 I know it's probably been a long day you guys have been going around the clock and so I appreciate what everyone's doing for the conference. It's exciting to hear all the presentations and this particular study is a study of COVID-19 and OER. I'll talk a little bit about its origins, but I was told one thing is I should introduce myself. So who is Cathy? I live in California. I have a family with two grown sons. Those of you with young children in the COVID period teaching at home and juggling everything. Just, you know, and people who are teachers on the ground just kudos all around. It's a hard, hard period. We have a dog, Oreo, who I love to hike with. So I spend time with him and percolate on all things open and also along my beach walks. Those of you who know me know I love the beach. And my history in open comes from my early days at the ULIT foundation where I was the program officer who launched the original field of open education resources. So exciting to see how it's all grown. I became CEO of Creative Commons. I am now on the board of Open Ed Global. So I'm delighted to be in that position and to participate. And I have a, I've started my own consulting firm and executive coaching firm and I do that and do kind of a shared portfolio on that where I work with organizations and philanthropy around open but other innovations as well. So that's who I am. So this question actually started with a conversation with the ULIT foundation with Kent McGuire. And here we have this period of natural forced experimentation with COVID. What can we learn from this period of change? And what can we learn about OER and where teachers are gravitating towards and where students at home are gravitating? Can they send some signals to us so we can help understand a little bit better about the future and then shift our strategy perhaps to meet that future. So my role here was to really think about that and to see where people were gravitating towards what was, what was the quickest accelerants. And I start with the slide because I know, you know, we know the change, the pace of change in education is slow, either higher ed or K-12, it's just, you know, that's just human. All of us have a hard time changing. We have a forced accelerant, which is the virus. But then we also are forced to technology and we've all seen that lots of conversations happening here, but that forces an exponential change. And so what we've seen now in this past about eight month period is, you know, a five to seven year shift in the rapid adaptation to technology, just much faster than we ever expected. But one of the things I really want to call out, and I know this has been called out in the open education space, but we need to call it out to the world, is that emergency remote education. And I don't know if you can see on the left hand side, let me shift over a little bit. It is not the same as distance education or online learning. So, you know, when people are saying now distance education doesn't work or online learning doesn't work, it's not true. What's really difficult is this an emergency remote education. And so I think we have to continue to call that out for people and this particular journal article that came out early. A lot of OER researchers contribute to it across the world, there were over 31 countries who were involved really called this out and I think this is really important. The other thing I just like to say about this is, you know, the open university who I learned so much from in the early days of open education. And I know Asha was calling out what the open universities around the world have been doing. You know, they've been studying distance education online learning just like we've all been studying OER and open pedagogy and we're not there so it takes time. It takes time to do it well and we have to continue to remind people about that. Okay, let's see. We're kind of in this whole period of, you know, the virus happening then we had the, the protests, the just come to the surface, completely needed in society, particularly here in the United States but we saw the support all around the world and we know these issues everywhere. And these issues of black life matter about social justice about inequity about systemic structural racism. And so I think we've got the intersection of these two points which are really powerful with openness. And so this is an opportunity that I think we could obviously not have imagined. Having said that there's huge divides right when we talk about technology, you know, never will be the panacea we have broadband divides we have device divides we have access divides we have culturally relevant content divides we have materials and home language divides, and we have walled garden divides and OER can't solve all of that but it can address a lot of it. And this picture on the left is quite striking it's a two young children outside of Taco Bell here in California, supposedly one of the wealthier states in the nation in the United States, and they don't have access to Wi Fi and this is true across the United States and throughout the world and much deeper and systemic ways. So here you OER is uniquely positioned and I say in principle, but not yet in practice to overcome these divides right. We're not there we are accessible, we need a lot more BIPOC develop relevant content, we need materials and home language, not only translated but culturally relevant we just haven't invested in this we've kind of getting been getting the field off the ground. And this is our next segment that we really need to continue to push on and we are doesn't have paywalls you know open is not partially open or restricted open sometimes call it. It really is when there is no paywalls and everyone can access. So, my question here is what have we learned. And I wanted to actually throw this out so we get a little bit of a conversation going we're at the end of the day, you know what have you learned about we are in this moment of time and I wonder if we can just put a few comments in the chat just to drop a sentence in about what you've learned about we are in this moment in time you think that is particularly unique. And I don't know if I can see the chat right now. So maybe someone can help me see what you're seeing in the chat. If you can back out of your presentation, you should be able to see it. Okay. And we'll help monitor as well. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Right now, you guys can just chime in chime in. I don't know about that. Okay, perfect. Yeah. Amanda, Amanda Collage is telling us that she is saying yes 100% in support, as well as Christina and one more. But I will say that I what I have learned. Honestly, I think that a lot of people are seeing hope through all we are. It's like there's a sense of hope. That's how well we can find a way out. But again going back to what you were saying, people trying to find the every answer there. Well, it's not exactly possible but we can address many of the issues. That's right. I think maybe when I was sharing I will you can briefly see you or if anybody else wants to unmute themselves, please go ahead. We're not that big a group. And Stephen is saying convincing colleagues to make the change convincing challenge is challenging, but this might be the moment. Right. Right. Alexandra also sharing we are access to knowledge for all. Mm hmm. Okay, well let's just keep going and see how far we get here. So thank you and you know I'm interested in Marcel I'd love to have a conversation like where are they seeing hope and why is the hope here now and right these are all the Yeah, what was it before and Stephen you know just the challenge of human change right how hard it is to pick up new practices we all know that. So these are some of the leadership lessons I learned and I think these are leadership lessons for higher education for quite K 12 institutions and also for nonprofits who are working in the OER space or for profits working in the OER space. So what we've learned about those organizations that have actually accelerated during this period or not only survive but thrived is that they really anchored on the values and they continue to clearly share out their value proposition. And they were always there, but now people began to understand them in a much different way during the time of this pandemic. So they put them out there they put up their clear value proposition. They're building ahead of the curve right and so this is one of the challenges for open and we've always been building ahead of the curve. And it takes a while for people to catch up but we need to continue to because when the moment in time happens is an opportunity for that transition. One part of organizations that have survived open ed global is a great example like it's a low level infrastructure right everyone works from home they distributed around the world truly global. campuses who that are traditional do have that heavy burden of infrastructure which is very expensive and it's going to be very difficult during this time of transition and budget cuts that we're going to see across the world with respect to education. And so how do we think about maybe a lower level of infrastructure because I do believe we all still need to meet I hope we all get to meet at the conference again soon but you know we need a lower level. And we have to optimize this scenario planning I think this has taught us more than anything else, the world changes quickly and we have to follow it pretty quickly as well. So I just want to call out two models that I thought were really interesting as I look through kind of these case studies of what I found. NERVA is a kind of an alternative high higher education model, still quite small here in the United States, but essentially it's a four year program where students travel around the world and learn a set of skills and competencies tied to higher education. They'll have a semester in Brazil one in Japan somewhere in Europe. They become global citizens. It's a very low level of infrastructure for the organization, because they just rent out space for the students. They have a uniquely built tool that they use for their content and learning. That is technology based that they've developed on their own. It's not necessarily open so this isn't an open model but I think this is part of the future that we're seeing we will see. And the, so the students can learn anywhere so even though the students now have had to rapidly move home in most cases some could stay if they chose in whatever country they were at that time. Learning didn't change. It was really just the cultural aspect and the cultural aspect is so important and I see Christina nodding because we all know she was going to travel around the world except everything happened. You know, is so much particularly for you know a young adult particularly at age what an opportunity and also very low cost because they don't have a lot of infrastructure some cost. What's interesting about this is they now quickly brokered a partnership with Paul Quinn College and historically black college here in the United States. The president said you know we've got to figure out a solution. My kids can't get to campus we don't have great technology. What are we going to do this is going to last for even longer and quickly very quickly they put together this project and they have this urban scholars program that's launching this fall. And I think it's a great example. The Paul Quinn students will not be traveling around the world they'll be doing projects in their local community they don't actually have to be in the community a lot they'll have to be in some and I'm sure they'll do it in a safe way. But they're actually working on real life problems in their community and so I think these are beginning to be some examples of what we can imagine for the future. In school age learning models is two particular programs that just call out when you kind of think about a systemic level who who have just you know the numbers have taken off so the first one up top is called common lit. Common lit typically has about 35 teachers sign up. I don't know if it's a day or a week. During the March of 2020 they had 35,000 teachers signing up per day. Right. And what and what I like about this this is a reading program and it has tried gets a lot of public domain content it also gets authors permission to use really relevant and exciting materials. It's a platform where the kids can engage so they can comment people can comment on the comments you know it has that interactivity. So it isn't just a static learning tour on the phone or whatever it might be. And I think this is part of the future particularly in school age learning because this model follows the student whether they're in school or out and for this next year or 12 months or six months whatever maybe we don't know where people are going to be. In the future we're going to have new ways of learning. The other one on the bottom is Zern Z E a R N and they have really taken off as well. They're focused on teaching programs created by teachers. This is around math literacy. They push code every Thursday. So these again are not static they're doing a B testing every week. They're understanding how students are learning materials what content could work better for me visa V Marcello or Steven who has prior knowledge. How can we help the kids catch up. And what they do is they have some of the content is open not all of it yet so again they're beginning to create an open model. But what I like about this is this is also something that can be in school. It can be at home and they create a dashboard for districts they try to work particularly with some struggling districts. And they are learning a lot about what's working for them. Districts don't always have real time information and this gives them real time information so for the teachers this can be really really valuable. I think one of the big pieces that we've learned is that home is now normalized as a place of work and learning. This is this is the big change. And if we think we're all going to go back to kind of life is usual. I think we'd be will be surprised. I mean our lives have changed dramatically. We're not out of this at least through 2021 2022 by the time we're all vaccinated and you know business travel everything will change. This particular author just released this book in October he's an epidemiologist he's also like a sociology. It's called Apollo's arrow and it's really great about profound profound and enduring impact on the way we live and I think we have to be ready for this and education and we have to be ready and thinking about this with respect to opportunities for open education. So what will learning experiences look like moving forward. There will be multiple pathways again we're not there yet and we've been talking about this for some time but I think we're beginning to see more and more of this we see students and higher education 17% you know not enrolling like we expected this fall that they're trying new routes they're trying new things. They're going to try. There's going to be a lot of flexible and permeable boundaries so I think the institution and I'm not saying about the school aid but more of the higher education have to be a little bit more permeable and we're beginning to see some of the institutions try this more and more something happens from cradle to grave we knew this was going to be needed in any case we don't necessarily need four years all at a time although it's kind of nice if you can be one of the few privileged residential students or have that full time experience that we're not trying to put everything together. But that's only a very small percent of the population. So how do we think about the ongoing skills we need and when we will need them and here not only higher education is involved but also industry is participating as well. We're going to have alternative credentials there's a lot of badging and other work going on and also creating that badge that carries with you throughout your lifetime and it should be much more equitable access so I see where we are on time. I just want to call this out this is a great slide has been created about a year or two ago like this is exactly what we've been talking about so we're moving in that direction right pedagogical practices of participatory the network this peer learning this knowledge creation is empowerment. You know students will be in physical spaces they'll be in online spaces and they'll be an open online spaces and we can begin to see more and more and we should begin to shift more into that as well. So here I see we have a few minutes left. What I'd like to say is what do you anticipate in the future for teaching and learning and we are and you know what do you see that given your vantage point we're all sitting in different parts of this ecosystem. What do you see as kind of like the big the big change that you anticipate going forward and you can add it to the chat or just feel free I guess to unmute and chime in. Exactly. Thank you Kathy thank you and yes I would encourage everyone to just please unmute if you want to make a comment. It's easier than the chat and and yes we are going a little bit on time but nobody else is using their room so if everyone's okay we can go over a few minutes. Can you see the chat now, Kathy. I can yeah. Well they were a couple of questions there. I'll be them. Well people. I see I see a master. Okay so how to scale it up students traveling. That that's true. So what was interesting to me about that example is like yeah wouldn't that be sweet everyone gets to travel to like all these different cities and have this great learning platform and small cohorts in different cities. No, not everyone's going to but what's interesting to me is the Paul Quinn model is less expensive and home base so they're experimenting now on how not to have to travel out of your community, but to make meaningful learning experiences so I think what they're beginning to do is more fun their home model while beginning to focus more on the equity issues overall. And just as you were saying just the fact that these opportunities are arising it's it's just magnificent. Oh sorry Kathy I have a question. I'm just wondering from what you see. How do you, you know like that this is what's so fascinating about the pandemic for myself when I think about it is the word global. The idea of connected and how, how that will shift what we think about this shared experience at a global level. And can you give any comment about what you think that means for we are. Yeah, so I think we've I've always thought about we are and we had a new origins to think about we are as a complex adaptive system where you have all these local nodes but the nodes are connected. And I think we're we see that in a lot of projects we see that with creative commons we see that with open at global right they have regional capacity the beginning to develop but yet they, the regions, the region the regions connect to a larger hub and I think when we think of global yes there's opportunities for us to just direct with other people across the globe. But I think a lot of the connectivity will happen more in your local community and then your local communities connecting to other communities in ways that we've begun to experiment with but I think there's still relatively small. So, I think that when you think about the network and the peer learning, given if you have the technology given you have the capacity to connect you'll see it in these kind of stepped ways. And periodically you see these great examples that are always called out music or something else where kids are finding each other across the globe and developing some really interesting programs. But global is a little bit of a you know it's like innovative it's like one of those words right like it's, what does it really mean and what does it really mean in practice. Yeah, and who's included really in global. That's right. That's right. And another comment that tennis was making that I find interesting is, I don't know if you want to address it I'll just read it. Oh we are at this time has surfaced a digital divide for her, which I think it's also true. So I yeah the digital divide is so true. And until that problem is solved. We won't be able to equalize access. Interestingly at the beginning of the field of oh yeah we actually made a concerted decision not to focus on like bandwidth and devices because you let as an organization at that time could only do so much, and we have to rely on governments and other institutions to address that I would say that California be an example I spent some time participating and now a series of conversation with funders focusing just on this digital divide issue. What happens is a lot of organizations don't focus on it as a primary strategy is more of a secondary strategy. And so the primary strategy doesn't get addressed. I said, government, you know foundations can't build the infrastructure in the bandwidth for fiber and 5g. There is money in the US coming out of Congress but it's very rural situated and there's been lots of calls about how this is really equitable, because a lot of low income people of color live in the cities, and the money is going out to rural so then you're getting this tension and divide among those who need the limited resources so this is absolutely a core infrastructure problem that 20 years later we're having the same conversation. There's still people who are not fully connected we have more solutions but we're not there yet. Absolutely. Thank you Kathy thank you very much. I don't know if we want to address one more question I know that several of you were a little bit over like five minutes but if we can. Alexandra you were saying school scientists working together in Brazilian Europe. And also. Oh, but these are comments you can read the comments later. Okay, so does anybody else have a question for Kathy. It's been a long day Kathy. This is amazing I think it's a wonderful way of closing the day with trying to tie everything in the situation that we are all living and it's interesting how the perception of everybody of this community that is global going again with a global word of how each of us have a different perception depending on the location that we're in. Thank you for addressing this and I will share actually to the entire group because I know that many several questions can pop up later. So I'll share the link to the OEG connect area that you will have this presentation and if any questions pop up later, they can contact you there. Perfect. Perfect. Thank you so much for this wonderful presentation. Thank you. Take care everyone.