This article gave me a lot to think about as I filtered it through a professional and personal lens.

1.   Privacy:  Digital objects and digital content can live a very long time.  This is something that gets easily overlooked by all demographics when using the web.  I almost always think about what I share, who can see what I share, and what do the web service platforms do with my shared information.  Some schools, like UMW, are teaching students to be more aware of their digital profiles.
2.   Copyright and openness:  While reading more about copyright law this week, it suddenly occurred to me that much of the outstanding work of the later half of the 20th century will probably not fall into the public domain during my lifetime.  What a barrier for education, and what a great reason to advocate for “open” things on campus.
3.   Information literacy/information evaluation:  In light of current politics, I am surprised by how many people (of all demographics) can be deceived by false information on the web.  The web really has changed our information seeking and information consuming behavior (mostly for the good).  There is definitely an opportunity for higher education to help in this area.

Just a few of the things in my brain at the end of Week 2.  Have good weekend.

As an academic librarian, I am often driven to see issues like OER in a very localized context, so I appreciated reading about “openness” in education from a less restricted perspective.

The Almeida article and Pomerantz video really hit on some of things I worry about in regards to OER and its future success.  “OER do have value….In a vacuum, OER are impotent and so is abstract, decontextualized rhetoric about the promise of the OER movement.” (Almeida, P. 15).  In my particular professional setting, I feel there is a real opportunity for “openness” to make a positive impact in the educational experience of students and faculty, but how do you effectively and incrementally change your local culture so that OER and openness begin to take root?

I don’t have the magic answer, but I am working with other campus true believers so that we can  (hopefully) make a difference.

Hi everyone,

By participating in Open Learning 2018, I guess I have two major goals.  One:  To learn more about the overall trends, forces, and possibilities surrounding the OER movement,  Two: To learn creative strategies for promoting the active use of OER at my particular institution.

I’m lucky enough to work with Steve Greenlaw (who is teaching Week 5), so I hope to leverage is campus gravitas to persuade others to get involved in using OER materials in the classroom.

As a contributor to Open Learning 2018?  That’s a tougher question to answer because I see myself as a novice with a lot to learn.

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