Spread the love for Open Education this February!

Something we love at Rebus is to bring and welcome more people into the Open Education community. Especially as February marks Black History Month, we encourage you all to reflect on the people in open and the purpose behind our collective efforts in education, social justice, and building better futures.

This month, we’re marking a milestone as the one cohort graduates from the Textbook Success Program, fully living into their values and expertise. We’re also launching 3 cohorts as they begin their TSP journey and work towards their goals of making equitable OER!

This newsletter also contains:

CFPs from Indigenous Knowledges and Open Education Book Project
Details about next week’s #OEROffice Hours on Instructional Design for OER
Facilitator Spotlight: Liza Long
Reminder mark your calendars for #OEWeek
Recap and recording of last month’s #OEROfficeHours

TSP Spotlight: Graduates, New Cohorts, & Facilitators

This section highlights projects currently enrolled in the Textbook Success Program. Want to be part of the Textbook Success Program? Our cohorts run three times a year. Sign up for a consultation.

February 2021 Cohort Graduates

We’d like to congratulate our February 2021 cohort on completing the Textbook Success Program! Made up of 14 passionate individuals across Canada & US, graduates balanced program commitments, teaching responsibilities, project work, and personal life during our year together. We discussed the importance of collaborative work, kindness and compassion in OER creation and rekindled the hope for a brighter future of education. We are so impressed with the cohort’s commitment to one another and their projects, and to the personal growth we’ve seen in all participants. Congratulations once again!

New Cohorts from Massachusetts and New York

As one cohort wraps up, new ones begin. This month, we have 2 cohorts from Massachusetts, and 1 cohort from New York embarking on their TSP journey. Program alumni Julie Meyer, Jonathan Poritz, and Liza Long have stepped into the role of facilitators to guide these new cohorts. The teams and educators are working across a range of disciplines to create culturally competent and accessible OER. Learn more about each cohort:

February 2022 Adapt Cohort: 7 OER Adaptation projects from Massachusetts, lead by Julie Meyer
February 2022 Create Cohort: 7 OER Creation projects from Massachusetts, lead by Jonathan Poritz
February 2022 NY Cohort: 6 OER projects from New York, lead by Liza Long

We’ll be sharing more about each program and team, as well as highlighting ways in which you can collaborate on these projects. Stay tuned for more details!

Facilitator Spotlight: Liza Long

Headshot of Liza Long. She has medium length blonde hair and is wearing glasses and a red floral shirt, smiling. Liza Long is the Department Chair for Integrated Studies and assistant professor of English at the College of Western Idaho. She has completed both the Rebus Textbook Success Program and the Creative Commons licensing certificate for educators in 2021. With her colleagues Joel Gladd and Amy Minervini, Liza co-edited Write What Matters, an open education resource first-year composition modular textbook designed for Idaho’s state board of education outcomes.

Liza’s 2014 book, The Price of Silence: A Mom’s Perspective on Mental Illness, was described by Kirkus Review as “a searing indictment of the lack of affordable care available for the treatment of mentally ill adolescents.” She volunteers as a mental health advocate with the International Bipolar Foundation and has presented at conferences across the country about the vital need to end stigma and increase access to mental healthcare for all.

Liza earned her Ed.D. in organizational leadership and holds a B.A. and M.A. in Classics (Latin and Greek). She has taught English, humanities and student success courses at the college level for several years and is passionate about the power of open education to change lives. We’re excited for Liza to share her wealth of expertise with OER compatriots in New York!

Calls for Participation

This section features calls for participation from projects with a topic in our Contributor Marketplace. If you would like to see your call in our newsletter, follow these steps to amplify your requests for contributors.

Indigenous Knowledges and Open Education Book Project is looking for contributors! The goal of this volume is to centre Indigenous ways of knowing, culture, experiences, and worldviews within the work of open education pedagogy and advocacy work. For more information, please visit their Call for Chapter Proposals Page.

Are you a graphic designer interested in joining the HOME @ School digital literacy team? TSP participant Jessie Curell and team are developing a new OER to bring animation into the classroom for Canadian teachers & we want to make it look slick! Please contact the team on their project homepage if you are interested in helping.

Promo card for #OEROfficeHours on Instructional Design and OER

#OEROfficeHours Updates

Instructional Design for OER
Feb 24, 2022 2:00pm-3:30pm EST

Guests: Heather Caprette (Senior Media Developer/Instructional Designer, Cleveland State University), Clint Lalonde (Project Manager, BCcampus), and Verena Roberts (ZTC Lead Instructional Designer, Thomson Rivers University)

OER offers us the opportunity to create meaningful learning experiences — but are there best practices for designing open resources? In this Office Hours session, we’ll look at OER creation through an instructional design lens. Our guests will share instructional design case studies and highlight the benefits of collaborations between faculty, librarians and instructional designers. They will explain effective course and learning design and discuss how to weave key principles into creating open textbooks and OER. Tune in for tips about working with faculty, and thoughts on the variety of tools and platforms that support our creation efforts.

RSVP

OER Challenges Facing Newcomers Recording

Missed last month’s session on Challenges Facing Newcomers to #OER? We’ve got you covered - check out the recording or read the transcripts.

Thanks to Gabby Hernandez, Shannon Smith, and Cheryl (Cuillier) Casey for sharing their perspectives!

#OEWeek: March 7-11, 2022

Logo for OEWeek 2022 Open Education Week is an annual celebration that highlights the latest achievements in Open Education worldwide and provides opportunities to collaborate with the wider Open community.

To find out more about many events going on during Open Education Week, check out the activities page on Open Education Global’s website or search the hashtag #OEWeek on Twitter.