The Write Stuff, Portland - April 6
3 min read
On April 6th, at Meriwether Lewis School, in Portland, OR, we will be hosting an open content authoring event. The event will be run unconference style, where participants will be able to work with peers as they research, create, and revise educational material. The day is free to attend, and lunch will be provided.
Based on past events we have run, we anticipate that most participants will be interested in one of five related tracks:
- People looking to revise individual lessons;
- People building/creating complete courses;
- People supporting teachers/departments as they create their learning resources;
- People who are not working on anything specific, but want to help convert existing openly licensed content into a more usable format;
- People looking to learn more about open licensing, and how transitioning to open content can save money, increase teacher effectiveness, and be incorporated into ongoing teacher professional development.
If you are currently working on any curriculum, bring any resources you have collected, and we will work on these resources during the day. While there will be opportunities to discuss the philosophy behing open content, the main focus of these days is on the work: how can people get more benefit from the same effort by using a more open approach to their content?
If you are not working on any specific project, but want to work with a community of educators on creating open content, please come! There is a huge body of information that is high quality, but is not in a format or structure that supports reuse. With some time and work, we can fix that.
If your role in the educational world is to provide a vision for your organization, a portion of the day will also be dedicated to looking at how using open content can serve as a catalyst for transformation within a school. One of the things we will focus on is a recurring theme that we have seen as we have talked with teachers about open content: the planning process that every teacher does as they prepare for class is nearly identical to the the planning process for creating open content. The benefits of open content, however, accrue over time. Working with open content creates the implicit expectation that collaboration with peers is a normal and expected part of the preparation process.
This day is being organized by Bill Fitzgerald, Jeff Graham, and Andrea Burton, from FunnyMonkey. Tim Lauer has graciously allowed us to hold this event at Meriwether Lewis Elementary, and Rachel Wente-Chaney has arranged for lunch for all participants, sponsored by the Oregon Virtual School District.
So, what are you waiting for? Sign up to let us know you are coming, and we look forward to seeing you there!
