Open Education Hootenanny In Effect

For the next few days I’m going to be crashing the Open Education Conference here in Logan, Utah. This is the third sharable content event in roughly as many years here for me… and the way that it has evolved over that time is itself interesting. The first IT Institute was something of a SCORMathon, all about standards and perpetuating the LEGO model of learning objects. I remember David Wiley giving a talk on Online Self-Organizing Social Systems (.pdf copy) to a mostly skeptical audience (it lit my feet on fire). Last year, the themes were social software and reusable content, and it was one of the best conferences I have ever attended — great sessions, outstanding vibe and mind-blowing hallway chatter.

Looking at the conference program, I expect another winner. Less emphasis on social software, and more open courseware, open content and open source — but from my own perspective that’s a benefit. I feel far less versed on these themes, but I grow increasingly convinced of their importance…

The hospitality and genuine openness of the organizers and volunteers is simply unparalleled. And they certainly know how to give out swag — I got a snazzy t-shirt (yay!), and get this, no tote bag…

I’ll probably turn in my usual pathetic conference-blogger performance, but you can track participant activity on the conference wiki (c’mon, let’s get this wiki party started, folks…), or via the Flickr tag opened2005
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