 All right, there we are, our groovy little music, which it makes me dance. Oh, I'm Alan Levine. I am your host here for the OEG Live series of webcast that we've been doing. It's my crazy or silly idea to bring interesting people on and have unstructured conversations about great work and open education. And this is the second show that we're doing today to feature people who have been honored and well-deserved honor for their achievements in open education with the Open Education Awards for Excellence. And what we're hoping is that their stories about their award, their work and what they've been doing since then may inspire you to nominate someone for this year's award. So I'm gonna stop like hogging the screen and bring on two very good friends and people who are gonna really fill our screen. We have Allegra Ribbidenero who I believe from Boulder, no, not Boulder, Pueblo, Colorado, right? And my dear, dear good friend and buddy from home in Cromwell, New Zealand, Wayne McIntosh. So welcome to the show and I've already taken away the intros of where I ask you but Allegra, tell us something about yourself that we should know. What should you know about me? Well, I just got a camper van. I don't know, does that count? Absolutely. We're trying some work like balance here. Okay. The truth is that part of my work like balance is doing OER. I love it so much. I do it as a hobby. So I am over in, as you said, in Colorado, in a small town called Pueblo, South of Denver where we have a regional comprehensive university that serves a lot of underserved populations and asking them to pay exorbitant amounts of money for textbooks is sinful. And in my case, I teach Spanish and I'm also the chair of the department now for English and world languages. And a few years back, we started with OER and it has just taken off at my university and it's been an amazing journey that I can't wait to share more about. That's fantastic. And Allegra was honored in 2020 with the educator award. And that was when I first got to meet her and it's just a joy talking to her. Your energy is infectious and I learned so much in listening to you. I've been to Pueblo. I think I passed through there. And my cousins have a ranch somewhere outside of Denver, somewhere between there. I can't remember the name of the town, but that's side talk. I want to hear about the camper van, but I'm already going off track but it's with great pleasure. I really want to introduce, I've known Wayne for so long. I can't remember when I did not know him online and I've gotten to spend time with him. And he's from my favorite country in the world. Hello, Wayne, and how are you today? It's today there, right? No, it's tomorrow. Yes, hi, Ellen. Yes, we've seen the future that's already happened and your Wednesday is going to be wonderful. So, good. I've had a role change recently. I'm now this week, I've become a babysitter. I'm looking off on my son and his partners, Puppy, while they are attending a wedding offshore. I'm normally based in Cromwell in the Deep South of the South Island, but I'm spending this fortnight here in Christchurch. So it's great to connect again and chat about things open. And thank you for the opportunity. Excellent, and you're in the big city, you know, and not in Cromwell. And of course, Wayne was honored in 2020 with the Leadership Award. Well deserved for his work with the OER Foundation. As well as last year, the OER Foundation got recognized with the Open Infrastructure Award. So, I mean, tell us a little, I mean, can you give the, like who doesn't know about these organizations, but tell us about your work at OER and OERU and kind of the whole thing, because it's fascinating, Wayne. Well, 14 years ago, we established the OER Foundation, which is an independent and non-profit entity that is focused on providing support to institutions and governments who want to implement OER. And we run a number of initiatives, one of which is the OER Universitas, which is a collaboration of some, you know, 40 plus institutions that assemble courses based entirely on OER. And given that we have assembled open online courses as OER, we can provide access to education for free. And there are institutions around the world that have said, you know, hey, we are willing to provide assessment services on a cost recovery basis, which is a way in which we can widen access to education. And we've got a couple of other initiatives as well. I'm also New Zealand's UNESCO chair in OER, so I spend a lot of time thinking and helping UNESCO with the implementation of the OER recommendation. But my real passion is free and open source software. And in fact, my engagement in open is from the free and open source software side of things prior to, you know, getting involved with OER, so to say, you know, the late 1990s, I was still working in Africa, doing a lot of work around ICTs for development. And already in those days, we had recognized the importance of, certainly at an enterprise level, that if we were going to achieve success, it would have to be through the use of free and open source software. And so when OER came around, you know, I recognized the four essential freedoms in OER, which is effectively the content equivalent of the free and open source software side of things. So I've kind of melded those two things together and still trying to figure out innovative ways in which, you know, we can make these futures happen. So, yeah, in a nutshell. Yeah, I put you on the spot there. But I mean, what I so respect about you, Wayne, is that you not only lead the stuff, but you do it, you're hands-on. And I've seen that in action. What did, I mean, I read your post-racial non-connect, you said it was like one of the only recognitions you ever got, which I don't believe, but like, what does it mean to be a leader in open education these days? Well, the OER Global Recognition is the one that I have on my desk. The others, you know, have been great and have been important, but the one that is on my desk every day is the OER Global Leadership Award because it's incredibly humbling, you know, to have a peer in the community who, you know, has noticed your work and has put a nomination in and to be recognized in this way. And I was trying to recall where Allegra, where we had met, it was the 2020 Award ceremony because what Paul Stacey did that year, is kind of, you know, you've been shortlisted for, you know, a thing, and we all got together for, you know, most probably some kind of interview to make a next step in this. And it was the actual awards ceremony. Yeah. And the nominees were there and it was a very special day. So I would really encourage, you know, if you know somebody who's doing something in open, you know, just, you know, to pay it forward and give that nomination, because these things do mean a lot and you're getting it from an agency like OERG, it means so much more, you know, as the leading partner institution in open education. So, I mean, you guys do amazing work and it's great to be recognized in that way, it really is. And I'm glad you framed it that way about the importance of recognizing others in the field of work that we do. And so I'm looking at Allegra and she's got her award right behind her. So, just like Wayne, this is the only one I keep in my background. I have others over there, but this one is probably the one that means the most to me as well. So I definitely keep this one always with me, makes me smile. Yeah, the photography is special. And I'm trying to, you know, they're designed by our designer, Mario Badia, who actually did that whole cute little video. And he designed this in 3D and it's printed at the online university in Costa Rica. And I'm saying, first of all, well, they deserve an award. But what I want to do this year is when they're doing the printing, I want to do one of these like live webcasts so we can watch these things being printed. I don't know why I just, I want to do that, but we're not talking about me or the trophy Allegra, about you educator, like, you know, you hinted a little bit about how you got into open education. But I mean, from what I hear, it's become central to your practice. Like, when did that happen? Well, I think as it often happens to a lot of people, we have been doing some sort of open educational practice without even knowing it out of necessity and out of the joy of sharing. And when somebody opens your eyes to CC licensing and open education, and all of a sudden puts a name on a lot of the things that we've been doing without knowing or without making it official, it really is eye-opening. And then when that community welcomes you and you start meeting other people, I mean, God, what Wayne is doing is so global. It is so enormous compared to what I'm doing. But I think all of us can make a difference at whatever scale we are able to. And interestingly enough, it starts growing even more. So for me, this was just, it happened naturally. As I said, I'm in a small university where charging $300 for a textbook seemed unthinkable, number one, so the money part, but also the fact that many of my students did not see themselves reflected in the materials and that their life experience was not part of it. I teach world languages, I teach Spanish, but I don't teach Spanish as a foreign language. I teach Spanish as a heritage language. So these are students who have grown up speaking Spanish at home. And there are no textbooks for them. They all talk about Spanish as a language of faraway places in this exotic lands. And they say, well, Maya, we need that talks in Spanish. What is this weird textbook that does not speak to me? Or a lot of these textbooks put down the US variety of Spanish because of all the prestige languages and the stigmatized varieties. If you're a linguist, you're really enjoying this. If you're not, you're thinking, what? But maybe you'll start thinking about this. And so there's no textbooks to address these types of needs that students have. So it's not only about the money, it's about connecting with your students and have them see themselves reflected. I started doing this because I loved project-based learning. I loved doing all these things. So then of course, I was having my students put things out and then somebody told me that was an open educational practice and I didn't know. So after doing that, I was nominated and joyfully accepted that beautiful award and it planted a bug in me because you feel, I don't know about you, Wayne, but don't you feel more responsibility after you get one? I don't want to scare anybody out there who might get the awards, but then you feel like you have to represent, right? So the opportunity came in my university because the OER person was stepping down to take that leadership role. And despite me having other roles at the university, I couldn't not have that happen. So I stepped into that. So after creating the first ZTC degree at my university for Spanish at a Hispanic serving institution. So no student studying Spanish at my Hispanic serving institution will ever have to pay for a textbook again. And that was a big one for me. Then I started moving to other departments and started recruiting other people, educating the campus community. But now I've taken it even beyond that because I am also an instructor for the National Heritage Language Resource Center out of UCLA, where we train teachers from all over the country. And actually we have a couple of people from outside the US right now in our workshop who are also teaching heritage languages. In this case, not only Spanish, but we're talking Hindi, Russian, Korean, Turkish, all the languages. And so we're actually on our fourth week of the workshop right now. And I am now introducing OER for them because there are no textbooks for teaching heritage languages in mostly the less commonly taught languages. There's some in Spanish, but the less commonly taught languages, hardly anything. So I am just hoping to bring it in to this as well. Because I think they're also doing it and they don't know. And if you have a spirit of sharing and you care about helping your students, then this is such a natural fit. And I just love to open people's eyes to it now. So yeah, this has had its ramifications in many, many ways and has given me the opportunity to contribute way beyond what the award did just for me personally. And that recognition, it's great, that getting the recognition from your own institution after you get an award like this, you told us to say all the cool things that have happened, I actually got a distinguished professorship after listing this award together with other things. And I think it really made the difference when they looked at my portfolio. So at a personal level, of course, it has given me so much to have this recognition, but more importantly, I think is what has transpired after that. All the things that I've been able to contribute. So I am just, I'm so thankful. I can't say enough, but with great power comes great responsibility. Wayne knows this and Alex knows this. So we're paying it forward, absolutely. As long as we have fun while we're doing it. And I can tell, I mean, just in the way you described it there, the impact on you is the impact that you're having on your students and the other faculty and systems that you work with. I'm a little bit curious for both of you in your work. What do students, what's their perspective on when they, do they even see open education? Yeah, they might see the lower cost textbook, that's important, but do they recognize or do they respond to saying, my teachers are doing something different here? Well, I will tell you in my institution, one of the things we did realize is that a lot of our students didn't know what open education or OER really was. They just referred to it as, oh, the cool website or the, we're not paying for the book. So we have started, I think it was on last OER week, we started a little student panel to have the students understand the difference because we want them to start demanding more OER. We want them, we want to plant the seed in them so they go to all their other professors and ask, why are we not getting this? Why don't I see myself reflected in the materials? Why do I have to pay $300, $400 for a textbook when this is rent for me or food for the month? And I think educating the students becomes really important. So I have started surveying them at the end of the semester and I'm hoping to get something published on that aspect because I love it when they say that they like the book or the textbook, however they see it, is free. But I also love it even more when they said, from day one, we have it. Because it used to be, right? That until they get it, then it's two weeks later, they haven't gotten the textbook, they have fallen behind, or if they ever get it. Or they say, I love the stories. I recognize myself in those stories. And so all these little pieces, if they start realizing it more, I think they're gonna start demanding it more. And I actually have recruited a couple of students that now I signed up, I sent to Arlo, which is the regional leaders of Open Education Group. They went to their own conference and now they are our ambassadors out there. And one of them, oh, you're not gonna believe this, but she actually has CC tattooed. These kids nowadays, they tattoo all kinds of stuff on themselves, but hey, if they're gonna get a tattoo, have it be a CC licensed tattoo, right? This human is licensed, that's beautiful. And we had the steering team from Arlo on one of these shows. And I mean, I knew some of the project, but their reach has been tremendous. So I salute you and be thinking too, as we talk about nominations is that we're, we don't have any in yet, but I don't think we awarded one last year, but there is an award for a student who's been active somehow in expanding or being involved in the creation of OER. So we're definitely looking for student potential award winners. So put your thinking head on and I don't know, I've been talking so long, Wayne probably forgot my question, but just like, I mean, you know, your course has reached students in a different mode. And so it's not only the content, it's the entire the platform and experience. So they probably recognize the difference, but do they connect it to the idea of openness? It's a good question. And to be honest, I'm not sure what the answer is, but the student piece in here, I think is quite significant. I've often wondered why North America has been so successful with the zero textbook cost programs, because we haven't seen the uptake of the Z cred in other parts of the world, which is interesting. And I think the differentiating factor was in fact the student activism that came through the perks. And that really shifted the minds and hearts of administrators in investing in these spaces. I mean, if I compare it to New Zealand, for example, I mean, we've run national surveys with learners inquiring about investigating, the significant costs of textbooks. And I don't have the figures in front of me, but certainly the majority of learners surveyed report that not having access to textbooks has had a negative impact on the learning outcomes. So the challenge and the problem is universal, but yet the solutions aren't. And we really need to, I mean, these are the things that keep me up at night. We're passionate about open education, but if I really look at what's happening around there, I mean, we don't like yourselves members all around the world. At those institutions, if 1% of the curriculum is accessible as OER, I would be surprised. And so, I mean, this whole notion of how we shift from activism to action is a big, big global challenge. And we had the pandemic, which arguably was perhaps one of the greatest opportunities for institutions to engage in OER. And it didn't happen in any substantive way. What we did see were a good number of institutions, sharing their recipes for how to transition to emergency remote teaching. But there was very little authentic collaboration among institutions in actually working together using the power of OER for moving forward. And I've said this on a number of occasions before, the sort of the meter analysis is crossing this chasm from sharing to learn. I mean, most educators get it that sharing and the very reason we step into classrooms is to share knowledge, right? And most of us like to share that knowledge freely. But the chasm we need to cross is from sharing to learn to learning to share. And as educators, we have really got to figure out how we work together better. And those are the things that are, you know, sort of faltering where I spend energy. And to keep many parts of the world that we work, we have a significant footprint in the developing countries of the world. And the tragedy for many learners is hardly any have the money to afford the proprietary software licenses that are required to learn. And so what ends up happening is they are tempted into breaching copyright by using unauthorized versions of proprietary software where we do have free and open source solutions around. And this is important. And the driving force of the work that we focus on is I don't want to see any learner denied access to learning opportunity because they don't have access to the software to learn. And I think as educators, we also need to call ourselves out now and again. We're seeing amazing research being done, you know, in open education. And then you'll see the link to the survey instrument is to a Google form or the link is to some proprietary technology. And so as open educators, we sometimes force our learners into sacrificing their data in order to engage in our research to foster openness. And it's a difficult balance because I appreciate many faculty members actually don't have the ability to utilize free and open source software tools for this purpose because the institution provides technology solution X or technology solution Y. And so this is where I'm hoping to focus our energies moving forward is how can we collectively provide collective solutions for open educators to actually utilize open tools to support the work that we are doing. And in fact, it was another award, OEG award that got us thinking in this direction and that was the Open ETC initiative in British Columbia who have set up shared infrastructure. It's limited, but the concept of post-secondary institutions in the province working together to provide access to a WordPress multi-site, the MetaMOS digital messaging platform. And I think there's some other technologies in the mix, I'm not entirely sure. But I mean, I think that's a guiding light is, how can we take that concept or that model and replicate it globally? Which is the work that we are now starting to think about around the fossil commons, the free and open source software digital learning ecosystem, which, let's get together and create this cooperative for shared infrastructure so that we don't deny access to learning or expect our learners to sacrifice their data in order to learn. So there's kind of the student connection piece. And I think part of the solution is, how do we see the student activism? Because hopefully that will move the dial maybe four or five percent in terms of adoption. Yeah. And that's just adoption of where we are. Yeah. When you start thinking of remix, how many of us are working together collaboratively to remix whatever? And that's so totally different from the free and open source software world. And open source software developer, if they need to develop a new piece of software, the very first thing they will go and do is see which code is already exists, which code is already available that I can just remix to make new, or to build new solutions. How do we get that right in the open education world? Yeah. Anyway. So we carry on working in that trench. Yeah. I find it funny that. Both Wayne and I are up at night thinking about similar things at different scales, because I think support is a big piece of it. We cannot support people to have access to the infrastructure or even the recognition of their work. They're not going to engage in it as easily as they could. So we know that our open is a little closed for a lot of people because those things aren't there. I just had a conversation with someone who was saying that, for example, at university level, professors don't get recognized for writing open textbooks. That will not go towards their tenure. And here in the United States, the whole tenure system is a big deal. That's what motivates a lot of professors to either create a textbook for a publishing company versus an open textbook. I'm lucky enough. I'm already full professor. I don't need to do anything else to keep going up. So I can give my work for free, but a lot of people, a lot of universities will not recognize that aspect for tenure. So that's just one little piece of support that we need. Now at your level, I'm thinking in my own institution, we pay a pretty penny for the platform we use in order to put those textbooks out. One of the platforms. And so I keep thinking that money could go to somebody writing a textbook or engaging their students in open educational practices, but instead we have to do it to pay for this particular platform to put the materials out there. So it is at a professor level. It is at an infrastructure level. And then I also lay awake at night, thinking about all the disposable assignments my students are doing and wasting their energy because their professors have not thought, let's not do that. Let's capture all this energy and all this work and this knowledge and make it into something useful that is shareable versus something I read and toss and trash. But it's still happening. So it's at the classroom level. It's at the university level. It's at the infrastructure level. This idea that we need to be supporting economically. We need to be supporting for tenure or promotion or whatever that would entail. And the most big move would really be to keep growing the infrastructure so we don't have to worry about that site either. So lots of things to keep us up at night and hopefully also enough happy memories to put us to sleep. I don't know. Coffee keeps me up at night. No, actually it doesn't. I was thinking, you're right, Wayne. As bad as the pandemic was, we were poised at that moment of being in it together. And then it just kind of dissipated. And I wonder too, is the driver going to be dealing with sustainability and climate change? And is that going to be enough to make us say we have to get over this inertial hump of not wanting to change because it's a lot of work or we have to implement new systems or we have to get away something that people find convenient. It's like, you wonder, what's going to be the thing that's going to motivate when, like Wayne says, it's just something we innately think about as learning to share. Yeah, that's a big challenge. We can talk about wish lists. One of my wishes is for public funded education to move away from the profit motive. Because that drives the competition among institutions at the expense of sharing. And perhaps the global crisis. I mean, what is interesting in terms of how this is all panning out and I'm seeing it in our parts of the world here in places like New Zealand and Australia, where a big revenue driver for these institutions has been international students. And now with the shutdown during the pandemics and it's very slow to come back and we are seeing a sector in crisis fiscally. Hundreds of layoffs at top universities, top research universities in this country. The cash straps universities in Australia. Perhaps that might be the motivator at this business of competing for students where the heart of the education endeavour is about sharing knowledge and building and supporting individuals. Might be a driver. And perhaps, and I think that the linkage and the parallels between the global climate crisis and OER is an important link because sustainability is critical for human survival. And OER is a sustainable and renewable resource. And so the interesting parallels and maybe we should join the climate activists because working around open licensing and that hasn't been that successful. We've got to find better ways of doing this. That's my wish list. The competition gone. What's on your wishes? Oh boy, so many things. I have to agree with Wayne that the whole for-profit model that even state universities are having now, especially post-pandemic is becoming problematic. But maybe it's where I am at and just the way that I have seen support come from the state for us. I'm here in Colorado as I had said. We have a really nice OER council in our state and they are wonderfully supportive and I believe it has made a difference. When I look at the results of the pandemic in my own institution, I actually see and Wayne, this might bring you some joy and maybe some nice sleep tonight, but I do see some very positive things that came out of the pandemic. One of them, of course, forcing professors to learn more technology in general and more sharing ways. I'll just give you an example because this one's funny, but the photocopy budget for my department was huge. Gosh, these professors used to photocopy everything, and all of a sudden after the pandemic, it's so small. I'm using that money to support OER because they realize, oh, I don't need to do all these photocopies for every single thing, right? But in all seriousness, I do believe it actually gave us some impetus. For example, for us, it started with my language program, doing some small things. Now we're working on another ZTC program for social work, which I think it's so perfect, right? If you're social work, what are you doing charging for textbooks? So it's moving into social work. Now we're trying to move it into the health professions area because that one is also a big place for enrollment and hopefully to attract more students. So when we advertise that for this program, you will not have to buy a textbook. I believe it does make a difference and in a way it starts breaking away that for-profit model to a degree. And so we just have to stay vigilant of what are the little pockets where we can tap into. Because I know, I don't think we have the resources to really do it all at once, but we need those little opportunities here and there where you could insert yourself and bring something in that either plants the seed or it's the whole flower out there to get people to do it. So for us it's been actually the pandemic, I think it did help. On my wish list, it would be more time for everyone. And I think that is something that is the luxury of having a little extra time. I know I have a lot of faculty who would love to do it, but they are just so tapped out. And with the layoffs that you were mentioning, then people are taking on more or the quiet quitters are not doing as much and so then the others have to step in. I think that aspect has been tricky but then the people who adopted these opportunities and found the opportunities are also flourishing. I think we're going to win. So we just got to keep finding those opportunities. So my wish list is more opportunities, I guess. Right. Thank you so much. And I want to ask, I don't know if it's putting a spot, what would you think seeing the work that's going on in the open education world. Who should get nominated? Is there something that comes to mind or that you're thinking about ought to be recognized because there's a lot of great work going on and we want to surface a lot of that. From my end, I'd love to see the groups who are working hard to educate others about this in a systematic way to recognize folks like Arlo, because so many people are not aware of the power they have within their small institutions and I really think we're a movement from the ground up. We really are. You just got to get those few people to get the bug and then it grows. So any group that is out there training others on the topics of OER are opening eyes that will later on flourish as well. So I think we ought to be looking at those groups most definitely. And then there's the small the small organizations that have started groups of professors of one discipline or another that all of a sudden have found a champion that is that are also bringing others into the fold. So I think those folks definitely need to be recognized. Absolutely. And probably like thinking about that like not much of a like a dent in elementary secondary school for open education. It's a completely different environment there. And I talked to a couple. I was in a class with teacher educators and maybe they heard of open education. A few of them understood the concept but it's not on the radar in much of those institutions because the important forces and needs to deal with are so different from higher ed. They are and the understanding of what it is it always baffles me because of course when we hang out with each other we think everybody knows these things and they and they're in it. It's a huge perception of how many people are aware of these things until you step out of your bubble and you start talking to people. I had a person from state government put out a little notice saying oh we want to hear more about OER because and he just went on and on but he was talking about about websites that you can access. Just the things that are out online that our students can access. He had no idea of the difference between OER and things we can YouTube and he was talking very seriously about this so I jokingly said I think we need a course for politicians. A little open course for politicians because sadly they drive a lot of this but I don't think they're quite aware of what exactly it is that we do. Everybody wants to take that project on. I'm putting it out there. All right. I served it up and also I'm hoping Wayne like I'd really like OE Global to make sure that we're recognizing a lot of work outside of North America and Europe and you know I have seen a couple nominations came in from that little island of Australia there's someone from the Philippines but it's not very common so I would like to see asked about what we can do to sort of get to our global level. Yeah. I do agree with Allegra that open is inevitable. It just might not happen in my lifetime. Is it unevenly distributed? Well, it's part of an aging process I guess. I mean one of the things while you were chatting I thought and I don't know if you really have an award in this category but maybe we need kind of a government award for the government department that fosters open education in a meaningful way. Yeah. I think you ran a session recently with the report that Neil Butcher associates published around policy uptake of the OER recommendation and it's nothing short of disappointing. Of all the 200 or so member states of the United Nations there were only three policies that met the criteria to be able to research the efficacy of policy intervention. And then if you look at this from the other side of the coin it's a no brainer. I mean if you if you're collecting taxes from your taxpayers it's a no brainer to make sure that the content that has been published with that money is made available for the benefit of its citizens. It's a no brainer. And we have this disparity between what's happening in practice versus what is a no brainer. That reminds me though of excuse me of Richard Heller's plan E for education. I don't know if you come across that. I mean it's publicly funded institutions should be putting everything into OER. Others have said it but OER is easily solved. You just decree open policy. That's what we do as a government. You say well and make close the exception. Don't say you can't do close stuff but hey if you want to you're going to have to jump through a bunch of extra hoops by applying a bunch of other licenses things that are compatible with this and you're going to take 14 training courses to figure out how you mix two things together legally and we're just making this part too hard. Well there is there's an open policy award but that's generally what we see is recognizing institutions that have developed policies like the University of Edinburgh won that recently but that's interesting to think about recognizing government bodies that have actually government leadership. There we go. See we can make that happen. Wayne's award. I just want to thank you both so much for taking some time out to have these conversations and I really enjoy these formats and getting to hear ideas across between folks from different parts of the world and I just thank you so much. So say something that would inspire people to run out there tomorrow and nominate. You already did actually I think but Well I think a little extra push does not hurt I know that we're all incredibly busy people these days and we have a lot on our plates but recognizing people who are involved in open education will not only make a difference in their lives but it will amplify what we need all those opportunities we were talking about and if you do that you will not keep up Wayne at night. You'll be making your strides but in all seriousness I know that it's daunting sometimes to write a nomination or to really think it through it's worthwhile it really is it's got to be something that can propel others to dig deeper into what they've been doing and it can be small it can be when I was nominated it was something I did not think I was doing anything extraordinary until somebody pointed it out and now it has grown into something much much bigger it's going because that's what happens when you get involved with such a fun group like this you can't help yourself you keep wanting more but I think it can really make a difference not only in the life of that person or that group but really for the whole movement so it is a great way to enhance everything that we're doing so I hope people do take the time I know I will alright I'll keep it short share the gift of knowledge nominate an open educator today well that sounds like our campaign I know I hope we recorded that oh yes we are recording that we may want to use it it makes me so happy to have these conversations and to spend time with you both and I can't thank you enough for this no thank you Ellen thank you for what you do pumping the energy back into open these conversations the work you're doing and OEG connect is really cool and it's great to see and it will find fertile ground of that I'm confident I know I have to agree thank you thank you for everything you do Wayne is talking about maybe he won't see and it's true but you know this is so much bigger than any of us and for the short time that we have here if we can make that stride and that little impact that is going to keep reverberating I think it's absolutely a worth use of our existence a worthy use of our existence so yeah you are certainly doing it Ellen thank you so much you're very kind and very portable thank you for listening and anybody else who's watching this nominations are open till June 30 and we I've been saying to my colleagues I want to break the database I want so many nominations we're going to have a technical problem so help me out with that I'm going to end this and exit the stage and we're going to close out with some openly licensed music from the Free Music Archive and a conversation piece and thank you again for listening to OEG Live we'll be back for more shows before you know it