open | Frances Bell

Frances with Lorna Campbell and Sheila MacNeill at HLM

Generosity and Generative Processes at FemEdTech and ALT

It was never in my plan to attend ALTC2019 as a delegate. Being generally self-funded, I have to be very selective in attending conferences, and I had already attended the wonderful OER19 in Galway in Ireland in April. I was involved in the ALTC conference as a member of the Programme Committee, and had seen…

The Paradise (hopefully not lost) of #OER17

Last week I was lucky enough to attend OER17 an Open Education conference, The Politics of Open. When I heard at the close of OER16 that was the theme and that Josie Fraser and Alek Tarkowski were the Chairs, I was thrilled. I did wonder if that ‘politics’ aspect might be be off-putting for some….

Opening up Wikimedia Content and Communities #OER17 Keynote

Lucy Crompton-Reid, the Chief Executive of Wikimedia UK, and Karaoke Queen, introduced herself to us, revealing her broad experience, and enthusiasm for Wikipedia. Lucy was very happy when Jim Groom made this statement at OER16 She is passionate about the use of Wikipedia and associated projects in education, formal and informal. Education is a natural…

Reaching Other Audiences #OER17 Keynote

Diana Arce @visualosmosis, Director of Artists Without a Cause @ArtistsWAC, gave the second keynote at OER17. She is an artist and activist who works with other artists to critique and make change with positivity. She told the story of the Charging Bull, and the Fearless Girl, supported as an advertisement by Hedge Fund – rather…

Hiding in the Open #OER17 Keynote

Maha Bali describes herself as “open and connected educator, learnaholic and writeaholic” and you can find her on Twitter and at her blog. Maha has modelled openness in the development of her keynote by blogging for ideas, sharing her slides in advance and adopting an inclusive approach through the process. Josie Fraser introduced Maha as…

Open by Accident

In 1996, I was lecturing in Information Systems in the Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences at University of Salford. A colleague ran a Lotus Notes Server (under his desk as I recall) that hosted a Student Information System – and I had an account on the server for that reason. And then – Lotus…

#OER17 – a conference to attend

I am a newbie to OER conferences, and #OER16 was the first I attended. I loved it, and live blogged and blogged quite a few keynotes and sessions. The picture above is of David Kernohan at Laura Ritchie’s Ukelele workshop at OER16. I really enjoyed this workshop that was so engaging, mentally and physically, that…

Language, Politics and #OER17

This blog post started life as a comment on Martin Weller’s post about language and how it affects behaviour and thoughts in Edtech. The comment mysteriously disappeared as I posted it so I thought that I would repost it here and link from Martin’s post. The title of the post “Let’s think inside the box“…

It depends – Contexts for copyright, patents and licensing #OER17

Reading posts on variations of Creative Commons licensing by Alan Levine, Doug Belshaw , and Maha Bali really made me think about our practices of licensing, copyrighting and attributing creative works, particularly of what we share as ‘knowledge’. Alan describes the various CC licenses he has used for his photos on Flickr, and the trials…