally, here is a recording and resources from a recent BCcampus webinar on Indigenous OERs: Respectfully Uplifting Community Voices (May 24, 2022).

Note that in our engagement around the new Strategic Plan for the college, I personally added Open Education to the strat plan (which I would rather call “finding our purpose as an institution” than a strategic plan) discussion (in as much as sticky notes count) in the contexts of teaching and learning, student advocacy, and EDI/accessibility.  If we have further conversations about the strat plan I hope all of you will add your voices to open education as serving our college in so many important ways.

Finally – looking for some summer learning opportunities?  Check out MyFest hosted by Equity Unbound https://myfest.equityunbound.org/what-is-myfest/

Thanks for listening – and if you have anything to share, or have anything you want to talk about in the world of Open Education, let me know!!

Emily