Here is where we will post announcements for the course, some of which will also be sent over email and some not (so as to avoid sending too many emails to you all!).
Here is the email we sent out today, about week 1…
Dear Why Open course participants:
The course officially starts today, and we wanted to send you a message to help you get started!
First things
What you should do before anything else:
- Set up an account on the course discussion page, which is on a
platform called “Discourse.” Go to the course Discourse page
(http://discourse.p2pu.org/category/why-open), then click "sign in"
at the top right. That will open up a window where you can either
sign in if you already have an account, or create a new account.
You can either use a Google account or make a new account with
Discourse. - Introduce yourself on our Discourse page: see the thread
called “Introduce yourself here!” on the course Discourse page:
Next things
Next, we’d like you to start doing the activities for week 1 of the course: https://p2pu.org/en/courses/2314/content/4530/
- Please do the two activities listed under “A” on the course page for week 1: https://p2pu.org/en/courses/2314/why-open/ Please do these before the session with David Wiley (discussed below), if you can.
That means before Wed. Aug. 13 for most time zones (see below for
specific times for the session). Don’t worry if you can’t do them
before that session, though; it would be nice, but not
required! - Then you can do the activities under section “B” on that
page later in the week. Note that there are places on our course
Discourse page for you to write about all the activities and respond
to others.
Synchronous session with David Wiley
We will meet together for a presentation/discussion with David Wiley on
Wed., Aug 13, 7pm UTC; 12pm Pacific/3pm Eastern in the Americas. Please
see this link for the time of the session where you are: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=David+Wiley+on+openness+for+"Why+Open%3F"&iso=20140813T12&p1=256&ah=1
David Wiley is a prominent advocate for open education and open educational
resources, though he has a good deal of knowledge about openness
generally as well. He has been writing and speaking about open topics
for many years, including on his blog, “Iterating Toward Openness”: http://opencontent.org/blog/ David is also the co-founder and Chief Academic Officer of Lumen Learning (http://lumenlearning.com), which supports and trains educators to transition towards using Open Educational Resources (OERs) for their courses.
David will be talking to us about some of the various meanings of “open” and
some of the history of what one might call the “open movement.”
How to join the synchronous session
This synchronous session with David Wiley will likely take place via Google
Hangouts, but we’re looking into using an open source web conferencing
platform instead–we’re just not sure if we can get access to that in
time! We should find out tomorrow.
Once we know for sure which platform it will be on, we’ll send you (via email) information on how to join.
That’s it for now…looking forward to connecting with you over the next four weeks!
Christina Hendricks
(on behalf of the Why Open facilitation team)
chendricks.soo@outlook.com
Here is part of an email I just sent out, about how to join the session with David Wiley this week! Reminder of when/what it is: see the previous announcement!
How to join this session on Google Hangouts
We had hoped to have this session on an open source webinar platform, but the installation we hoped to use has expired. What we’ll do instead is have it on Google Hangouts and stream it live for anyone to watch and follow along. It will also be recorded and posted on YouTube for later viewing.
In order to join the hangout and be able to speak or engage in the chat, you’ll need to officially be one of the (up to) ten people on the hangout. You’ll need to have a Google account if you don’t already. See here to get one: https://accounts.google.com/signup?service=mail After that, you’ll need to make sure you have the plugin for Google Hangouts, which can be downloaded here: https://www.google.com/tools/dlpage/hangoutplugin
If you’re new to Google Hangouts and want to see how to join a live Hangout as ours will likely be, this is a good video to watch: http://www.mikedelgado.org/social-media/join-hangouts/ You only need to watch about the first 5 minutes to get a good sense of how to get started (later it goes into some optional things that you don’t need to do to just be part of the hangout). Or you can read the typed steps on that blog post instead of watching the video.
However, you can just watch on YouTube live if you don’t want to join in officially as a participant. You won’t be able to speak or engage in the live chat, but there could be live discussion of it on Twitter using the #WhyOpen tag if people want!. We’ll post the link to watch live on the week 1 course page and on the Announcements section of our Discourse discussion page (the link to watch live isn’t generated until the meeting actually starts, so we can’t give you that now).
If you join in, you should realize that the session will be streamed live on YouTube, and recorded to be posted publicly to YouTube after it’s done, so if you don’t want to be on a public video, perhaps just watch it streamed live rather than joining in!
Only up to 10 people can join at a time in a Google Hangout, so you need to RSVP FOR THIS SESSION if you want to join in rather than just watch it live. Please sign up to do so on our course Hackpad (a shared document we can all edit): https://whyopen.hackpad.com/Signup-for-synchronous-Google-Hangout-sessions-4EHzFpJ4lLq Please do this as soon as you can! I need to have all the information by Wednesday morning, N. America times in order to invite you in time.
See you either in the Hangout, on the discussion boards, on your blog, or on Twitter at #WhyOpen!
Christina Hendricks
on behalf of the Why Open facilitation team
If you’re not getting these announcements via email, maybe you haven’t officially registered (go to the course at https://p2pu.org/en/courses/2314/why-open/ and click on “start course” at the bottom left), or you registered in the last few days, or your email address isn’t working somehow (I got one bounce back).
If you’re not getting the emails and would like to, please send me an email at chendricks.soo@outlook.com and I’ll add you to the list (or change your email address if there’s something not working about the one we have).
And be sure you’re officially registered for the course!
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I’ve started a twitter list of people in this course who are on Twitter. If you’re not here yet, it’s because I don’t have your Twitter handle. If you’d like to be on the list (a good way to connect with others interested in openness!), please send me a tweet at @clhendricksbc.
Here’s the list: https://twitter.com/clhendricksbc/why-open-2014/members
I think I’m not on it because I created it; can’t put myself on!
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Here’s the link to watch the recording of the session with David Wiley on openness, copyright, open vs. free, and more!
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Thanks for putting up.
For week 2, we will have a Twitter chat to discuss the meaning of “open,” Creative Commons licenses, and the difference between “open” and “free.” This chat will last for about an hour. Please use #WhyOpen to participate in the conversation. Remember to check out
course readings at: https://p2pu.org/en/courses/2314/content/4531/ .
In order to choose a time that is convenient for most (hopefully all), please participate in the Doodle Poll for Why Open? Week 2 Twitter Chat: http://doodle.com/eefuknu5u3tyzfgs
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We’ve started a wiki post with tips on using Discourse (this discussion site). You should have gotten a private message when you signed up for Discourse that has some of this info, but you may have missed it (I did!) because it only shows up as a little number indicator near your avatar at the top right. Plus, we wanted to add some things to that.
Here is the tips guide so far: How we use discourse
Oh, and by the way, there is a category on this Discourse site called “Meta,” where we talk about Discourse, what it’s like, how it’s working, problems we’re having, etc. If you have comments, questions, etc. about Discourse, please post them in the “Meta” category, here: http://discourse.p2pu.org/category/meta
most any time is good for me – house bound and retired makes me a captive audience ~ but subject to interruption and getting sidetracked by brush fires with other online projects
looks helpful, especially with (yet another!) still unfamiliar platform. They may all look alike in the dark of a naked url but each has its ways to learn. I missed seeing the link but it could just have dropped below the fold and off my radar
This week’s Twitter chat will be on Tuesday at 16:00 UTC/ 11:00 am
EST. We will discuss the meaning of “open,” Creative Commons licenses, and the
difference between “open” and “free.” This chat will last for about an
hour. Please use #WhyOpen to participate in the conversation. Remember
to check out course readings a:t https://p2pu.org/en/courses/2314/content/4531/ and post your reflections and comments on the reading under Week 2: Open vs Free, Creative Commons and more in Discourse: Week 2: open vs. free, creative commons, and more
We will have another Twitter chat next week, for week 3, if there is enough interest. If you’d like to join in, please fill out this poll to pick a date/time!
what will be the topic?
It kind of depends on what comes up during this week and early next week in the Discourse discussion area, because there may be some pressing issues that come up that we could discuss. For example, we might engage in a discussion about different choices for CC licenses (or other open licenses) for our work, and what might be the reasons for choosing one sort of license over another. Or when CC0 (public domain) is a good idea, if ever. We can also discuss the open practices that groups are engaging in for week 3.
I would put together a list of questions a day or two before the chat and post them here on Discourse so people could think about them. But it’s going to grow organically from what’s going on in the course, depending on what sorts of things people seem to be talking about, and what open practices the groups are engaging in.
I’ve created a document on Hackpad that we can all edit, in order to collaboratively try to answer the question, “Why Open?” I think this would be a useful thing to come out of the course with and share with others.
Here’s the document; please add your thoughts whenever you like! https://whyopen.hackpad.com/Our-answers-to-Why-Open-1oPZj4uSkTM
If anyone would rather set up a Google Doc b/c they don’t want to sign up for Hackpad, let me know; if there’s enough such desire, we’ll move over to G doc.
Here is the link to Storify archive of the Week 2 Twitter chat on meaning of open, open vs free, & Creative Commons: https://storify.com/jeannettemelee/why-open-week-2-on-open-vs-free-and-creative-commo
Only 3 people signed up for a Twitter chat for week 3, but I thought we’d give it a try anyway. Last time many more people joined than had filled out the poll!
The three people who signed up could do the following time: Friday, Aug. 29, 18:00 UTC/ 11:00 Pacific and 2pm Eastern in N. America/ 20:00 central European time zone/ 21:00 East Africa time zone
Some questions have come up here and there about particular CC licenses (why use some over others, and in which contexts), so we’ll talk about that, as well as about our current thoughts on “why open”–to prime people to post on the collaborative document on that topic, here: https://whyopen.hackpad.com/Our-answers-to-Why-Open-1oPZj4uSkTM
Hope you can join in!
Here’s the link to the archive of our Twitter chat last week, on Creative Commons licenses and “Why Open”: https://storify.com/clhendricksbc/whyopen-twitter-chat-on-cc-licenses-and-why-open
Week 4 Google Hangout on Wednesday, Sept. 3, with Bekka Kahn of the Open Coalition. Jane Park will also be talking about the School of Open (which this course is a part of, at P2PU).
Please RSVP on this Hackpad (more details there too!): https://whyopen.hackpad.com/Signup-for-synchronous-Google-Hangout-sessions-4EHzFpJ4lLq
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