OpenEd20

Welcome to the 2020 Open Education Conference! This year is one of firsts: the first time in the conference's seventeen year history to be held as a virtual event, the first time the number of registered attendees breaks 1000, and the first time the conference is organized through a community-driven process.

This opening session will be led by members of the Steering Committee, who will share the story of how this year's conference came to be, what's in store for the next five days, and some suggestions for how you can get the most out of the experience.

The recording of this session will be posted, so that you can watch the welcome session no matter when you log in to participate.

The first plenary session of the conference will focus on the meaning of open education through the practice of storytelling. This interactive experience will focus on the people who drive the open education movement.

The session will begin with an interactive polling exercise to explore who is in the room, what their education priorities are, and what open education means to them. Then, the session will introduce an interactive storytelling exercise, where participants will have a chance to break out into small groups to share their own personal story—starting at the very beginning, and explaining the journey to the shared experience of the conference.

For those who prefer not to break out, a panel of open education advocates and practitioners will share their stories in the main room (recorded so those who join breakouts don't miss out!) The practice of story circles is adapted from OpenCon, and if you're on the fence, we encourage you to read more about it.

This year's Open Education Conference is all about community, and this session will offer a chance to get to know people in a way we rarely have the opportunity to do! Join us for an interactive journey.

Equitable Emergence: Telling the Story of “Equity Unbound” in the Open

How do we co-create an emergent, open community centered around equity in order to resist the exclusions of the hierarchical, hegemonic spaces we inhabit? How do we continually become what we and our communities need? These values are at the heart of Equity Unbound. Join us on a journey to explore this approach to open educational practice.

Slides: https://bit.ly/miaha

Join Socially Just Academia: https://bit.ly/JoinSociallyJust

This session will feature two keynote talks offering perspectives on open education initiatives at different levels of government—from the U.S. Department of Education's Open Textbook Pilot to the Texas OER Grant Program. This session will explore the "bigger picture" of how OER can contribute to opportunities to improve educational practice, especially relating to the impacts of COVID-19. 

This session will feature two keynote talks offering perspectives on open education and its intersection with social justice. Each talk will be 25 minutes, followed by questions and moderated discussion.

An Examination of How Open Educational Resources Fall Short of Being Equitable, Inclusive and Disruptive
Dr. Jacquelyn Meshelemiah

The goal of open educational resources should be to create educational environments where all learners have the opportunity to achieve their full potential. In this session, the presenter will discuss the importance of creating open educational resources that are truly accessible, inclusive, and disruptive. She will demonstrate:

• How innovations around open educational resources may actually perpetuate inequity
• How OER facilitators can disrupt traditional ways of educating learners

Open Education Can Support "Land Back"
Jessie Loyer

Right now, Indigenous people are asking questions about how we can live well together and take care of each other; Indigenous youth articulate a simple call to action: "land back." How can open education contribute to "Land Back" and other Indigenous sovereignty movements? As well as an introduction to this concept, we will consider how Open Education creates tools in response to these issues, and ask how these tools might avoid tech solutionism and instead, might be used as tools for justice and liberation.

Our opening plenary session focused on the question "What does open education mean to you?" In our final plenary session, we will focus on the question of "What is the future of open education?" While we will encourage participants to think about the question more broadly, the conversation will focus more specifically on the future of this conference and its role in supporting the open education field.

We will provide a short summary of our planning process so far, followed by a Mentimeter feedback exercise. After this, participants will have the opportunity to share their feedback verbally with conference volunteers in breakout rooms. Please come prepared to share your feedback with us so we can work to make future conferences the best they can be!

In this brief final plenary session, the Steering Committee will provide reflections on the conference and next steps in its transition to a community-owned and community-governed event. It will also be a chance to recognize the hundreds of individuals who have been involved in making the conference a reality.