The OER Handbook is currently featured on the homepage of the Creative Commons site (you can also access the OER Handbook story directly via the CC blog). Kudos to everyone involved!
Monthly Archive for August, 2008
We’ve completed the print layout for the Open Educational Resources Handbook for Educators v 1.0! Our favorite designer, Corrine Beaumont, has done an amazing job with the print layout, all the way down to using openly licensed typefaces throughout.
The printed, paperback version of the OER Handbook is available through Lulu.com in both black and white and full color formats. Of course, as an openly licensed book, the fully formatted PDFs are available for free download in both black and white and full color.
Also, I’m very excited to announce that thanks to the generous support of Open Ed 2008 conference sponsor Agilix, Open Ed 2008 conference participants will each be receiving a printed copy of the OER Handbook. My thanks to Seth, the Wikieducator community, Corrine, the Hewlett Foundation, and Agilix for making the handbook possible!
The Open Education 2008 Scholarship winners have been selected! This year’s winners are:
- John Britton, Chinese University of Hong Kong (student)
- Philise Rasugu, African Virtual University
- Julian Sukmana Putra, Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia (student)
- Stian Haklev, Norway
- Robert Boyczuk, Seneca College, Toronto
Congratulations to the winners and to everyone who applied – we had about thirty applicants for five scholarships, and the judging was tough! Also, many, many thanks to the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for their continued support of the Open Ed scholarships.
Finally, the Open Ed 2008 program is now available online. The speakers and topics for this year are incredible… This should be the best Open Ed conference ever! =)
Being at Brigham Young University now, I have many more opportunities to think about the relationships between my personal beliefs and my professional interests. This year’s Annual University Conference theme has focused on light, and during his address this morning, McKay School of Education Dean Richard Young quoted Matthew 5:14-16:
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
It occurred to me again that the password is a modern bushel. In other words, we develop these fabulous online materials, which could be highly useful to people throughout the world, but we then immediately put these materials behind password “protection,” which keeps people from accessing and using them. Why? Why do we put the candle of education under the password bushel? Why not set it on the candlestick of open licensing, so that it’s influence can radiate throughout the world?
I wonder if the meme “a password is a bushel / an open license is a candlestick” can catch on…
For the next two weeks I’ll be pointing to video highlights from last year’s Open Education 2007 conference in order to whet your appetite for this year’s meeting. First up on the hit parade is Brian Lamb’s incredible keynote from last year’s conference.
BTW, you can also see the Rick Noblenski “blasting caps are dangerous” video mentioned by Brian in the keynote, which was developed by some of my students at USU. (If you haven’t seen Nixon vs Kennedy debate on blogs vs wikis or open water, also produced by students from the same class, I’d highly recommend them as well.)
If you can’t wait to see the rest of the videos, make the jump to the full collection of Open Ed 2007 videos, where you can also download the videos to your iPod or PSP. Otherwise, just sit back, relax, and I’ll highlight additional videos from last year’s conference here as we get closer to Open Ed 2008…
