Week 44 In Review

Came down with a nasty cold that took away half of my week, so I’m light on activities to share, and a bit late on this one.

OER research study:  With the #opened14 conference only a few weeks away, we are scrambling to finalize the data analysis on our JIBC OER study.  This study has been already useful for making some internal decisions, so mission accomplished to some degree.

WordPress:  Wordpress was a big topic this week, since we had another client funded project come forward that seems like it would be best served by an open WordPress environment.  We also had some talks with our Technology Services about WordPress, why it’s growing in importance, and what impact that is going to have on their area.  More meetings to come but based on current activities there are two areas of edtech that will continue to grown and are here to stay – mobile learning, and open wordpress environments.

ETUG:  our group is all registered for the Fall ETUG and looking forward to seeing you all at the unconference!

Demofest planning:  Last year, our centre organized a JIBC Demofest, and it was a great opportunity to see all of the great edtech work happening across the institute.  We’re planning a Faculty focussed Demofest on Dec 3, which will include showcasing our new pilot “classroom of the future”, videoconferencing, and open textbooks, in addition to all the other great stuff this year has seen.

Innovation: Innovation is one of those things that you’d think – with all the talk at the federal and provincial levels – would be easy for higher ed institutions to participate with the promised support.  In reality, there are real gaps that need to be addressed for this to happen in any substantial way, especially for smaller institutions who are in a double bind of lacking the human resources required to meet funding requirements or call for proposals, and subsequent reporting requirements which only seem to be getting more onerous.  In between #JianGate CBC’s The Current touched on this subject this week, which had me sitting in my car in the parking lot for an extra half hour on Monday. Somewhat paradoxically, we had some great news on Friday that we aren’t able to share yet, but it’s both a boost and an endorsement of some of the innovation that we’ve been doing off the sides of our desks for years.