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Between the Chapters: A Podcast Book Club for the 25 @YearsEd of #EdTech

Laura Pasquini

It all started with a Twitter DM on June 10, 2020. Contrary to popular belief, this social media platform does have the power to unite and bring folks together. Clint Lalonde reached out to inquire to a group of us to ask if we’d like to narrate the 25 Years of Ed Tech book written by Martin Weller and published by Athabasca University Press. With a Google doc and an interested community, multiple messages on this group thread helped to weave what would be an audiobook version for this text. As I saw a number of volunteers to voice each chapter, I chimed in to ask how we could bring other voices who weren’t in this thread to discuss the book itself (typo of Martin’s name included):

I’m grateful for Martin’s willingness to be such an open educator with how this book is published AND his encouragement for the audiobook + book club podcast. Additionally, I was thrilled to play in the audio sandbox with Clint, who is stellar in his radio-style production, wrangling of audio chapters, and ideas for enhancing the behind the pod project (e.g. “how to” guidelines narration, keeping me on task/schedule, finding guests to chat with about each chapter, etc.). My sincere gratitude goes out to all of the people and processes required to execute this pandemic podcast project. I am learning so much from y’all during every conversation. Whether it’s our recorded chat or the post-production editing, I can honestly say that working on these episodes really brightens my work week. I am honoured to spend some time with some brilliant, funny, and thoughtful members of the ed tech community. I am learning so much and love digging into what is and is not in each chapter. Some people bake bread, I make podcasts (and, okay, bake bread) in lock down.

Thanks to many of you who have and who will continue to contribute to the 25 Years of Ed Tech podcast serves as a serialized audio version of the book 25 Years of Ed Tech. The @YearsEd podcast is our gift that keeps on giving, as there will be 2 episodes released each week from November 2020 through May 2021. Every Monday you will hear a new chapter of the book that follows the written text — read along! Then on Thursday, you will find bonus episodes in the same podcast feed I host, called “Between the Chapters.” These “book club” episodes allow us to bring other folx on to discuss the chapter topic, ideas, the year, and what was happening around these issues for teaching, learning, and technology at the time. 

Follow @YearsEd & Subscribe/Listen: https://25years.opened.ca/

X-Ray Specs Montage

Attributions

It has been a delight to catch up with the “Between the Chapters” guests — some of which I’ve grown up with in ed tech and learning design — and others I am just getting to dialog with for the first time. As of now, I have just over half of these bonus episodes recorded and/or scheduled — and more are to come. I have been talking with Clint for how to bring additional voices into this audio project — so I am open to suggestions and hearing from you, if you want to offer some audio reflections. Finally, a BIG THANKS goes out to everyone who has contributed to this audio adventure overall: book chapter narrators, guests for the book club discussions, X-ray Specs remixed art creators, your blogged reflections, promotional publications, tweeting out episodes, and those of you digitally cheering us on!

Higher Education, Learning, Learning and Performance, Library, Library Science, Open Education, OpenAccess, Professional Development

Introducing: Open Higher Ed Learning & Development (HELD) Digital Library

Laura Pasquini

There are a growing number of learning networks, online communities, educational resources, and openly shared learning & development (L&D) created for and by higher education professionals. Over the years I have personally discovered a wealth of thoughtful and creative resources that have helped me improve, learn, and grow in the work I do. These open artifacts and digital items are openly shared by a brilliant group of colleagues who work in and around in higher education. This past summer, a course I as enrolled in as a learner prompted me to start this side passion-project to think about how I can best gather these professional L&D resources that best inform my own teaching, research, and practice. This led me to create the Open Higher Ed Learning & Development (HELD) digital library.

OER is sharing is a Flickr image/drawing shared in the Public Domain by Giulia Forsythe

The Open HELD digital is designed to showcase and display open educational resources (OER), specifically resources that provide professional L&D for peers and colleges working in the postsecondary education (staff, faculty, and graduate students). This space is a digital library is always a work “in-progress” as I will continue to edit, update, and add to the collections — you know, all the metadata fun.

Open Higher Ed Learning & Development (HELD) Library

https://openheld.omeka.net/

This digital library shares open L&D materials with an open license as an OER object via Creative Commons, the Public Domain, and/or via permission of the creators/authors/editors for each item. As you browse this digital collection, you will find open L&D items to enhance your instruction, help with student support/advising, and improve your scholarly work with teaching, research, and service. I hope this digital library is helpful for you to find and learning with these resources. I encourage you to share this digital library with other postsecondary peers and colleagues.

If you have an open L&D teaching, learning, research, or service resource to share with higher education professionals please let me know. It would be great to share and showcase your resources/items. The Open HELD library collections currently include: books, journals, reports, podcasts, Twitter chats, drawings, pictures, videos, webcasts, team/personal blogs, and websites. I welcome links to URLs, uploads of files/documents, images, and more. Also, I welcome expanding this to share relevant whitepapers, course syllabi, presentation slide decks, program/teaching handouts, and more. These collections can be augmented, expanded, or added to.

Do you have an OER L&D item to add to a collection? Please feel free to submit your contribution to the Open HELD library here: https://forms.gle/SF8LCPVJ3ehS6XnQA

Also, as the Open HELD collections are a living and evolving library, I welcome your questions, comments, feedback, and suggestions for how to improve current collections and or corrections for an items already housed in this library — please feel free to send me an email at: techknowtoolsllc@gmail.com Thanks!

#HEdigID, Open Education

#HEdigID Chat No. 6: Open Educational Practices with @SuzanKoseoglu #OEP #OER #OpenEd

Laura Pasquini

It’s almost Friday, July 13th, which means it’s time to get ready for the monthly Higher Ed Digital Identity (#HEdigID) Chat! I am excited to expand the #HEdigID conversation to welcome Suzan Koseoglu (@SuzanKoseoglu) as a guest moderator (MOD) for this slow Twitter chat. In preparing for the #hedigid MOD -ing role, Suzan has developed a list of questions and prompts to facilitate this ALL DAY discussion on Open Educational Practices (#OEP) she details further:

There has been growing interest in digital Open Educational Practices (OEPs) in recent years as evidenced in the increasing number of research papers, reports and conference presentations on the topic and in the discourse on open practice in general. Although OEPs are mostly discussed in the context of OERs, mostly in terms of OER creation, adoption and use, it is actually a multidimensional construct which encompasses many different dimensions of open approaches and practices. These may include open scholarship, open learning, open teaching/pedagogy, open systems and architectures, and open source software.

“A focus on open practice is important because it shifts the focus of open educational initiatives and efforts from access to process: the process of learning, teaching, designing.” ~ Suzan Koseoglu

The process of co-construction, active and meaningful engagement. It is also a call to think deeply and critically about openness, a call for a deeper investigation into the relationship between technology and education, and the complex interaction between educational resources, methods of teaching, the institutional culture and available support mechanisms

To prepare for this conversation around open ed practices, here is a bit more information to review before the upcoming #HEdigID Chat:

#HEdigID Chat TOPIC: Open Educational Practices (#OEP)

This SLOW chat can be found on Twitter with the hashtag: #HEdigID and within this OPEN Google doc: http://bit.ly/hedigid6

Here are the QUESTIONS you will see appear on Twitter and in an open Google doc for the FRIDAY (July 13th) #HEdigID ALL-DAY discussion:

  1. Today we are talking about open educational practices (OEP). What questions or issues do you want to discuss related to this topic?
  2. What is open educational practice for you? How would you define it?
  3. Let’s build a thematic timeline of open practice collectively! When did you first engage in an open practice and why? – We’ll share the results soon at #HEdigID after the Twitter chat.
  4. TWITTER POLL:  Higher Education institutions recognize and reward open scholarship (e.g., OA publishing, open teaching, open sharing, networked learning) as a valid form of academic scholarship.  [VOTE: (a) I agree; (b) I don’t agree; or (c) I don’t know]
  5. How do open educational practices (OEPs) impact your digital identity?
  6. TBD based on responses to Q1

Join the discussion on open educational practices by:

  • Tweeting your response with the hashtag: #HEdigID

  • Responding directly IN this Google Doc: http://bit.ly/hedigid6

  • Use these questions to draft your own personal reflection and response (e.g. blog post, video, audio, drawing or offline discussion)

 

UPDATE: July 14, 2018 to include the Twitter chat transcript:

#HEdigID Chat Transcript, No. 6: Open Educational Resources #OEP (July 13, 2018)

#HEdigID

#HEdigID Chat No. 2: Openness in Higher Education

Laura Pasquini

As it is Open Education Week, I thought it was a good idea to talk about openness in higher education for the March Higher Education Digital Identity (#HEdigID) Twitter chat.

Openness has the power to build capacity among our higher education institutions/organizations and empower professionals to enhance what we do each day. For me, personally, sharing is not just caring. Being an open educator has afforded me the opportunity to cross-train, meet interesting colleagues working on creative projects, discover new ideas or insights for teaching, collaborate on practice and scholarship, and shape how I support/advise my learners. There are a number of benefits for being open, as either an academic or professional in higher ed; however, I am not naive to some of the problems, issues, and challenges with openness within the field.

With openness also comes tension for individuals and organizations. Sometimes your philosophy of being “open” and connected may not always align with your discipline, department, or institution. Being a digital, open educator might not be the cultural norm. Also, you might not be sure of the implications (positive or negative) might be for being open with teaching, scholarship, or practice. Researchers might be concerned with sharing findings before the publication is complete. Practitioners may be concerned with someone else stealing their idea/project and seeing it misused or misrepresented by another peer. In networked spaces, other concerns arise as our public intellectual selves are often entwined with our digital lives:

To come to terms with some of tension between the affordances and challenges of being open, this month’s Higher Ed Digital Identity (#HEdigID) Chat on Friday, March 9th is organized to discuss this TOPIC: “Openness in Higher Education”

What does it mean to be “open” as a professional in higher education? There is an increasing expectation to share and publicize our research, practice, and work beyond the bubble of academe. “The result: We are all of us dipping our toes into the role of the public intellectual. And there are dangers lurking in those virtual waters — dangers that we all need to keep in mind when we respond to our Facebook friends and Twitter followers.” Perhaps, I have let some of the plot lines of Black Mirror creep into my thoughts on being open and public in academia. I cannot deny that openness has offered me support and introduced me to a thoughtful community I value both personally and professionally. As you can see, I’m still working this one out. So, why not have a bit of a chat about this very topic?

How does being an open educator, open scholar, and/or open practitioner in higher education impact your work? What does it mean to be a public, open intellectual online today?

Here are some of the QUESTIONS I will be tweeting out over the course of the Friday (March 9th) ALL-DAY #HEdigID Twitter chat:

  1. Share how you are “open” with your work in higher ed. How do you share open knowledge, research, teaching, learning or practices?
  2. What are some of the benefits for being an open educator, scholar, and/or practitioner in higher education?
  3. Do you think open scholarship or open practice WILL/CAN shift how we WORK in higher education? How does being OPEN influence how we research, advise, teach, and support learners in #highered?
  4. What issues do academics and practitioners face, when being “open” in higher education? What challenges emerge when your teaching, research, or practice is OPEN?
  5. How do you think openness will or could shape tenure, promotion, and career advancement in higher ed? (e.g. Open Education Resources, Open Access, Open Data, etc.)
  6. For those higher ed professionals who are just getting started with being OPEN, what RESOURCES are available? Please list and share (e.g. articles, websites, blogs, etc.).
  7. How does being “open” influence graduate preparation (masters, doctoral, etc.) or early career professionals in your field or discipline? This might be related to digital scholarship and open practices on the social web (e.g. blogs, Twitter, etc.)
  8. Final Thought (FT): What aspects of “OPEN” would you like to learn more about or have more training with to improve your open practice in higher ed?

What questions or assumptions do you have about openness, in terms of your own digital identity and work practice in higher ed? Feel free to answer any of these questions, as these will roll out my Thursday, March 8 evening until the afternoon of March 9, 2018. This SLOW style Twitter chat is designed to allow more higher ed colleagues and friends to join in the conversation to account for different geographic regions, multiple time zones, busy schedules, and more

Join us on Friday, March 9, 2018 to discuss these questions and more! You can participate by:

  • Tweeting a response using this hashtag on Twitter: #HEdigID

  • Draft a longer response in the open OPEN Google Doc: http://bit.ly/hedigid2

  • Take any (or all) of these questions to create your OWN response via a blog post, video/audio reflection, or doodle. 🙂

Finally, I’m always keen for suggestions. What QUESTIONS/PROMPTS would you like to ask during this next chat? Please share in the Google doc above or comments below. Tweet you all soon!
Updated 03.12.18:

#HEdigID Chat Transcript, No. 2: Openness in Higher Ed (03.09.18)

#AcDigID, #EdDigID, #HEdigID

#HEdigID Twitter Chat: Let’s Talk About Our Networked, Digital Life, Higher Ed.

Laura Pasquini

For the last couple of  years, I have been talking, researching and engaging with colleagues to figure out what it means to be a networked practitioner and/or scholar in higher ed. Based on a recent workshop and Twitter conversation (#acdigid chat), it is clear that being online feels different in 2018 than it did back in 2008 when I first started to really connect to other professionals in digital, social networks.  In an editorial I wrote for Inside Higher Ed last year, I ask questions about what it means to have a digital persona in academia, specifically these ones (slightly modified):

  • How does being part of a digital learning network support learning and development for higher ed professionals?
  • How are faculty and staff shaping their online identity and presence to share professional values, work, etc.?
  • How can does a networked community expand knowledge to enhance our roles on campus and the work we do?
  • Why might others higher ed professionals want to network with peers to scaffold their own career goals?

As these digital networks have scaled past the “social-media-is-just-a-fad” stage and they now influence more of our society in our daily lives. That being said, I think educators are considering how to be more thoughtful and consider HOW, WHERE, and IF, they should “be” in these public and open spaces. A number of college/university practitioners, scholars, and administrators have seen benefits to “working out loud” and being public intellectual in postsecondary. That being said, the repurposing of social media and digital platforms, has come with minimal institutional guidance and limited sociotechnical support (Pasquini & Evangelopoulos, 2017) and does appear to have ramifications for our personal/professional lives. A number of interviews with higher ed colleagues have just begun to identify the benefits, challenges, and future considerations for higher ed networked practices. And, of course, in talking to researchers, student affairs educators, early career researchers, academic advisors, senior administration, instructional designers, and other colleagues — it seems that we have even more questions and the need to continue these conversations among ourselves.

In a recent Twitter poll I put out this month, I tossed out the idea to host a SLOW (all day) Twitter chat ONE DAY per month for 2018. It seems like a few of you (at least 15) in higher ed, are interested in discussing your digital identity and “being online” or connected as a professional:

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

So, let me introduce to you the…

Higher Ed Digital Identity Chat (#HEdigID)

We will connect on the SECOND FRIDAY of each month this year to have an open, honest conversation about being a higher ed professional who is connected and digitally engaged. Here’s the schedule, if you would like to #SaveTheDate:

February 9, 2018

August 10, 2018

March 9, 2018

September 14, 2018

April 13, 2018

October 9, 2018

May 11, 2018

November 9, 2018

June 8, 2018

December 14, 2018

July 13, 2018

Any and all post-secondary faculty, staff, professionals, scholars, practitioners, administrators, graduate students, and leaders (really anyone in higher ed) are encouraged to JOIN and CONTRIBUTE to the Twitter conversation. There will be a TOPIC, THEME, and PROMPTS to guide the Twitter Chat over the course of the day. This “SLOW” Twitter Chat (all day) is designed to encourage and allow our colleagues from across the pond, time zones, and busy work schedules to join in the dialogue. I am happy to moderate (MOD) the first few #HEdigID chats; however, I am also quite open to others who want to MOD and/or contribute an IDEA or TOPIC we should dig into online. Let me know!