Do You Have to Be Here to Care? [O-120] Members : OER20

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Public Group Active 4 years, 7 months ago

Wed, Apr 1 2020, 1:15pm – 2:15pm

Authors: Alan Levine

Room: Pre-record

Theme: Criticality and care in open education

Type: Alt-format – 7mins

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Description

Session Description

Serendipitous connections including blogs, twitter, Virtually Connecting, and postcards resulted in impressive acts of care from students in Japan to those affected by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico (Mehran, 2017; Vantaggiato and Levine, 2017). Such acts of caring/sharing/serendipity are not uncommon in informal networked places. Yet academic conferences for the most part privilege those able to attend in person and typify a classroom delivery model of interaction. #OER20 and Virtually Connecting are exceptions addressing it than other organizations, but even for this conference the submission form required on-site presentation.

Beyond the virtues of carbon reduction, can we create more collaborative professional development that make for a more effective experience for all, regardless of ability/desire to travel? Conferences need not be just in person (with a live stream or twitter back channel) or just fully online, yet formats seem little changed since before the internet existed. In addition to recognizing inequity for contingent faculty (Murray, 2019; Chernoff 2018) very few events consider implications of events for those involved in education who are self-employed– beyond costs of travel, attending/participating is time not earning income.

This performance piece aims to provoke what remains a centrality of in-person conference modes in an era of networked communities and virtual relationships that are more than real.

References

Chernoff, C (2018). Solidarity in Times of Precarity. [online] Inside Higher Ed. Available at https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2018/08/10/tenure-track-faculty-should-support-other-academics-more-precarious-career [Accessed December 22, 2019].

Levine, A (2013). True Stories of Open Sharing. [online] Available at: http://stories.cogdogblog.com/about/ [Accessed December 22, 2019].

Mehran, P (2017). Connecting to Puerto Rico Through Augmented and Virtual Realities. [online] Diary of a Technophile and an Equity Advocate. Available at: https://parisamehran.wordpress.com/2018/05/17/connecting-to-puerto-rico-through-augmented-and-virtual-realities/ [Accessed December 8, 2019].

Murray, D (2019) The precarious new faculty majority: communication and instruction research and contingent labor in higher education. “Communication Education”: 68:2, pages 235-245. Available at https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2019.1568512 [Accessed December 22, 2019].

Vantaggiato, A and Levine, A (2017). Episode 2: 4 People, 3 Continents, 2nd Podcast, 1 live recording. [online] The Puerto Rico Connection. Available at: https://prconnection.cogdog.casa/2017/65461/ [Accessed December 8, 2019].

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