 And welcome to Oi Week Live. I'm your host Alan Levine and I've already messed up the broadcast stream three times. And so that happens here when we go live and that's sort of the reality of the show. But anyhow, we've been doing these all week long. Initially, I hope to do some things to get people like, hey, coming up in the next couple of hours we have this thing and over here people are talking about chat GPT but everybody knows what's going on but everybody can find the schedule. So I wanna get quicker to the people we have in the studio because that's been the best part of this is these informal conversations about the projects people are working on and things they are doing. So with that, I'm gonna start bringing my friends into the studio and I have to say this is our last show and I saved the best people for last. How did that happen? Well, we'll see. So I'm gonna start bringing our guests onto the stream and that way they'll be able to talk and wave hello and hello, everybody. Hey there. Are you ready for something crazy? Yeah, always. Sure, okay. I don't have anything specifically in mind but I really wanna thank everybody for being willing to come in here and do an unstructured format. I know sometimes that makes people nervous but really I just, I feel like we don't always have enough time for kind of unstructured conversations because we're all so busy. So I'm gonna ask some folks just to like do a quick hello tell us where in the world you're from and what's the thing you're most excited about right now or you can just talk about the weather. So anybody wanna go first? I'll call on people if- Okay, I can go first. I can always talk to you ma'am, huh? Let's introduce ourselves and say what we're most excited about. Yeah, yeah. All right, so I'm Lavelli. I am a professor of practice. The American University of Cairo is Center for Learning and Teaching so my main job is as an educational developer and I am very excited about a lot of things because I get excited about a lot of things. I guess the most exciting thing that's happening next week is that two of my students and one of my research assistants and I are doing a Futurize Your Course type of thing where we're talking about what would my course look like 20 years from now and we're gonna meet on Sunday to finalize that. So I'm excited to imagine what my course would be like in the future, inshallah. That's really brilliant. And it's so great to have you here, ma'am. We don't get enough time to hang out but I know we will make ways for that to happen. And like just talking about ma'am she's on YouTube now as well. She's like in two places at once. She's like facilitating the conversations and practicing that hospital equity that equity unbound intentionally creates. So thank you so much. So I'm just gonna call on people. So I really wanna welcome. This is excited to have Bukhola James come to us who just signed up for my forum without even knowing what she was getting into. So welcome, Bukhola. Hi, Alan and everyone. Thank you for inviting me to this session. So my name is Bukhola James and I'm joining from Nigeria. And yeah, the time currently is after past 5 p.m. Yes. And I'm a satisfied trainer of the Reading Wikipedia in the classroom program. I joined the Wikimedia community in 2020 during the lockdown. And so far it has really like inspired me to learn a whole lot of things within the short time that I've joined the community. And yes, sorry, I forgot to tell you that I'm a graduate of Library Information Science and I'm also a special advisor for the Wikipedia Plus Education User Group. And yes, we've been doing a whole lot and something that stood out for me this week was that I had the opportunity to go over what many people have been doing in the open community. Like before now, I had also followed what Alan has been doing for the live TV show and I've seen series of very interesting sessions that he had held with some other presenters before today. So thank you so much. I'm so very honored to be on this session. Thank you. And yes, forgive me that my background is not really bright. Yes. Sorry about that. No need to apologize. I was just so excited to see you sign up on the forum. And I just have to say after a podcast with some librarians, including one in the Ukraine who came to us from the Ukraine, like I always thought highly of librarians but like every time I interact with them, it escalates. So thank you so much, Bukola. And now let's say I'm spinning the magical dice here of who's gonna be next. Who's just, I'll call my good friend colleague Mia Zamora. Hi Mia, it's a nice to see you. It's feeling I'd be next. Am I that predictable? No, no, I think it has to do with a little like chemistry or something. Okay. Anyway, it's great to see everyone. And Bukola, I'm so glad to meet you. The rest of the team here I've worked with in one capacity or another, but Bukola, I just love meeting new friends. So I'm glad to have a connection with you now. Okay, so I'm Mia Zamora. I'm based in New Jersey where I teach literature and writing. I'm a co-founder of Equity Unbound which is a wonderful network of people who care about learning in the open. And what am I excited about? I was thinking about that for a second or two. A couple of things. I'm teaching this course right now which really delves right into the whole question of technology and writing because I'm a writing professor. So we're thinking a lot about artificial intelligence and natural language processing and the direction that that's taking writers in both professionally and in the context of learning and education. But I think what I'm excited about most is that the is the core of the spirit of the course which is it's the human nature of writing. So that leads me to my comment about what I'm excited about which is this kind of moment that's opening up I think in many discussions for centering humanism as a critical aspect of what we do when we learn and we love and we connect with other people in a way that's meaningful. So anyway, that's it. And then the other quick thing I wanted to say which is a little bit more like a snapshot about life is I'm planning on traveling for the first time overseas since the time of the lockdown of the pandemic. And so my family and I are going to Portugal because I'm presenting a paper in Portugal this summer. So I'm really excited to eat like fresh sardines in Lisbon. That's what I wanted to say. That's fantastic. And yeah, AI, maybe we'll talk about that. That's a popular topic now, right? It hasn't come up. Not at all. Not at all. So this leads like on many levels of connections I'm gonna bring on Karen Cangliosi because there's a lot of things. You just got back from Portugal and you're talking about membership and Mia Kane University just joined OE Global as a membership. What's the synchronicity there? And well, first of all, say hello. Okay, hi. Thank you, Alan. I know there's so many things that I would like spark things that I want to talk about and I'll try to do it quickly. So I'm Karen Cangliosi. I currently reside in Western Massachusetts, Northampton, Massachusetts here and I'm the director of membership for OE Global. And yeah, I'm excited about a lot of things. I've done a lot of travel just over the last three weeks, just the trips that I needed to do just all ended up back to back. And so Portugal was one of them and I definitely recommend eating the fresh sardines and all their other wonderful food that they have. But as most recently I was in Hawaii for the Hawaii Student Success Institute and that was really fabulous. Like talk about a passionate group of educators, Wade Oshiro in particular who is at Leeward Community College. He's just amazing. And all of the folks working there within the Hawaii Community College system including Sunny Pie, super fabulous. And then I went from Hawaii to Miami. I know it's crazy. And working with the Leadership Institute for Rios which is the Institute for Racially Just, Inclusive and OpenSTAM that's riosinstitute.org I should have put a link up there somewhere. And we're doing so many exciting things including working on a paper about open science and how open science integrates in with open STEM education. I'm super excited about that. And of course I'm here to also talk about the membership drive for OE Global which I'm equally excited about. So so many things going on. And I could talk more about that as I wanted to give other people a chance to talk. Thank you so much, Karen. And so speaking of best for last, hello Ursa. Thanks, Alan. That's hilarious. Do I lay it on too thick? Perhaps, just a little. It's all good. I was thinking about sardines and I was like, I know, no, just know. I'm not gonna do that. But I encourage and support everyone who does. My name is Clarissa Sorensen-Unruh. I tend to go by Rissa because I was Rissa Kim on Twitter for many years, but I'm not anymore. And I teach chemistry statistics at Central New Mexico Community College in Albuquerque. And I am excited. What am I excited about? I am excited that it's, I'm gonna be really like in the present and be like, I'm really excited that it's Friday. It's the weekend. And then, you know, it's, or it's going to be the weekend. And it is just really nice to have some time to think about being in nature and eat good food and sleep late, you know? I mean, that's where I am right now. And also my fest, which I'm trying to get a lot pumped up for. So there we go. That's what I got. That sounds like a perfect plan. And so just act as being from Albuquerque, are you into the super high chili green peppers? Oh, yes. I was dying eating some. Yeah, actually, chili peppers, like if you watch Hot Ones or any of those shows, chili peppers still don't really, they're kind of weird in terms of the, what is that called, the scale that does the chili? Yeah, it'll come to me like two hours later. It'll come to me exactly. I'll look it up, give me a second. But I'm like, there's somewhere between like a ghost pepper, I mean, they can get as hot as like a ghost pepper or maybe a little hotter, but they're not as hot as some of the stuff they eat. Yeah. I just remember a cold soup I had there once. Oh, sorry. I'm going way off track. We're not here to talk about food, but we can, so that's the format. But I know each of you came with some things you wanted to talk about. And so again, I don't know if anybody wants, if the equity on bound folks want to go first or Bocola, if you want to talk about your Wikipedia in the classroom project, I would love to hear about that, because that's when I know about the least. Is that too much asking you to go first? OK, yeah, thank you. So the reading Wikipedia in the classroom program was, although the program at area started in 2020, and it's a teacher's flagship training program that was organized by the Wikimedia Education. So what's the program aims to achieve is that it wants to enhance teacher's media and information literacy skill using UNESCO's Media and Information Literacy Framework. And this framework focuses on promoting the ability of teachers and students to be able to learn the technicalities that are involving better assessing information online and also having that skill on how to not just assess this information, but also learn how to evaluate the kind of information that they consume. Because, ordinarily, here in Nigeria, before the COVID-19 lockdown, it was basically face-to-face teaching and learning process. But with the pandemic coming to change the old regular, traditional Nigerian education system of having a face-to-face teaching and learning, like people had to now learn the new normal. And the new normal was that if all schools had to go towards e-learning, it has to be either distance learning or remote learning. So for most secondary schools who are not really used to this kind of teaching and learning, they would find it very difficult to easily adapt the new system. So with the reading Wikipedia in the classroom training program, I was able to receive training from the Wikimedia education. Because it's a kind of a trained trainer approach, a TOC kind of program where I had received a three-month online training program where I had to run over the courses. It was an LMS structured kind of program. So I had to go over those courses. And at the end, I got satisfied. I was the first Nigeria, not Africa, because we had a representative from Ghana as well during my cohorts. But before my cohorts, they had earlier had some series of cohorts. But there was no African involved in those previous cohorts. So I happened to be the first cohort to come from Nigeria. And then at the end of this training session, where we adopt the UNESCO MIL framework. And also, we are using this in line with Wikipedia as a learning tool. Because there are so many learning tools online. They wanted teachers to better accept the story, please. That's fine. Something came into a room. So we know this happens. Yeah, so sorry about that. No worries. This is real life. My cat is going to come on the screen. Yeah, I had to borrow space to do this section. So that's why I just have to accept some of this interaction. So while I was on this training program, we had a series of online training where we had to not just learn how to help teachers understand the positive impacts of LWC. That is reading Wikipedia in the classroom. But to also learn how we can better communicate this learning to the teachers. Because I wasn't an educator. But I wanted to go and face teachers. And these teachers, they have the experience. And coming with something new, they sometimes tend to want to avoid it. They'd be like, yes, I'm experienced. What are you coming to give me? Things like that. So we had to go over this training session. At the end, I was satisfied. And I was also privileged to be the first person to implement this training session in Nigeria. And yes, during the implementation, initially our goal was that we wanted 50 teachers to be part of this training program, where we transfer the skills that we have gained from the cohorts. And initially it was 50. But when we put up the call for application, we had over 100 teachers who signed up for this training session. But at the end, we had to limit our selection to just 70 teachers. And after the selection, 70 teachers across 35 schools in queer states were engaged on how to promote their media and information literacy skill using Wikipedia as a learning tool in their various classroom. And also, this training was, in fact, very important and very useful at that time. Because most teachers always believed that, no, Wikipedia is not reliable. They don't want to promote the use of Wikipedia in their classroom. But having to engage these teachers and giving them a better understanding of what Wikipedia is really is and how they can effectively and more efficiently make use of Wikipedia, we were able to change their perception and also help them accept the use of Wikipedia in their class. At the end, 60 teachers were satisfied at the end of the training session. And so far, so good, we've been able to establish three Wikis secondary school clubs. And these school clubs was created as a result of the teachers who were part of this training program wanted a sustainability for the program. They wanted a space where they can also showcase what they have learned to their students and help them better know how to assess reliable and factual based information from Wikipedia. So we had to establish this club, and the club was set up in three schools. We engaged 45 students. And at the end, those students were also given a certificate of participation. So that's a little bit. I know I've really said a lot already, so it's not a little bit. So that's just a brief about what's reading Wikipedia in the classroom is all about. So it's mostly about helping teachers better make use of Wikipedia and helping them to incorporate the use of Wikipedia into their classroom curriculum. And even, in fact, helping the students learn new things outside of their regular curriculum. Like, we get to help students understand how to use the citation. And also, we had them understand that there are some features that on various Wikipedia articles that determines the category of that Wikipedia article and how students can better make use of those Wikipedia articles, because Wikipedia is very broad. It has so many fields of topics and subjects. And sometimes, secondary schools to them might not be able to effectively make use of Wikipedia as a reference for their assignments if they are not well guided on how to use it. So that's a little bit about me. I don't really want to take all the time. Thank you so much. No, thank you. First of all, you have incredible energy for this. How did you get involved with this? And why did this create such excitement in you? OK, like before now, I've always been a passionate learner. I've always liked to learn new things. And because I'm also in the information sector where we want to promote open access to information as librarians, we want to open up our collections, then I feel it's not just about opening up the collection. How are people making use of these collections? How are students, or in fact, readers that are outside of the four walls of the library? How are they making use of the information that is on the online spaces? So this was what inspired me to put up for that program when the Kofo application was on. And yes, this has really spurred my energy. Like it's really inspired me to want to do more because before now, Wikipedia in Nigeria, for most academia is always a no, no, no, no. But at the end of this training session, like having over 75 teachers put up for a program that is just meant for 50 teachers, it was really, really something that was exciting. And yes, we wanted to push this forward. Thank you. Oh, thank you so much. And that is the way we can best do this is you get 75 people changing their ways and get that excitement and they will spread it. So I really appreciate you coming in here. So thank you so much and feel free to jump in the conversation anytime till I want to stop talking. That's allowed too. Let's talk about like, you know, Mia, Maha and Rissa and actually Karen too is part of Equity Unbound and LifeFest and me. Yeah, yeah, but I'm keeping quiet. I'm overrepresented here and my daughter. That's great. Oh, she's probably like an adult by now, right? He's 11, almost 11. Hi, Hoda. Hi, Hoda. I'm telling you, she's the youngest co-organizer. So how do we talk about LifeFest or Equity Unbound in general? I always start talking about this. Okay, so I forgot to say in my introductions that I'm a co-founder of Equity Unbound along with Mia and Katherine Cronin in Ireland. And so MyFest, the first time it was ever offered was June, July, August of 2022 and MyFest stands for Mid-Year Festival. And so it was a three month learning journey, choose your own learning journey. It was meant to energize, re-energize, re-energize us all in community to focus on why should a conference be three days long if it's virtual and why should we stay on Zoom for six hours in a row when we have lives? And so we're like, yeah, let's spread it over three months and not have more than two or three sessions a day, spread it out over a week. And why don't we see what people need right now? What does our community need right now? And everyone was burning out from sort of the change from being fully online to being back face-to-face and hybrid. And so what were the topics people were interested in and those are the topics people were interested in. They were interested in open education digital literacies. They were interested to talk about critical pedagogy and social justice. They needed to do community building and reflection together. And there was so much need for well-being and joy. And we also wanted to embrace emergence so that we could come up with things as people asked for them. And I'll let Mia and Risa say more about it. Go ahead, Risa. I was gonna say, that's you, Mia. Well, I mean, I guess one thing I can say is just my first was a moment in which we really felt the world needed recharge and renewal. Remember the context is was the pandemic and the COVID-19 crisis in the world and what it did to educators everywhere, learners everywhere was definitely a kind of collective trauma that we all experienced. It's not over. I'm talking in the past tense and I'm uncomfortable about that, so I'll just say that out loud. But at any rate, these two words, renewal, recharge, were very important to us and we responded to that. And that's the sort of tradition of equity and bound. So I'll just say a little bit about what equity and bound is in the context of the Mid-Year Festival, also known as MyFest. Equity and bound is a network, a network in which anyone can join and we hope, Bacola, I hope you consider joining and I hope you bring your friends along and I hope anyone listening will feel the invitation that I'm extending. And in equity and bound, we kind of anchor our work around a kind of value system called intentional, equitable hospitality. And we write about it and talk about it, referring to it as IEH, again, intentional, equitable hospitality. But really it's about inviting people in with the value of inclusion, understanding that equity is an aspiration, that we are very different. All of us are very different people coming from so many different contexts, especially when you broaden that out into a global context. But we want to practice a sense of care and hospitality in joining together on a learning journey. And so yeah, those are some of the kind of key aspects of the value system of equity and bound. It's basically an open learning network. We have a lot of other things that we care about within it, but we have been honored to sort of be a part of a momentum around those values that I expressed over the course of the last four years or so. So, and the pandemic I think was a time when we really needed to come together in new ways and start to think about learning in broader, newer ways with that humanist underpinning that I mentioned when I just was chatting in the beginning. So I'll be quiet now, but hopefully that sort of shared some of the things we're up to. I think Maha and me had just about covered it. I don't know what else to say. Exactly. We could talk about organization and such, but do you have a question, Alan? Maybe what you saw during my fest, like what were some things that really stand out for you? I think what is important to me about my fest is it offers a different way of thinking about multi-generational learning, inclusion, and really thinking about topics that we don't technically, technically that we often don't talk about as broadly in academia as we really should, or in K through 12, I mean, this isn't exclusive to higher education. Things like grief and play and Sabbath and... I'm listing all of things my sister did, but in terms of thinking about that rest and recharge, I really, even the ideas of Adrienne Marie Brown that Karen talked about, I really think that it's a place to really dig in to social justice issues in a caring and collaborative environment where everyone can kind of be themselves authentically. Does that help? Yeah, I think if I could jump in like as someone who is a bit more of a participant, like a bit more like just coming into my fest and not having been part of the organization the first time around, and I think that what I would say about it is that like the real sense of authentic community that was developed there is pretty rare. Like people often say, let's build a community. And I think that what the my fest organizers and the Unbound Equity does is really build community in ways that you don't see happen where people are trusting each other, where they're talking about how do we bring these ideas into our work so that they actually are generative? And I think we can often underestimate the extent to which it's important to have a sense of support and community in order to get any of the work done that we need to do. So even though I was there to talk about STEM education and social justice and STEM, like just talking to folks like, here's an idea is one thing, but saying you have a community of people that are gonna support you through this process. That's where transformation can happen in education. And I think that's what my fest does differently than pretty much anything I've seen in most other places. Okay, Hart, Karen, I don't know if I can stick with that. That's better than an emoji, any day. Ellen hates emojis, by the way. I love them. And I love that you love them. I don't object to what other people do, but also it'd be nice to hear about, like there's some planning and you're going on for my Fest 23 and I'm waiting for Mahada to come in, but you guys can talk about it. But I also wanna say like the range of both types of things that people could do was so much wider than other things. And the potential it creates to create connections. So you're not necessarily coming together with the same people that you generally come together at other meetings. And that's like what we want first. I mean, that's what's happening here. It's happened all week long where people sign up for these sessions and they at least have some good conversations going. So what is the trajectory for my Fest 23? I guess I'll- Can I talk with? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna try talking with my camera off and then Mia, you can continue if it's cutting off. So the trajectory is to bring in people who are participants and organizers and pass together to co-organize. We organized something in January just about intentionally equitable hospitality and we told people, you joined this and then you can be part of the decisions of how my Fest 23 happens. And a lot of people wanted to do that and wanted to do that. And we're hoping, I think the key thing that's standing out for me other than keeping what was good about my Fest 22, the key thing that I think is standing out for me is that people now want to talk about activism and systemic change and how do we enact our values? Not just in our classrooms, but in our institutions and make that change, systemic and wider and deeper and not just in pockets, which is where it is now. And we need our allies outside of our institutions to help us think through how to do this within our institutions, I think. And maybe, I'm imagining Bacola's hearing this for the first time and some people and listening audience. Like, I think the hospitality part is we don't wanna make it feel like it's for the people who've done this before and you are expanding by like, how can people get involved with this right now? Because I mean, it'd be great to have some Wikipedia activities in next year's my Fest. Yeah, I think one of the things I just wanna emphasize it's been said already, but I think undergirding all the work of equity and bound and definitely the spirit of my Fest 22, my Fest 23, which is yet to come, is participatory investigation, learning, community. And so it's that sense that everybody has a voice. And one thing that Karen said earlier that I just wanna bring to the foreground is the idea of trust. Trust is not something that we come across easily. It's something that's built in sort of small moments, paying attention, slowing down and sharing things that matter to us in ways that are sometimes vulnerable, being able to laugh together about things and let things go too that are troubling in our world. Meaning the day-to-day kinds of things that hold us down. So I think the quality of trust is a really important part of equity and bound and my Fest. And we are always trying to explore how to build upon that, how to build platforms that matter to people, how to like kind of grow crowdsourced portfolio of things we care about. So we have like a music library, a reading library. Rissa mentioned intergenerational learning and that's so, it's a pop for me, like something I care about so much. Basically when children are there with grandparents are there with, I don't know what I am. I was gonna say a mid-person, I don't know what that is. I hate categorizing things. I need a T-shirt of that, by the way, Mia. I'm a mid-person. I like that. I'm a sandwich generation. I'm a sandwich generation. And that doesn't mean average, okay? I don't like the mid-person moment. I mean, none of us are average. None of y'all are average. You're from the mid. Yeah, you guys get the drift. And that was actually quite interesting to see unfold is that there were activities meant for children to do and family and you know, you often never see that at conferences and events. But naming this in an inclusive way is so big. Like Huda, my daughter said, don't call it for children, I'm not a child. You call it for all ages. And then Marissa Hovey, I've heard that and she said, for all ages is nicer than families because what if someone's single but they wanna join, right? So for all ages, really, it's a much more inclusive term than even we intended, I think. Like even we hadn't meant it to be that inclusive but it turned out to be, I think. Let Huda know that I heard her and I am. I am adjusting my language. I love it. Yeah, no, I think that trust, I think y'all have said it beautifully. I really thought that, I think that the activism, what I'm hearing is the activism because of the nature of all kinds of things happening all over the world and including the United States but also really trying to get some sense around burnout and grief and all of the pieces that we might not have fully dealt with. That we need to continue to deal with. Let's put it that way. And I wanna kind of go back to it. Mahaa was saying about systemic change. Like what does that really look like? What does that mean? We often talk about changing structures and systems and that's not disconnected from the conversation about trust and compassion and learning and like how are we bringing that to actually change systems? I love that we're gonna explore that and there's so much that needs to happen. There's so much backlash happening especially within the United States and like how do we address that? How do we bring what we've been learning here to actually transform systems? That's what I'm excited about. As long as we don't run into the problems of change management, have you guys, have you heard that before? The Rick Murr problems that like you bring in new ideas someone and the problems are, I don't like the kind of levels of not like it. I don't like it. I don't like you. And no, I don't get it. I don't like it and I don't like you. So we don't want that. I've probably heard that. You know what I mean? That sounds like a speaking series. Pretty sure it is. Come to RISC's development seminar. But also, with change management, always a hurdle is like the overwhelming sense about what can I really do because the systems seem to have the power and where are the ways that we can exert our influence and not keep hitting our own efforts and energy against things which just constantly closes down. That's the trick, right? Like, what is it really? What does it mean to really think about what a system is? And I think that I often, when I've talked, like I just did a couple of presentations about open pedagogy, you know, with an institute, people will say, oh, but our systems don't really allow me to do that. Like, we can't edit Wikipedia ourselves or we can't actually have students working outside of the LMS and it's because our systems won't allow us. And I always ask the question, well, who created these systems? You know, like who's responsible for systems? Like accreditation boards. You know, like accreditation boards weren't really handed down from God, right? Like we created them and we need to change them. And so I know it can be really hard to think about how we really can confront existing structures to say, we need to change it. But I also find that a lot of people, especially faculty that have been ensconced within their systems of tenure for a really long period of time can be the most conservative about wanting to change anything. Partly because the system's working for them, you know? So really how we address the privilege within our institutions I think is one of the things that we need to think about when we think about systemic change too. And I, a long time ago, I can remember doing some stuff with like, and this was kind of within the frame of using technology and education about how some people would be innovative and create they would subvert the system that's in place. So they would do things in an LMS that weren't really built into the LMS. They would defy it. And the other way is just to going completely outside when people would create their own things. And so it's possibility, you know, I really believe in the inventiveness of teachers because that's what teachers always do, you know? When they are in the mode of teaching, they're not operating from, you know, an artificial intelligent generated script they're operating from their human nature. So I don't want to talk about AI. I'm tired of it. Anybody else? We can, but I saw Karen, I know I wouldn't give you a chance to talk about the membership stuff. Sure, yeah. So you may or may not be aware that OE Global has been trying to increase our members both at institutional and individual level. And in fact, the idea of being an individual member of OE Global is kind of new. I think it just sort of predates my being membership director and they were piloting it last year. Ellen could probably say more about that. And so what we've decided to do during Open Education Week is to allow folks to join as an individual member for free during OE Week. Although that's about to expire. It's gonna end on March 12th, which is Sunday. So if you sign up now before Sunday, you can be a free individual member of OE Global for a year. And we also have institutional discounts that again, we have a 50% discount for institutions in underrepresented regions and 20% discount for institutions in not so underrepresented regions. There's a details on the website and maybe Ellen could put the link up to that there. But I wanna say when I think about being sort of new to OE Global and thinking about why would anybody wanna be a member? Like what does it mean to be a member of OE Global? What is this organization about? What can it be about? I think is a bigger question because we talk about OE Global as a member-driven organization. And so what I'd like to do is hear from our members. What do you think we should be doing that we're not doing already? I think we provide spaces for network and discussion. The OEG Connect platform, which is actually an incredible system. It's a little complex, but I encourage people to find your way through. And that system, that's all Ellen. Like he constructed this magic on the web for people to find each other and network with each other. And so part of what we're trying to do is to really leverage the ways in which people can support each other and talk to each other and find each other. And so at least starting there, bringing members together to say, what do you want us to do? Instead of a few of us sitting in a room saying, this is what you're gonna get as a member. What I'd like to say is what would you, what would the ideal be? Like how can we bring the values of unbound equity, for example, into the organizational structure and functioning of OE Global? That would be, that's Karen Cangellosi's dream. I don't know if that's the dream of the other folks that are running that organization. But it'd be great to just chat about like, what could OE Global really be and look like if we could change those systems and make them anything that we'd want them to be. So I'm gonna just sort of throw that question out to all of the brilliant minds that are right in this little room as well as anybody who's listening. Well, thank you. And also like, we've casually talked about this. What about, what kind of relationship can we build or cooperative agreement to work with Equity Bound on MyFest and have it be more than, hey, just come join us. It's like, no, we should be joining you. So we have no idea how to make that happen, but I think we'll be talking about it. That sounds really exciting. I think partnership in general is, can be so fruitful and grow so many wings of work. I think one of the things that's exciting is finding thinking partners and working partners, like kind of a matching magic that occurs. And it doesn't have to be everybody like interfacing with everyone. It can be a small faction working with another small faction to bring it to new community audience, et cetera. That I think is part of what we keep learning about. And figuring out together, but no doubt like we're in this zone of seeking new ways to work. And to me, that's exciting because we're trying to do things better than they were done before. And I think one of the things with all of this is when you jump out of any institutional boundaries, you can imagine and spread your wings and try things without someone reading down your neck or telling you you can't do that yet or you have to do it this way. But then you try it. And then you try it with crazy allies like yourself, radical people that make you realize you're not crazy because other people do think this way. And you develop your thinking along with them and you refine it. And then you go back to your institution. This is my way of doing it. You go back to your institution and you say, you know what, I tried it. And some of people from our institution came and now I have allies. I have so many more allies in my institution because of all that I do outside of the institution that I invite them to. And then they have freedom to say things and do things that they couldn't do elsewhere. And I think that's part of the ways you resist those structures that are going against the kind of values we're trying to engender. I think that's beautiful. And I think I pledged to be more insidiously radical on the Scoville scale. High on the Scoville scale. Yeah, we need a Scoville scale. I love it. You're flaming, burning. I love that. I also need a t-shirt of that. Not a very inclusive metaphor. I really love it. Metaphors will always let you down. As much as I love metaphors, they're always going to go off the rails, so. Can I get us something about metaphors? Because I always said we wouldn't talk about AI. But my mom doesn't know anything about AI. But she says she thinks AI is like fast food. And so I always tell people that this is a metaphor my mom gave, what's a metaphor they would give. And the other day someone got so upset because instead of saying fast food, I said junk food, which is of course, they're both the same thing, but the connotation is already a more negative connotation. I mean, I'm okay with calling it junk food too, but that person was really not okay with it. So yeah, the subtle differences in how we name our metaphors makes a huge difference. All right, thank you so much. I want to put a question, this came up like spontaneously yesterday. And so I think it's a good ender. Like, we started with excitement. Let's end with some hope. Anybody want to talk about what's given you hope going into the next period of time? I'll go first if I can. Yeah. What gives me hope is the opening of any creative space where we can collaboratively come together and think about what's next for us or what we can do and what have you. So creative spaces are giving me hope. Okay, so for me, I would say what gives me hope. Before joining this session at earlier, like going over other presenters profile. And yes, something that struck to me was the equity bound, if I'm not mistaken. So like I went over the website and like I saw something very different, something very new. Like I've not seen that before, yes. So I want to give it up for, is it maha? Sorry, I don't want to mispronounce your name, yes. So I would say, and just to add to what she said initially about the future of open education global, I would say having more gathering like this, having like a panel discussion where we engage like minds, people that are very passionate about the same thing that we want to achieve. I think it will really do a lot good to increase the community and in fact, bring more people to accept what they do in open education global. And yes, equity bound, I think it's something that like we could have a kind of a partnership with the Wikimedia Education if it's something that interests her or with the Wikimedia community because like these are things that we don't really get opportunities to discuss, like engage most of the time or in fact have a better understanding of the concepts and how we can better understand what these topics are all about. So I think it's very good to have, I think open education should look out for having more partnership like this, having discussions that sprawl out ideas, generate new programs and make people see reasons to continue to advocate for openness, continue to advocate for not just openness now, but like have more people become part of the open community. So that's just some of my few cents that I would like to add to this. Thank you. And I'm just gonna riff off of that community and openness, give me hope. And people's openness to become part of community because there is no community if people don't open themselves up to the possibility. There's an attitude of coming into something like my fest where you're willing and then the hosts all obviously have to do the intentionally equitable hospitality to welcome you but people who are open to that in itself gives me hope. I'm gonna sort of just also just echo everything that people have said about like what gives me hope are communities like this and the opportunity to have these kinds of discussions and unbound equity in my fest are, I think at the forefront of creating spaces for people to have hope and find hope. And so I'm also hopeful about what a partnership can look like and hopeful to feel that OE Global can kind of help to build that in ways that maybe it hasn't done before. So I'm hopeful about those things which is maybe different than saying what's giving me hope but I'm feeling some hope there. So thanks. All right. I guess I'll just thread a little bit of what I'm hearing together. And I just wanna say what gives me hope is love but I don't wanna just say that and throw it out there like without context. I think when we can trust each other when we can listen to each other when we can connect in communities that are open to partnership and trying new things that haven't been done before, when we wish for more and better than what society seems to dish out and we're able to sort of think together in love that gives me hope. That's fantastic. And I wanna thank you so much. I think my husband internet may have flaked out on her but we know she's here always. And also I guess we hope is just these kind of conversations because and still probably the most exciting thing ever since I started on the internet a billion years ago is that you accidentally meet people that you never would have before. And then you kind of like I always am hopeful and fed by things that just lead to the serendipity of coming into other interesting ideas and people and that's what happens in these spaces. So I really wanna thank you so much. A for coming here and being part of the conversation making these connections. And then also I already forgot the last thing I was gonna say thank you for but just also for putting up with an unstructured environment. And I am planning to do more of this because I think these are very valuable. Well, we're thankful for you, Alan. Yes, thanks. What you create here. It's pretty amazing. And you talk about serendipity about meeting people in these different kinds of spaces only to discover that they're from your hometown. Like Alan and I grew up in the neighborhood we're five minutes away from each other. Which we have. Computing high schools. Milfordville. That's right, Milfordville. Amazing. That's what makes me happy. So again, I wanna thank you again and the people who are watching us on YouTube. And I find out people are actually enjoying and Bacola mentioned this that they're enjoying watching these later. So it's something that I hope to continue doing because I think these are pretty valuable. So happy last day of open education week which of course doesn't end anything for all we're doing. It gives moving on to other things. And we just hope we keep crossing tracks. So. Thank you. Ciao. Thank you. Thank you Alan. Thanks everyone. All right. Thank you Alan. Thanks everyone.