 So, good morning. I just want to start off by saying thank you guys so much for having us here, being a part of your conference. And it's always a special thing to be able to do something like this, to start off in a good way, you know, in our culture. We start off things by, you know, we start off with prayer and being thankful for today and, you know, that we're healthy and we're all here together. So, with that, myself and my group, we're known as Kiano, which means in my language means all of us. So, you know, it's for all walks of life, our culture, we share it as much as we can because there's a point in time where we weren't able to practice and share our culture. So, it's always a, it's a powerful thing to be able to bless you guys in this way. We've been doing stuff like this together for a while now and, you know, we're all, we're all friends and we all, we all travel the powwow trail together. You know, we see each other around and we have that connection that, you know, this is what we do. And, you know, it was kind of hard because a lot of these guys were coming from a Red Deer powwow that was happening this past weekend. And, you know, for them to be here, that they made it this morning safely, you know, as I was hoping that everything was going to go smoothly and it did. And so, with that, I'm just, I'm thankful to be here. My name is Kyle Stanley. I come from the Frog Lake First Nation. So, to be able to do this is always an honor. We always look forward to performing for organizations like this. You know, we teach a lot in schools as well. So, a lot of us are advocates for our culture. And so, we represent ourselves a certain way, the way we walk this life. So, I just want to say thank you to my group for being here today. Let's give them a hand. So, I think we're pretty much out of time. We're gonna try and catch our breaths and, you know, carry on with our day. And, you know, I hope you guys have a wonderful week. And again, as someone say, thank you for having us. Hi, hi. Let's just give one more warm welcome and applause for Kyle Stanley and his group, Keanu. Well, with that, we are going to get started. Welcome, everyone, to the OE Global Conference 2023, building a sustainable world through open education. My name is Dawn Witherspoon. I use she, her pronouns, and I am one of the program co-chairs for this conference. And you're emcee for today. I welcome you all to Amisquatchee, Wisconsin, also known as Beaver Hills House in the city of Edmonton. And welcome to all those connecting online through OE Connect. We hope you find the platform helpful and a way to connect with others around your global community. We go. We are starting this conference with a blessing from one of our new cultural advisors at Northwest College, Walter Roger. Born in the Inuvialuit region in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, he grew up in Valley View, Alberta, in Treaty 8 near Sturgeon Lake, which is about three and a half hours north of here. Walter speaks fondly of his connection to the land, to Mother Earth and the Creator. He shared with me the importance of mentoring by bringing youth and elders together to learn from each other. Walter is saying a blessing for us today so that we can begin this conference in a good way. He will introduce himself in his first language in Inuvialucton and then share his blessing in English. Please welcome Walter Roger to offer this tobacco to you to share your blessings with us today for all of our global visitors visiting us here and so that we can all learn from each other. Tawao. Tawao in the Cree language is welcome. In our language, where I'm from, Inuvik, Northwest Territories, it's uvlami, meaning good morning. So I will introduce myself. I will introduce myself. As a youth, I grew up within the residential school system. I was taking away from my family, I was raised within the Alberta area, however being the resilient man that I am, I returned back to Inuvik at the age of 30 and I introduced myself to my family and I reintegrated myself with my culture of the in-evaluate people. I stand before you today a proud in-evaluate man that has been raised in treaty a territory that has been adopted into the culture into the way of life which is a connection between creator and mother earth. Today I was presented with this tobacco and with this yellow yellow print which will be used for prayer when I go about to the sweat lodge and I will give these prayers to creator in hopes that this conference will be able to do as it's as it's asked to come together as one to be as one with mother nature to be as one with creator to be as one to help educate our communities. Today I hold in front of you a braid of sweet grass the braid of sweet sweet grass is intertwined with three which represents the mind the body and the spirit today this braid is good will represent the indigenous communities the Western communities and lastly the creator bringing us all together as one so that we may all be able to work together as one. This braid will be used for ceremony as we go about our days if anybody wishes to smudge later on we can do this outside I don't know if we have permission to do it indoors we do okay so anybody who wishes to smudge later on please approach me and we'll have a smudge together so at this time I would like to offer a blessing to creator and to mother earth and to each and every one of you that one way offer this blessing that we think of what we have come here together to accomplish what is the reason for us to be here today as one if you can open with that within your mind your heart your spirit these prayers these blessings that we give to creator today will hopefully be in a good way so if we cannot if you want to bow you you can bow your head if you want to hold hands with one another you're more than welcome to and I will say this blessing in the universal language of English creator we come to you together today as one people we offer prayer creator today that everything that happens today and from here forth will be in a good way we ask that you look after each and every one of us our family our friends our loved ones creator we ask that you bless each and every one of us here today that we may be all be able to make new friendships and gain strength from one another gain knowledge gain courage gain a love for each other and that this love that we bring to in our lives today will be able to flourish and be spread across the universe through our prayers and the way we walk with each other each other that those that we come in front of again today creator we ask that we we come to them in a good way that we shine upon them a good way of life that when we smile they smile with us thank you creator for bringing us here to be together for this learning for this experience and for the knowledge that will be shared today with this we say hi hi thank you all enjoy the conference I now invite Dr. Norma Schneider vice president academic at Norquist College to provide us with a land acknowledgement and a welcome from Norquist College thank you Dawn and thank you so much Walter for leading us in opening prayer and really start us off in this conference in a good way I am so honored to welcome all of you to Edmonton for the OE Global Conference and I'd like to start with a land acknowledgement I am proud to call this land my home I am a settler here we started two generations ago my grandparents were the first settlers from my family to come and they farmed on the land and then my parents also farmed on the land and provided a really great life for us and we're so grateful to have been given this gift of the land from the indigenous and Métis people so we gather today here in Edmonton which it eerily is a traditional gathering place for the indigenous and Métis people for many many years and is referred to as Treaty Territory 6 and Métis region 4 and Norquist College serves its learners and the community on this land that has been the crossroads for generations and we recognize that the land we gather on and its rich history and we acknowledge that we're all treaty people as an act of reconciliation and of gratitude Norquist College is dedicated to ensuring that the spirit of Treaty 6 is honored and respected again welcome on behalf of the team that's put this event together we are delighted to host all of you as the first community college to host this event we're looking forward to showing you what we see as the potential for open education in college settings Norquist College has a bold strategic plan we aspire to be a place where people of diverse backgrounds can come together and access opportunities to learn and throughout that learning they transform their lives and then they transform their communities and then they transform the world and open education is a key part of that vision Norquist approach to the future of learning is embodied in our re-imagine higher education strategy when we outlined what we wanted for the future of learning to look like we pictured our college as a global leader in open educational resource development and use so we got to work and we are focusing on creating ZED CRED courses and a developing in-house open education resources our team has created those step-by-step guides for creating OERs for our faculty and we have them in place or in development for many of our programs we're excited about the transformative potential of open education Norquist is proud to be in Edmonton which recently became the first Canadian city to join the UNESCO global network of learning cities we're grateful to be part of a community that really prioritizes lifelong learning in all of its forms and this as this year's theme suggests open education has the potential to move us toward a more sustainable world I'm looking to hear I'm looking forward to hearing about the many facets of building a sustainable world strategy from all of the wonderful speakers that we have here and when we talk about sustainability we mean a more holistic view of sustainability as is embodied by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that means we view sustainability through the lens of reconciliation with indigenous peoples it means that we engage in an exploration of how we build and sustain education with equity with diversity and with inclusion in the heart of our work and it means that we revisit the relevance of open education itself as we adapt to changing technologies such as generative AI and open source AI I know these topics are going to be explored more throughout the next few days with leading experts from around the world here to share their time and insights I would like to thank our sponsors our organizers our volunteers and speakers who are supporting this event and working so hard to make it happen and I would especially like to thank all of you for your commitment to open education and for joining us here thank you thank you Norma next from the city of Edmonton from Ward P. Hessewin please welcome councillor Tim Cartmel who will give us a greeting from the city of Edmonton well good morning everyone it is my absolute pleasure to be here I would first like to offer on behalf of Mayor Sohi and Edmonton City Council our thanks to to all of you for coming to Edmonton to have this conference in and particularly to Northwest College for being the host of this conference this is a really a tremendous opportunity I'd also like to thank Kyle and his colleagues and friends for their performances this morning just a terrific way to start off a day and particularly three days of learning that are going to happen here and I'd also like to thank Walter for his comments earlier today you know there's often now comments that are offered by one of our one of the indigenous representatives and it's really educational and informative if you take the time to listen and to and appreciate the sharing that that Walter had to offer today and you know one thing that he said really struck with me I'm in this as it happens this sort of rolling text debate with my brother and so he's not happy with him with me and I'm not real happy with him right now but we've known each other forever and one of the things that Walter said is that he traveled back north to introduce himself to his family at 30 years old and I I find that hard to imagine so I thank Walter for sharing that that offers real perspective one of the things that Edmonton City Council did roughly two years ago was to rename its wards with indigenous names that were gifted to the city of Edmonton so I am the Edmonton City Councilor for Ward Pahasemin which as I understand it loosely translates to Thunderbird or land of the Thunderbird and it's a pleasure to be here it's a small gesture I would say but I think it helps us on this on this journey of learning truth first and which is really important for all of us Edmonton is a city of learners and educators we're home to eight post-secondary institutions including Northwest College Northwest College pardon me here in the heart of downtown Edmonton students who choose to study in Edmonton have so many options from research universities to trade schools to comprehensive community colleges the diversity of our cities post-secondary offerings is a boon for our city this was a key factor in Edmonton becoming the first Canadian city to join the UNESCO global network of learning operates of learning cities and I'm sure it was also a factor in bringing this year's open education conference to Norquast and to Edmonton so again I'd like to welcome all of the delegates from 34 countries who have come here to learn about and discuss open education I hope you find your time here enlightening this conference provides an excellent opportunity for all of you to strengthen connections with educational partners and stakeholders from around the world and to further development and availability of open education resources Edmonton is focused on lifelong learning of all of our residents to support social inclusion economic development and cultural prosperity open education resources help us to achieve this goal by making knowledge accessible to as many people as possible so to mark the start of OE global conference and demonstrate the city of Edmonton's alignment with open education I'd like to share this proclamation on behalf of Mayor Sohi and the rest of my council colleagues and I'd invite president let's go to make his way up I think he's or your whole delegation I have a plaque to present in a second here whereas the philosophy behind open education is that everyone in the world should have access to high quality educational experiences and resources and whereas from October 16th to 18th open education global and Northwest College are co-hosting the 2023 OE global conference in Edmonton and whereas the conference will allow education practitioners researchers students and others to collectively discuss the latest trends challenges opportunities and future direction of open education and whereas Northwest College is an international leader in open education as faculty use and create open education resources to make learning more accessible and whereas the city of Edmonton is aligned with OE global in Northwest College in their commitment to facilitating learning excellence for all Edmontonians therefore I councillor Tim Cartman on behalf of Mayor Amrajeet Sohi and all of Edmonton City Council do hereby proclaim October 16th 2023 open education resources day in Edmonton Alberta's capital city thank you all have a great day and a great visit to Edmonton wow this day just keeps getting better and better okay well I am very delighted to welcome to the podium Igor Lesko and Marcella Morales interim co-executive directors of OE global to bring greetings for us all let's try that again good morning everyone that's better thank you on behalf of open education global which includes the board of directors we would like to welcome you to Edmonton for the conference and also all of you who are participating in person as well as those who are watching online a special shout out also to Gail to Eagles a member of the Lakota Sunation who is connecting here from Woodstock in the United States so this year's conference celebrates many firsts actually several of firsts first of all it's the first time that the conference is hosted by a community college so we had the record number of proposals submitted to the conference nearly 250 more importantly we have just broken the record the previous record of attendance for the in-person event 400 plus participants from 30 plus countries I'm sorry to say this Wilhelm and colleagues at you Delft who organized the conference in 2018 you are no longer a court holder and and for the host of next year's conference in attendance here this is the number to beat so the planning of the conference is a significant undertaking it takes it took more than a year to put this conference of this magnitude together and obviously that is not possible without the help of various teams and so here we would just like to briefly acknowledge the incredible contribution of both the Northwest teams and our global teams from Northwest side the conference chairs Patty Sara here in attendance and Sheldon as well please round of applause for all of them you have been incredible there's been an absolute pleasure working with you and of course putting a program together that contains 200 sessions is it's not a small undertaking and here we would really like to acknowledge the role of the program coaches who have been working tirelessly to put this program together for you which includes Robert Lawson, Connie Blumgreen, Darion Letendre and Dawn Witterspoon round of applause to all of them and now I'm gonna hand over to Marcella thank you yes as Igor was saying it took a long time to make this conference and this collaboration that we have made with Northwest and OE Global has been amazing and I do want to give also a shout out to the amazing OE Global team that they are fortunately all of us here with us today so we have Una Deili, Adam Levine, Rachel Song, Ayla Jadu Flood, Mario Badilla, Liz Yata, Gian Gondo and Igor and I and we are super excited to be able to give you a warm welcome bienvenidos for those of you who speak Spanish everybody welcome enjoy the conference we are very excited to have you here help us make it a wonderful state thank you very much now to the housekeeping portion of the conference so the washrooms are by salon 12 and also salon 2 and 3 which I'll be honest I didn't scope those out earlier so I imagine they're on this side but there's definitely some down there your safety is of utmost important to us during this conference so please be aware of the location of the exits in the event that we may need to exit quickly so if you look on as you leave this room there is a gruesome hill out there and there are doors that go out there so if we need to exit there will be volunteers there to help you exit safely and we would cross the road into the parking lot and it's quite a busy road so just be really mindful if that's something that you need to do excellent and first aid if you require any first aid salon 7 is where you would need to go or you can just connect with a volunteer and they will help you our social events we have two social events prepared tonight is a networking event at Chateau Lacombe tomorrow is a Norquist social event at Norquist College those are ticketed events that were purchased in advance the lunch buffets for this conference are just going to be out here there's a couple of stations and there is plenty of food so if you happen to be in that moment where something is emptying know that it will be filled very quickly okay so building a sustainable world through open education is the theme of this conference we have over 190 sessions for you to take in in a variety of formats sustainability is one of the core features of this conference in the interest of sustainability working towards the sustainable development goals and a carbon neutral event we have made many decisions to create a conference that leaves a minimal footprint behind our colleagues at explore Edmonton will have volunteers from carbon and waste awareness teams the carbon awareness volunteers will provide insight on the importance of carbon neutrality and help us learn more about the carbon neutral aspects of this event waste awareness volunteers will also be at numerous waste stations providing guidance on where and how to dispose of waste properly so look out for them and give them a warm hello as you do your best to reduce your environmental impact during your stay here in Edmonton braiding is one of the intentional practices of this conference when we hear about braiding we think about relationships partnerships and collaboration it's about opening ourselves to new knowledge that can coexist with what we already know and how we find connection and meaning across disciplines at your table there is a bowl of ribbons along with safety pins please use them to create a braid for yourself or for a new friend pin it to your lanyard or your shirt this simple is a reminder of our connection to each other and our strength in coming together we have intentionally created conference rooms with multiple tracks within if you choose to stay in one room you will have amazing sessions from various perspectives across themes and across the globe we hope you find learning in this way exciting and inspiring we have exciting keynotes for this conference our keynote speakers Darian Latender, Cable Green, Sandra Lemouche and Kayla Larson will deliver messages that will inform inspire and help us lead our work in open education thank you so much to all of the program proposal reviewers who reviewed over 240 program proposal submissions I had the pleasure of being one of these reviewers and it was just incredible reading the number of submissions the quality of submissions and hearing more about the exciting work that's happening in open education so thank you so much to all the peer reviewers I would now like to introduce our keynote sponsor eCampus Ontario and representatives from eCampus Ontario Don Eldridge the manager programs eCampus Ontario and Lindsay Woodside digital learning associate eCampus Ontario thanks so much Don good morning everyone it is fantastic to be here at Edmonton for OE Global thank you to our co-hosts open education global and Norquist College as Don mentioned my name is Lindsay Woodside I am the director of programs and services at eCampus Ontario and I'm joined by my colleague Don Eldridge who's the manager of our open library we are thrilled to be keynote sponsors of this dynamic and best in class conference where we are gathered to collectively discuss insights trends challenges opportunities in open education and share perspectives on their future direction eCampus Ontario was founded in 2016 we are a not-for-profit government funded organization that exists in downtown Toronto our main funding partners are the ministry of colleges and universities and we support education innovation and collaboration across all of Ontario's 53 publicly funded indigenous institutes universities and colleges we are a trusted delivery partner for the government of Ontario in support of strategic open education focused policy initiatives such as the virtual learning strategy this has been a 70 million I'll repeat that once more 70 million dollar investment over three years that the government has made largely focused on creating and building open education resources policies pedagogies and practices we also support the delivery of core programs and services that are also open in nature so for example our open library a repository of over 1500 open education resources the largest in Canada as well as programs like Ontario extend which is our flagship microcredential program an open program that's focused on building digital literacy skills for teaching and learning impacting over 2000 educators to date these open platforms programs and services leverage public investment and we make an impact for every dollar invested we save our member institutions five dollars as we support efficiency and financial sustainability at eCampus Ontario we are truly working toward building a sustainable world through open education over to you Don thank you Lindsay while open education resources are free to use they are not free to create through funding we support the creation peer review and adoption of OER we are also expanding institutional capacity through advocacy programs such as our new OER Rangers which places an open education expert in almost every public institution in Ontario recognizing the important part that open education plays an accessibility eCampus Ontario is committed to increasing representation of equity seeking groups in the open landscape we work closely with indigenous institutes in Ontario to share the strength and resilience of indigenous culture while protecting and recognizing the uniqueness of indigenous knowledge in open education additionally to promote language diversity we work with French and bilingual educators across Ontario to increase the collections French assets over the course of the next several days our team will be just outside these doors and we look forward to connecting with all of you we leave you with this short video introduction to the eCampus open library and thank you for having us here at the conference today since 2017 eCampus Ontario's open library has been pioneering online education through its vast collection of openly licensed textbooks and multimedia resources it serves as a digital repository for learners educators and institutions across Ontario and beyond eliminating the financial barriers associated with traditional educational materials the open library houses over 1500 OER saving learners more than 18 million dollars to date it promotes collaboration and knowledge sharing among educators through direct funding free access to tools and support programs encouraging the creation and adaptation of OER this fosters a vibrant community where innovative teaching methods can be freely exchanged enriching the educational experience and continuously improving teaching practices eCampus Ontario's open library champions inclusivity accessibility and academic freedom empowering learners and educators to explore and learn in a digitally connected world thank you dawn and lindsay thanks for being here today i just wanted to let you all know that we have students from norquest college our faculty of business and environmental technology social and digital communications and venture development students that are volunteering here and they are in red vests and you will see them throughout the conference they are here for all three days and over 170 of them will be working on a community service learning project relating to their studies and supporting the conference sessions they will be one moment hold your applause they will be approaching you for photos potentially interviews and have been oriented to the protocol of doing their best to ask first to make sure that you're good with that so please make them feel welcome and do what you can to help them share the excitement of this conference