Tuesday 4/10 | Wednesday 4/11 | Thursday 4/12 | Friday 4/13
Location: Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East B
| 3:00 | Registration |
| 4:00 | Opening Exercise in Two Parts
Part 1 – Navigating the 2012 Heat Map The meeting will begin with a presentation of an initial Heat Map outlining participants’ pre-meeting ideas regarding opportunities to increase the impact of open resources on education. This mapping of the idea space will enable attendees to visualize and respond to ideas and priorities, identify gaps and areas for deeper exploration, and build upon initial submissions. Guiding questions will set the stage for cluster meetings and informal discussions. The Heat Map will act as one of the mechanisms for capturing and representing key themes and takeaways emerging from the event. |
| 4:45 |
Welcome Martha Minow, Dean, Harvard Law School |
| 5:00 |
Part 2 – Prioritizing Issues and Setting the Overall Strategy Hewlett Foundation Update: Barbara Chow, Kathy Nicholson, Vic Vuchic Members of the Hewlett team will highlight the Education Program’s 2012 strategic goals, including an update on its Deeper Learning strategy and a deep dive into OER. They will share their perspectives on trending issues and emerging challenges and opportunities within the grantee community and OER generally, with a focus on key pillars including High Quality Supply, Supportive OER Policies, Implementable Standards, Influential Research, and Innovative OER. |
| 5:45 |
Cluster Meetings Pre-assigned clusters of eight attendees will have three scheduled meetings during the conference, which will offer opportunities to come together to brainstorm, share ideas and information, and channel inputs back into the larger group. Clusters will be constructed to maximize diversity of backgrounds and viewpoints. We will provide specific guidance regarding each session at the event. |
| 7:15 |
Dinner & Introduction to the Berkman Center (Loeb House, 17 Quincy Street) Terry Fisher, Berkman Center for Internet & Society |
Wasserstein Hall, Millstein East B (entire day)
Reflections & Activations
| 9:00 |
Welcome Urs Gasser, Berkman Center for Internet & Society Barbara Chow, Kathy Nicholson, Vic Vuchic, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation John Palfrey, Berkman Center for Internet & Society |
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Segment 1: Open Resources in Education – State of Play, Trends, and Perspectives from the Field The first segment will outline the state of play regarding the production, dissemination, use, and impact of open resources—including content, tools, and supporting resources—across different cultures, communities, and contexts of teaching and learning. It will also address current trends and developments in the field. A framing keynote will be followed by a series of short presentations from three core perspectives (learners, facilitators, builders) on important issues related to the impact of open resources on teaching and learning. Intended takeaways: (1) identify key constituencies and stakeholder groups within the OER ecosystem and define their priorities, perspectives, and concerns; (2) leverage these perspectives to surface key issues and open questions regarding how needs and issues are being addressed by different OER projects and reveal where the gaps might be; and (3) use key findings, reflections, and observations to develop and refine our dynamic Heat Map and inform our sense of field-wide priorities. |
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| 9:15 |
Keynote Joi Ito, MIT Media Lab |
| 9:45 |
Learners’ Perspective Katie Davis, Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education (Moderator) Vicki Davis, Flat Classroom Project Geanne Rosenberg, Baruch College Who is using OER (demographics, skill gaps, supplemental educational sources, etc.)? What do we know about the ways in which different types of learners use OER? How does the use of OER vary across learning and teaching contexts, especially informal learning and peer-teaching that fall outside of traditional educational institutions? |
| 10:30 |
Facilitators’ Perspective Juan Carlos de Martin, NEXA Center for Internet & Society (Moderator) Jonathan Bergmann, Flipped Classroom Cathy Casserly, Creative Commons Alex Kozak, Google What are the OER experiences of educators across diverse setting, especially in terms of their approach to issues such as content/curriculum, accessibility, and usefulness of tools and supporting resources? How do these experiences compare with those of traditional educational resources? In what ways is OER enabling or enhancing “good teaching?” Are there drawbacks? What are the primary obstacles when working with OER—culturally, institutionally, personally, etc.? |
| 11:15 | Break |
| 11:30 |
Builders’ Perspective Catharina Maracke, Keio University (Moderator) Hal Abelson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ahrash Bissell, Monterey Institute for Technology and Education SJ Klein, One Laptop Per Child How does OER account for the range of different learning and teaching environments around the world? For instance, how would we describe the OER supply chain as specifically designed for informal learning environments (e.g. learning games)? How are we supporting teachers to optimize educational outcomes, particularly in challenging environments and to account for learners with special needs? What are driving forces and inhibiting factors for the OER supply? |
| 12:15 |
Lunch & Cluster Meetings Clusters will reflect on the morning talks and the three stakeholder perspectives, exploring opportunities for collaboration, communication, and synergy among different actors. Each group will assign a rapporteur who can convey questions, reflections, and viewpoints discussed during the session. Are these perspectives an accurate representation of primary OER communities? Where are opportunities for collaboration, communication, and synergy among stakeholders? Each group will assign a rapporteur who can convey questions, reflections, and viewpoints during the afternoon discussion. They should also note where these reflections can be channeled back into our Heat Map, with a particular focus on gaps, alternative stakeholder groups, and other opportunities to refine the initial mapping. |
| 12:45 | Cluster Meetings Continued |
| 1:45 |
Moderated Discussion with all Attendees: Synthesis John Palfrey, Berkman Center for Internet & Society Building on the day’s discussions, this session will aim to distill and synthesize the key factors, as well as potential intervention points that determine the impact of open resources across educational contexts. |
| 2:45 |
Transition Talk: When Open Encounters Different Classrooms Justin Reich, Harvard Graduate School of Education / Berkman Center for Internet & Society |
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Segment 2: Case studies about Open Resources in Diverse Educational Practice – Examples, Narratives, Lessons Learned While the opening segment explored the guiding questions from conceptual and empirical perspectives, the second segment will feature selected case studies and projects from the Hewlett and Berkman communities. These will form the basis for the final synthesizing sessions. Project presentations from diverse educational cultures, communities, and settings will inform breakout sessions and moderated discussions. Speakers will consider the following framework as they describe their project: High Quality Supply, Supportive Policies, Implementable Standards, Influential Research, and Innovative OER. The mode of presentation will alternate between featured projects (plenary) and poster/breakout sessions. Intended takeaways: (1) illustrate the effects and contributing factors of open resources on teaching and learning across diverse contexts; and (2) increase the visibility, awareness, and interconnectedness of OER projects among grantees and beyond. |
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| 3:00 |
Presentations & Discussion: Featured Case Studies Engaging Governments with OER: The Commonwealth of Learning/UNESCO Project The UNESCO World OER Congress |
| 3:30 |
Afternoon Break & Project Exhibition A poster session will offer participants a space to showcase their work. |
| 4:00 |
Presentations & Discussion: Key Educational Contexts, with featured projects (1) Informal Learning (2) Formal Learning (3) Domestic (4) International |
| 5:15 | Reflections & Activations |
| 7:00 | Dinner (Location: Harvard Faculty Club, 20 Quincy Street) |
Location: Wasserstein Hall, Milstein West (8:30am-11:30am)
| 8:30 | Breakfast Bazaar: Project Exhibition |
| 9:30 |
Breakout Sessions: Identifying Connection Points and Areas for Action Building on the project exhibition, this session will invite attendees time to identify areas of collaboration between projects, develop specific proposals around actionable items, and generate and synthesize ideas for the call for action and Hack Day. Breakout groups will be roughly structured around the four contexts outlined the previous day–informal and formal learning, domestic and international.
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| 10:30 |
Moderated Discussion with all Attendees: Assessing the Current State of OER from a Practice Perspective Carolina Rossini, Research Group on Public Policy for Access to Information (GPOPAI) This discussion will serve three interrelated goals. First, it will focus on lessons learned from the project presentations, aiming to highlight narratives that have the potential to promote OER generally and increase the impact of open resources on different educational contexts specifically. Second, it will seek to connect our theoretical and conceptual discussions from the first segment to our contextual and project-based discussions from the second segment. Finally, it will identify the key variables that shape impact in practice and assess their interplay. |
| 11:45 |
Lunch & Cluster Meetings (Location: Austin Hall) Over lunch, clusters will use the presented projects, the breakout sessions, and the discussion of the state of OER from a practice perspective as a backdrop for their final conversation. Cluster participants will prepare to share their findings about suggested interventions and the roles of various stakeholders to advance the OER field. |
| 12:45 |
Presentation & Discussion: Textbooks, Casebooks, and H20 (Location: Austin North (12:45pm-2:00pm) Jonathan Zittrain, Berkman Center for Internet & Society |
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Segment 3: Building and Strengthening the Core Infrastructure to Increase the Impact of Open Resources across Educational Contexts and Support Opportunistic Innovation The final segment will seek to synthesize the findings from the preceding days and merge the conceptual and empirical perspectives with the practice reports, narratives, and case examples. We will focus on interventions that will leverage the impact of open resources across diverse contexts, resulting in an outline of a roadmap for future action. |
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| 1:15 |
Moderated Discussion with all Attendees: Review of the OER Ecosystem Cathy Casserly, Creative Commons What are the core elements of OER infrastructure? What are the gaps? What are examples of supportive OER policies? As we prepare for the breakout sessions, what research is needed in each of the three pillars? Where are there opportunities for innovation? |
| 1:45 |
Presentation & Discussion: OER for Scale Rich Baraniuk, Connexions |
| 2:00 |
Parallel Streams: Three Pillars of the OER Ecosystem Stream 1: High Quality Supply (Location: Austin West) Jenny Glennie, South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE) Stream 2: Implementable Standards (Location: Austin North) Jennifer Childress, Achieve Stream 3: Supportive Policies (Location: Austin East) Nicole Allen, Student Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) |
| 3:15 |
Break Synthesis in Two Parts |
| 3:45 |
Part 1: Joining Parallel Streams Rob Faris, Berkman Center for Internet & Society Rapporteurs from each of the breakout streams sessions will report back on key points and takeaways. What priorities can we tackle immediately (at the Hack Day), in the short term (1–3 year timeframe), and beyond? (5+ years?) All participants will be invited to share thoughts that will pave the way for the final sessions, with a focus on High Quality Supply, Implementable Standards, and Supportive Policies, and opportunities for research and innovation within each pillar. |
| 4:30 |
Part 2: Bringing it all Together Urs Gasser, Berkman Center for Internet & Society Inviting short statements from all attendees, this session will seek to summarize central themes, potential next steps, and action items emerging from the meeting overall. Participants will be asked to reflect upon the conceptual and empirical findings from the first segment, the narratives and lessons learned from practice in the second segment, and pillars of the OER ecosystem from the third segment, with an eye towards our final Call to Action. |
| 5:00 |
Moving Forward: Call for Action Vic Vuchic, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation All participants will be invited to share thoughts that will pave the way for the final sessions, with a focus on High Quality Supply, Implementable Standards, and Supportive Policies, and opportunities for research and innovation within each pillar. |
| 6:00 |
(optional) Studio / Lab Hour + Hack Day Get Together Where: Arts @ 29 Garden Street (Chauncy St. entrance, directions) What can literary analysis tell us about emerging textual practices: cooperation and co-authorship on Wikipedia, the usage of Twitter during protest movements, self-fashioning on Facebook, review culture on Amazon.com, and fundamentally, about the deluge of information that accompanies the advent of the information age? In this course, taught in conjunction with a graduate seminar sponsored by Harvard’s metaLab, we will learn to think big about digital archives, information architectures, live data, and large-scale textual corpora. More info here. |
Hack Day
Location: Wasserstein Hall, Milstein West
Hack Day participants will be invited to select a project to work on that seeks to increase the impact of open education resources on education, broadly. By the end of the day, self-organized teams will aim to rapidly develop a working idea for a project, service, model, program, website or tool into a prototype, coupled with a creative pitch that includes clear ideas for implementation, funding, workflow, and future development. Participants will include a small group of conference attendees as well as invited guests and other members of the Berkman community.
Projects may be pre-conceived, based on conference takeaways, or collectively brainstormed on the day itself, with assistance/support/tech expertise from coders, data manipulators, visualizers, big thinkers, community builders, hackers, academics, students and other advisors. Teams would seek to rapidly develop a prototype with the goal of developing implementation, funding, and use models with an example workflow, and in some cases, use actual data. The ideal project would be fundable and implementable. Projects will be judged at the end of the day by a panel of knowledgeable, bright, connected people from inside and outside the Berkman and open educational communities. The event will not be limited to coders or those more technically oriented; it will also be a space for coming up with action items for policy innovation, developing and furthering best practices and norms, and facilitating relationship-building across communities.