Open Education Week(s) 2014
by catherinecronin
CC BY-SA 2.0 cogdogblog (Flickr)
Open Education Week 2014… and an opportunity to use one of @cogdog‘s wonderful #open images (thanks, Alan). This post is a summary of what I’ve been up to in the lead up to Open Education Week 2014 — preparing an #openedweek webinar, working with other open educators, supporting students in open sharing, participating in an inspiring Irish education conference, and finally, recounting a moving coincidence.
- On Friday, March 14th, Sheila McNeill and I will facilitate a webinar as part of the Open Education Week programme at the University of Sussex. Many thanks to David Walker for the invitation. Our webinar, Open and online: connections, community and reality, will consider layers of open education practices, engaging with students in open online spaces, and digital identity — we plan to explore some of the possibilities as well as the messy reality. 🙂
- Two weeks I ago I finally met Bea de los Arcos, of the OER Research Hub project, after a few years of interacting on Twitter. Bea travelled to Galway to engage with educators involved in open education initiatives, to explain the OER Research Hub project, and to help put Ireland on the Impact Map — inviting Irish educators to complete this survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/cesi14
- Bea met several educators at NUI Galway — in CELT, Information Technology, and the Centre for Adult Learning & Professional Development — and also spoke with CT231 Professional Skills students and attended their Ignite presentations. Bea made a great impression on students by explaining that she has been able to follow their work online as they share openly via Twitter #ct231 and #icollab, Scoop.it Student Showcase, Flipboard and more.
- On Saturday, March 1st, we joined over 300 educators from across Ireland at the annual CESI Conference here in Galway. The conference (and CESI TeachMeet on the preceding night) provide a welcome opportunity for primary, secondary, third-level and community educators to meet, to form and strengthen friendships, and to learn from one another. The Irish educator community has a strong online presence via #edchatie, but gatherings such as the CESI and ICTEdu conferences are invaluable. It’s impossible to summarise this inspiring conference in a few words — please check the #cesicon hashtag on Twitter for updates and summaries.
- I presented and facilitated a workshop at the CESI Conference on Becoming and Being Open Educators, inviting educators to consider their (and their students’) identities and practices with respect to open education. My thanks to all of the educators who participated and who challenged my thinking.
ccc
- Finally, a coincidence. One of the outstanding innovations in Ireland in the past year has been the launch and growth of the Youth Media Team (@YMTfm), a team of secondary students, supported by educators, who attend education-related events, engage with participants, and create and share multimedia reports on the spot — photos, interviews and blog posts. Two weeks ago at the CESI Conference, Dave and Finn recorded a conversation between Laurence Cuffe and myself during which we shared our discovery of a moving coincidence — spanning the years 1968 to 2014.
Photo: Unlocked, CC BY-SA 2.0 cogdogblog
catherinecronin 
Hah, you like my doorknob, thanks for the use of image.
Will you be at OER14? I’m hoping to close many loops on meeting colleagues I’ve never met.
Always enjoy your photos 🙂
I won’t be at OER14 — I’ll be in Edinburgh earlier in April for Networked Learning conference (meeting many folks there, I hope). Sorry to miss you… but if you find yourself in Ireland at any point, just let me know. It’s *very* easy to organise an impromptu gathering/party in Ireland 🙂
Don’t know if you clicked the last link in the post above. A coincidence there that you might enjoy — a photo taken in NYC 1968, discovered by a son in Ireland just recently. Loved it.
I’m glad you mentioned, just listened to the audio. Would love to have a version of it at http://stories.cogdogblog.com am doing an April presentation on True Stories of Open Sharing — anything you can do to get more stories in would be winderful.
Great – happy to share! Laurence and I took the opportunity to record the story with the (awesome) Youth Media Team because we thought it was a story worth sharing. I knew you gathered stories about coincidences & sharing, but hadn’t seen your True Stories blog. Love it! I’ll share this and mention it to a few people… see if we can get you a few more stories 🙂
Fantastic! Just as I was listening to Catherine and Laurence’s ‘coincidence’ I thought: “Someone should be collecting all these wonderful stories”, and there you go! Thanks so much 🙂
[…] the two clips because This Story is This Amazing. Along with another one that showed up this week, Catherine Cronin’s story about showing a photo from the 1960s in a presentation where someone in the audience recognized […]
I tried to leave this message a couple of days ago but WordPress told me to slow down my comments?! Puzzled… anyway, here it comes, again:
I can say hand in heart that my few days in Galway were as happy (and busy!) as I expected, but even more inspiring. CT231 students’ work continues to amaze me, Catherine. You are letting them run free (open!) and they are giving you their best. Well done everyone.
Thanks, Bea! I’ll make sure that CT231 students get this message. The synergy between creators (in this case, CT231 students) and authentic audiences — especially individuals like yourself who engage as well as read/view/listen — is powerful beyond measure. It really is a privilege to witness students’ creative work on topics close to their hearts, as well as their engagement with interested people far beyond our classroom. Many thanks for being part of that 🙂
Catherine – I’m only seeing this post now (lots of stuff going on at home over the last two weeks). I love the “coincidence” story! How wonderful and a great example to share with others about the power of openness.
Thanks, Sharon. I just love that coincidence with Laurence also. Still need to record that video for @cogdog… one more small story to join the larger tapestry of “True Stories of Open Sharing”. Together, very powerful 🙂