Open Education Fellow alumni share their final projects

2018 was a year of exploration and revelation for eCampusOntario’s inaugural cohort of Open Education (OE) Fellows. The OE Fellows were brought on board to lead inquiry projects and contribute to the development of Ontario’s open education community, while broadening their own knowledge and skills. Each completed a core project as part of their fellowship. See below for a short summary and links to the full reflection projects.

Helen DeWaard, Instructor, Lakehead University

Helen joined the OE Fellows with the goal of examining how critical digital literacies influence her work as an educator. Along the way, she explored and embraced new ways to reach her students, including code-breaking, podcasting and using open digital tools. She also shared her teaching practice and explored digital spaces on a provincial, national and global level.

Read Helen’s reflective blog post here: http://extending.hjdewaard.ca/2019/04/reflective-retrospective/

Maureen Glynn, Senior E-Learning Designer, Trent University

Maureen’s open scholarly project examined technical and pedagogical support for open education practices and the impact of that support on an instructor’s adoption of OER during the course development process. An instructional designer herself, Maureen found that her experience as a Fellow sharpened her focus on when and how OER might be integrated into course design.

Read Maureen’s reflective blog post here: http://mgtheid.ca/uncategorized/looking-back-on-a-year-of-true-fellowship-reflecting-and-reporting-on-the-ecampusontario-oe-fellow-experience/

Laura Killam, Professor, Cambrian College

Laura, a nursing professor at Cambrian College, framed her fellowship project as an autoethnography, an approach to research that examines the experience of an individual. Asking herself a series of questions about her goals related to open educational practices, Laura charted a journey culminating in the delivery of her first truly open course and a position of leadership as Cambrian’s Innovation Champion.

Read Laura’s reflective blog post here: http://insights.nursekillam.com/?p=1371&preview=1&_ppp=df6e560517

Jessica O’Reilly, Instructional Designer, Cambrian College

Jessica chose to sum up her fellowship experience embracing OER and open pedagogy through a graphic novella, illustrated by Cambrian student and designer, Rowan Bell-Marusich. In Opening: From Systemic Disenchantment to Empowerment in Higher Education, Jessica traces her journey from student to professor and instructional designer, charting her discovery of open education and the surrounding community.

Read Jessica’s reflective blog post here: https://jessoreilly.ca/portfolio/wrapping-up-ecampus-ontarios-open-education-fellowship/

James Skidmore, Associate Professor and Director, Waterloo Centre for German Studies

James, Associate Professor and Director of the Waterloo Centre for German Studies at the University of Waterloo, wanted to explore how open education would work in a humanities/liberal arts field. His final project is a web domain, Public German Studies, that doubles as an open access research webspace and a hub where students can access open material.

See James’ website here: http://publicgermanstudies.org/