Open Education Resources (OER)
Salt Lake Community College has not only embraced HIPs One of my most significant accomplishments as an educator has been my body of work with Open Education Resources (OER). In many aspects, the philosophy and modern learning theories aligned with Open Educational Resources (OER). Similar to the scholarly work highlighted by John Dewey, early all aspects of my teaching practice is grounded in a philosophy that education must be open, transparent, and available to humanity as a form of democracy in it is own right. All curriculum, eTextbooks, and student-centered activities are all licensed as OER and are freely available to the world.
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OER and Inclusive Pedagogy
Within each activity within a course, clear outcomes and expectations should be stated. I strive for activities that are structured in a meaningful way. Nearly all of these activities are structured in a tightly woven, student-centered learning ecosystem of readings, hands-on activities using a variety of data sources and geospatial technology, in-class and online discussions, and reflective pedagogy.
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All of this is officially licensed as Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License and freely available internationally within the Open Geography Education website. (Note: the answers to all of the content is not provided openly and can only be found within Canvas.
I have self-taught myself regarding universal design practices, going back to my Department of Labor TAACCCT grant. All curriculum created by grant funding was required to be licensed as Creative Commons and had to meet Universal Design principles. From that work, all of my OER material for Open Geography Education is designed for universal access. This includes proper titling and subtitling of written material, closed captions for all videos, and subtexts for any imagery used. My professional development training for Quality Matters has also provided me knowledge and skill sets for creating online courses that meet Universal Design guidelines and best practices.
The goal is a high-quality, peer-reviewed, scholarly experience that provides students an educational experience that is unique, authentic, and with purpose.
I have self-taught myself regarding universal design practices, going back to my Department of Labor TAACCCT grant. All curriculum created by grant funding was required to be licensed as Creative Commons and had to meet Universal Design principles. From that work, all of my OER material for Open Geography Education is designed for universal access. This includes proper titling and subtitling of written material, closed captions for all videos, and subtexts for any imagery used. My professional development training for Quality Matters has also provided me knowledge and skill sets for creating online courses that meet Universal Design guidelines and best practices.
The goal is a high-quality, peer-reviewed, scholarly experience that provides students an educational experience that is unique, authentic, and with purpose.
OER and General Education
There are a variety of reasons why i have become such an advocate for OER. They include inclusive teaching practices, the critical importance of the democratization of education, and academic freedom. Open Educational Resources allows faculty to author and publish material in a way that is aligned to their discipline, research, and areas of interest. It allows faculty to also create material that better aligns curriculum and pedagogical practices to meet our students at various scales and needs.
At the same time, I have researched and grown more concern about what our students will experience in the workforce in the coming years. Original, one could interpret globalization in the 2000s as the use of technology to make The World is Flat (Friedman) by using technology to level the capitalistic playing field regarding trade and economics. Following "The Great Recession" of 2007-2008, it was believed that many United States jobs were outsourced to other nations. However, economic and trade analysis shows that more jobs were lost to the "rise of the bots" than my outsources of jobs to developing nations. It is now predicted that over half of all jobs in the United States may be replaced by artificial intelligence in the coming decades. As an educator, I have struggled to find my place in preparing students for the workforce when most of the jobs today will be replaced by machine learning and most of the jobs of the future have not been thought of yet. Personally, I have come to the conclusion that the single best way to help our students be "bot proof" is by enhancing and creating greater rigor and complexity to the general education experience we offer students at Salt Lake Community College. It is easier to create artificial intelligence that focuses on specific tasks that are clearly binary, or black and white. Artificial intelligence and machine learning will soon be able to complete more complex tasks with greater accuracy and precision than humans. But humans still have the ability to judge or make ethical decisions that artificial intelligence can not yet. We still have the ability to make critical thinking decisions, backed by quantitative literacy, that require human emotions and empathy. These are key elements that a general education experience should provide and teach students.
Recently, I recently came to the realization that open educational resources could play a critical role in a student's general education experience. At SLCC, we have championed the idea that students taking general education should learn to understand and analyze the world from multiple disciplinary lenses and perspectives. While at the same time, seeing how various disciplines interconnect with each other to bring depth and complexity to historical, contemporary, and current events of the physical and cultural environments we live in.
I would like to better integrate other disciplines, and specifically, faculty authorship, within my OER material to create a more intentional and holistic general education experience within my classrooms. Creating and using OER material more mindfully, students may be able to learn about the same material I cover in my classes from other disciplinary lenses. Moving forward, I plan to work closer with other faculty at SLCC teaching general education courses to further achieve our ultimate goal of general education at SLCC; a more holistic, democratically informed citizenry.
At the same time, I have researched and grown more concern about what our students will experience in the workforce in the coming years. Original, one could interpret globalization in the 2000s as the use of technology to make The World is Flat (Friedman) by using technology to level the capitalistic playing field regarding trade and economics. Following "The Great Recession" of 2007-2008, it was believed that many United States jobs were outsourced to other nations. However, economic and trade analysis shows that more jobs were lost to the "rise of the bots" than my outsources of jobs to developing nations. It is now predicted that over half of all jobs in the United States may be replaced by artificial intelligence in the coming decades. As an educator, I have struggled to find my place in preparing students for the workforce when most of the jobs today will be replaced by machine learning and most of the jobs of the future have not been thought of yet. Personally, I have come to the conclusion that the single best way to help our students be "bot proof" is by enhancing and creating greater rigor and complexity to the general education experience we offer students at Salt Lake Community College. It is easier to create artificial intelligence that focuses on specific tasks that are clearly binary, or black and white. Artificial intelligence and machine learning will soon be able to complete more complex tasks with greater accuracy and precision than humans. But humans still have the ability to judge or make ethical decisions that artificial intelligence can not yet. We still have the ability to make critical thinking decisions, backed by quantitative literacy, that require human emotions and empathy. These are key elements that a general education experience should provide and teach students.
Recently, I recently came to the realization that open educational resources could play a critical role in a student's general education experience. At SLCC, we have championed the idea that students taking general education should learn to understand and analyze the world from multiple disciplinary lenses and perspectives. While at the same time, seeing how various disciplines interconnect with each other to bring depth and complexity to historical, contemporary, and current events of the physical and cultural environments we live in.
I would like to better integrate other disciplines, and specifically, faculty authorship, within my OER material to create a more intentional and holistic general education experience within my classrooms. Creating and using OER material more mindfully, students may be able to learn about the same material I cover in my classes from other disciplinary lenses. Moving forward, I plan to work closer with other faculty at SLCC teaching general education courses to further achieve our ultimate goal of general education at SLCC; a more holistic, democratically informed citizenry.
Open Geography Education
As part of the U.S. Department of Labor TAACCCT grant, I was co-awarded in October 2011, I created a series of textbooks associated with geographic science and geospatial technology. Starting in August 2014, Open Geography Education went live as a way to host the content. As I state on the homepage of the website, "This website is dedicated to providing free or open curriculum and resources to anybody who is interested in the physical and cultural environments we live in. Using the world as our contributors and content experts, we will strive to make the most engaging, dynamic, and relevant information possible." All of the eTextbooks are freely available for use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. As a way to meet students where they are, the eTextbooks are mobile friendly on all smart-devices so that their study can align with their complex lives.
To date, the textbooks are being used at a variety of universities, 2-year colleges, and even some high schools across the United States and internationally. In February 2019, I integrated Google Analytics into the Open Geography Education website. From this brief analysis, I have discovered that the textbooks are used internationally, with South Africa, India, Canada, and the Philippines rounding out the top five nations using my OER material. Google Analytics also shows that the majority of the people who use my OER material are female, between the ages of 18 to 34.
To date, the textbooks are being used at a variety of universities, 2-year colleges, and even some high schools across the United States and internationally. In February 2019, I integrated Google Analytics into the Open Geography Education website. From this brief analysis, I have discovered that the textbooks are used internationally, with South Africa, India, Canada, and the Philippines rounding out the top five nations using my OER material. Google Analytics also shows that the majority of the people who use my OER material are female, between the ages of 18 to 34.
At Salt Lake Community College, the textbooks have officially saved our students over $1.2 million in textbook costs since 2014. Currently, the Office of Faculty Development and Institutional Research is working to provide stronger data to determine cost savings for students regarding these textbooks. As required by the TAACCCT grant, all of the content created for the is hosted on Skills Commons and Merlot, besides Open Geography Education. Some of the OER eTextbooks I have created for geospatial technology is hosted on the National Science Foundation ATE funded National Geospatial Technology Center of Excellence website.
I am continually adding and updating these textbooks with current events and new scientific discoveries are known. The textbooks are currently being edited with the help of Faculty Development and will be peer reviewed again after the editing is done. They are also being converted over to Pressbooks, the OER standard for textbook publishing.
I am continually adding and updating these textbooks with current events and new scientific discoveries are known. The textbooks are currently being edited with the help of Faculty Development and will be peer reviewed again after the editing is done. They are also being converted over to Pressbooks, the OER standard for textbook publishing.
Understanding the audience of my OER work is essential for practicing inclusive teaching practices. It allows me to provide physical and cultural examples of the countries using my OER work, along with highlighting scientists from around the world that has further our body of scientific knowledge. Inclusive OER pedagogy help me develop and provide more inclusive practices within the textbook, student activities, case studies, and classroom engagement.
Open Geography Education Student Activities
The goal is a high-quality, peer-reviewed, scholarly experience that provides students an educational experience that is unique, authentic, and with purpose.Within each activity within a course, clear outcomes and expectations should be stated. I strive for activities that are structured in a meaningful way. Nearly all of these activities are structured in a tightly woven, student-centered learning ecosystem of readings, hands-on activities using a variety of data sources and geospatial technology, in-class and online discussions, and reflective pedagogy. All of this is officially licensed as Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License and freely available internationally within the Open Geography Education website. (Note: the answers to all of the content is not provided openly and can only be found within Canvas.
- Toponyms
- Mapping Distance and Scale
- Mapping Globalization
- Mapping Gerrymandering
- Korean Conflict
- Syrian Civil War
- Fluid Earth
- Many more to come...