Novak and I recently had the opportunity to present twice at this year’s Open Education conference. Overall, the conference was great, and while it was filled with amazing presentations that I’m still mulling over, the true value of the conference was the people, the conversations, and the networks that were formed and re-enforced. Sort of like higher education. But, also sort of like higher education, I’m focusing on content here by posting slides.

Our first presentation was an expanded look at case studies at UBC that have embraced the Student as Producer model. The student as producer model, which came to our attention from work done at the University of Lincoln, emphasizes the role of the student as collaborators in the production of knowledge. In this model, the university’s approaches to learning and research are closer aligned; for example, students, similar to researchers, are asked to share their work beyond the walls of the classroom and not just with their immediate instructor or adviser. There’s a lot of amazing students and instructors at UBC who are doing pretty neat things and it was fun to talk about the approaches and philosophies that support and enable this work:

Our second presentation was entitled “Rethinking Technology’s Role in Sustaining the Future of the University.” My part of the presentation was highlighting a bit of the future trends or issues that are being fretted about and looking at approaches that work. Basically, for me, it comes down to two themes: 1) our systems and management of technologies need to empower and enable all users; and 2) we need technologies that better support open. As Novak’s Law states: The best way to promote a university is to expose the work of its people, including students, staff, and faculty: