the national conference for media reform –> all sorts of lefty activists talking about changing the world. this year some of the featured speakers include: amy goodman, phil donahue, jane fonda, jesse jackson and many others. last year medea benjamin was one of the speakers. i figure any place where medea benjamin speaks is a good place. anyhow, why? because this movement, this open education movement that we’re a part of is about getting out to the grassroots, its about doing the things that folks at conferences like this one believe in –> giving information to the people, educating the people, making change. education, open education, is a great way to make that change.
this year the conference is in memphis, jan 12 – 14th. i may not be able to go this year, but maybe next year. i think i’ll also be on the lookout for other similiar conferences. too bad the peace, justice and media conference is defunct, but maybe the bioneers? we would so fit in there.
I'm Brooke, a second year PhD student at Utah State University in Instructional Technology. My interests include digital resources, reuse and localization. Specifically I'm interested in the interplay between culture and reuse of oer's (open educational resources). How can we reuse instructional materials so that they are culturally relevant to users. What is culture? How do we define it in an educational setting? Is making something more culturally relevant more motivating and will that make it more instructionally effective? How can we quantify culture so that we can create processes to more easily adapt instructional resources for the complexities and depth of culture? It's a lifetime of work. 