 Hello, everyone. You're here. You made it. You made it to our closing session. Can you believe that it's now Friday and it's now the last day? Yeah, are you all tired? Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure you are, but I hope you're all energized by the things that you experienced during this conference. And really, right? This week might be short or long for you, depending on your perspective, but it certainly has been a wonderful week for all of us. And we are so glad that you came and you are here in this closing. So we are closing this conference the way we opened it with the members of the steering committee talking about, you know, reflections about this conference. But most importantly, we want to thank a lot of people and there's hundreds of you who made this conference as awesome as it is. So each of the members of the steering committee will talk about some of their reflections, short reflections about their experience with this conference, and we will thank everyone who was involved in making this conference a successful one. So I'll pass it on to Spencer. Thanks for Gina. Thank you all so much. Thanks for the honor, the opportunity to be involved. And thanks to Regina, I agree I saw something about Regina's energy, but there have been so many people with like great energy and I need to tap into that. Jeff Gallant from Georgia, you, I don't know. No. I've heard, where are you? How are you missing? Are you okay? I think we just have very similar interests Spencer. Maybe that's it. So, so many people so many people doing amazing things and bringing amazing content to this conference and I guess my reflections are kind of summarized by one of the sessions I was able to attend. And I shared with a, some Hawaiian wisdom that I learned into the chat. And that was from a presentation from Lindley and Mejia, and they shared kind of this, this philosophy and a lot of the amazing work that they're doing with their students, but they shared this amazing philosophy and approach from the Hawaiian tradition of education, and now, you know, we can learn from many different places and I think that this conference really embraces that spirit of learning everywhere you go and all the different interactions, and all the different venues and channels that were provided so that's my take away, and I'm going to pass along to our next person for their reflection from the committee, and that would be Akeksha. Hi everyone. So I could talk for hours and hours about how incredible this entire conference was it was, it feels weird that it's coming to a close, but it's been super exciting to get to meet people from across the country I literally today was in a session with somebody from India and then another one from Saudi Arabia, and then somewhere from the Middle East and that just is a way to travel even though we're doing it digitally and I think that's such an incredible thing that we get to do because we've gotten to do this online and I remember having to make the call to move online and we were all a little disappointed we wouldn't be able to go to Denver, and I mean it ended up snowing there so it all worked out, I guess on the very end. But I really appreciated learning from people, and especially seeing the amount of first time attendees here, who finally got to embrace and see the world of open and my first time at OpenEd really opened my eyes up to so much that the organizations had to offer and all of the support that the community is able to give you and so I'm really grateful that I was able to be here and I'm super grateful that I get to continue to do this work. I hear that it's sunny and 60 degrees I don't even okay well weather changes quickly but it's been amazing to just see the amount of engagement and the people here are. I don't know I think years to go by and I'll never stop learning about how incredible this community is and with that I'm going to pass it on to MJ to continue to talk about how great you folks were. Hi. Excuse me hi everyone. Thank you for inviting me to reflect. I honestly can't take a whole lot of credit for all the amazing work that has happened in the last year to prepare for this conference we're poised and ready in Maryland to take over as I've said a couple of times now already to fill the big shoes that Colorado has has has filled over the last year in hosting the conference. I will say one thing that I don't know that any of us could have possibly imagined. What this year was going to bring for all of us and for higher and for education both higher education and K 12 and you know when I think back on when Nicole first approached me about Maryland hosting in 2021. And we were kicking around as others have said, you know, should this even happen. You know what should this look like. I don't think anybody's could imagine how important the OER conversation is going to be this year and I am just so thrilled that we persevered that this group persevered through a lot of hardship in trying to pull this together this year and I'm really excited about the future that this conference has created and where this is going in the future so come to Maryland or come to Maryland virtually next year. I've already said we'll try to figure out a way to get crab cakes and cans of all day to everybody. Regina would you like to go next. Thank you MJ and thank you everyone. I have a lot of takeaways I have a lot of things that you know I have gained in this conference but I'll keep it to a minute. But the most important thing really is the level of engagement and participation that I've seen, you know with all of you and especially it's our first time to do a virtual conference. I was really surprised that you know you all stayed with with with us throughout this this journey and I met a lot of new folks you know folks who were. You know this is the first time attending this conference and certainly I met a lot of students I met a lot of people from outside of the US and and it's so just it's so fascinating it's so rewarding to just hear their stories their perspective and everyone I really will take even after this conference because I know we will always be connected right so in whatever space social media. I hope we serve I hope we continue that so thank you to everyone and one day I will bottle my energy and CC license it for all of you. So, sending you my virtual house. And now I'll pass it over to Nicole and Daniel. I'm going to put up. I have the honor of kicking off sort of the thanks. So I'm going to bring back up the slide show. I can do that here without causing any trouble. Is this the right one. Yeah, so I do want to acknowledge that that we don't quite have the full steering committee here. I'm not sure who we're missing but I wanted you to see everybody's faces. It has been an absolute honor working with all of you through through thick and thin meeting together on a weekly basis and by weekly basis. During less busy times, and just just working to shape this entire conference. So I want to recognize each of the planning teams. The program team these are the members of the program team who worked over the course of the, the past four or five months to put together the program that you experienced here today. Literally started with a pile of data that came out from one of the community meetings and turn that into a call for proposals led the process to review the proposals and made some really difficult decisions about which presentations to invite. The DEI team, of course, DEI is infused throughout the conference but there was a dedicated DEI team to help put together the specific components they developed the code of conduct, the statement that you heard at the beginning of every presentation. And a lot of the different aspects of the conference that were really intentional about making sure that that you know this is an inclusive welcoming space and that we're taking actions in in and considering how to be more inclusive and support diversity at every level a decision is made. So thank you to these people. The communications team has done an incredible job putting together this beautiful brand that you see here I should also have recognized here, Kim Hensie is the graphic designer behind the brand. You know again this team started with a pile of data, a word cloud that came out of one of the community meetings and actually turn this that into this logo. This team has been working with with Kim on the graphic design and has put together a lot of the tweets and blog posts you've been reading. A member of this team put together a blog post once per day during the conference I encourage you to check that out on our blog and we'll continue communicating out as we wrap up the conference. As a member of open ed team, you know again all of these teams have been meeting weekly since July. This, this group has been working to develop a plan for a strategic planning process that's going to lead us into 2021. And helped craft the, if you attended the plenary earlier helped craft those questions. And think through a lot of the challenging questions that that we need to be asking right now about what is the future of the open education conference and how can we go about making the decision and building a structure in a way that is absolutely centered on diversity equity inclusion and helps turn this conference into a real driver of diversity equity and inclusion in the open education space. The online engagement team has been working to help figure out how to put on an entirely virtual conference. Originally this this team was formed thinking about how do we include a broader audience in an in person conference, virtually, and then ended up sort of getting tasked with the much bigger question of what exactly do we do. So a lot of the fun activities that were peppered throughout the program are thanks to these folks and just just really appreciate all of the time and expertise that that that everybody put in. Hi, my colleagues on the spark team. Hailey Moe and Winnie have been working tirelessly since the beginning so you know I guess I so I but I'm the decision maker I'm the one that sort of made the decision to put spark into this but Hailey Moe and Winnie have come along for the ride and just done an amazing job. Hailey and Winnie have been behind the scenes, helping to run zoom. Along with Tiffany I think we really need to recognize Tiffany for running all of the captions and making sure that this conference is accessible and I know we're all kind of exhausted. You know just a lot of a lot of hard work went went into running this conference and want to think everybody involved. Also on the spark ease front want to thank my colleagues Val and we see who stepped in to help out this week you may have received a response from we see if you emailed the help email, which it was a daunting task so thanks to we see. All right over to Daniel. Oh no. Over to Daniel yet. I want to thank all of the session hosts. So these are the people who were who took time to actually sit in in each of the sessions so help prep the speakers 20 minutes before the session. So thank you to all of these people and, you know, of course a lot of Colorado folks in here. So really grateful for all of you. We want to thank all of you. We want to thank all of you. We're going to be able to read these names. So thank you to all of these people and, you know, of course a lot of Colorado folks in here. So really grateful for all of you. We want to thank all of the proposal reviewers so there are 92 people and I know you're probably not going to be able to read these names. We are in a normal size font on our website and want to recognize all of the proposal reviewers who took time to look through the proposals and provide grades on them and help reduce the large number of proposals we received down to the 250 some presentations that ended up being shown at the conference. We have about 500 speakers at the conference, which is really incredible when you think about it, that that many voices involved. So, you know, and there were 1500 participants, about 200 speakers actually didn't register for the conference so if you add that all together, 1700 people participated in the conference which is really really exciting. And really want to thank just, you know, everybody who who's here and this conference wouldn't be what it is without the individuals who took the time to participate and contribute your thoughts and ideas to these conversations. So now it is actually over to Daniel. Wow. It's amazing to see just the sheer number of people have been involved and contributed in some way. And I'm, I'm very lucky to be able to stand here and thank our organizing partners. Thank you to the Colorado Department of Higher Education for all of their assistance running and organizing this year's conference, and for all the amazing volunteers from Colorado to help make sure this conference ran super smoothly. To the University of Maryland who has been a partner on this this year and will also be the local lead for next year to all my amazing colleagues at open stacks who have helped on the legal and finance front, as well as additional colleagues who have been helping out wherever has been needed. And of course, I think we all need to give a big round of applause to spark and all of their team for their amazing organizing prowess especially Nicole, none of this would have been possible without her leadership. And then finally, I want to give a shout out to a couple of organizations that we owe a huge credit data debt of gratitude. I'm very tired so I'm now mixing up words and saying great of data to new words, it's okay. A huge debt of gratitude. I said at the beginning of this conference that running a conference takes a lot of time energy, but it also takes a lot of money. And, you know, we, the open field probably wouldn't be here without the Hewlett Foundation. And I'm so happy that they are continuing to support open education so we have to give a huge shout out to the Hewlett Foundation, and also the 20 million minds foundation who has made it possible for us to gather this week to keep things affordable so that everybody can attend, we can't do it without the sponsors so thank you very much to Hewlett Foundation, the Michelson 20 men foundation. I'll turn it back over to spin. Yes, so much gratitude and I think we are going to kind of let the rest of the half of the committee share their reflections and then we'll have our call to action so Tiffany why don't you go first. Oh and first. Sorry, it took me a minute to turn off my mic. Okay. Yeah, so hoping plan and run the conference was super super busy, but really rewarding. And I'm really glad that I got to do it but it. So I was really excited about how many proposals we got how many sessions we had how amazing they all were. I didn't get to watch very many this week, but I definitely have enough stuff to watch for the next year. And yeah I did get to watch a few good lightning talks, I definitely recommend going to watch those. The, there's some really great tools and things in there. I had fun in the social spaces made taco or well made enchiladas. And yeah, I'm just really glad to be part of this team. I had, I got to meet a lot of like new friends new colleagues and definitely really rewarding. Tiffany how about you. Thanks. I, I, there's so much pressure right now with everyone speaking and I know I'm just going to be repetitive but I want to add that I have the highest expectations of and for this community. The commitment to always asking who isn't here and how do we invite everyone. I'm just going to treasure this moment. I am treasuring this moment. It was truly an honor meeting and working with all of these people. And I, I hope that the event was as meaningful and engaging for you as it was for me and that it exceeded your imagination. I just want to give a word to the future, and none of this would have been possible without the work commitment and dedication of a lot of humble and generous people. And I'm just grateful to be part of this story of us. So thank you. Emily. Just mind blown by this conference I think we just keep opening up the field in this last session where we were talking about who is the open education community and it's everyone. The question that was raised is what, what will it be like when we have all the we are we want, and I would reframe that as the creation is an inherent part of this community we are co creating and refining. And we're on this educational journey together as human beings we're trying to make these tools available to all of us, as we continue to bring more people into the conversation figure out how to be more equitable figure out how to be more inclusive figure out how to keep moving forward and expanding what it means to be able to learn so this is really I just feel like my mind is blown wide open and I'm so thankful for this community. Thank you. One takeaway I had was, there have been several references to have a seat at the table throughout this conference both in the sense of inclusion, as well as the idea of having a seat is indicative of someone else owning the table. In my mind I'd like to reframe this concept a little for the open ed community, when looking back at the conference this week. Yesterday's key notes, reference that it makes a difference when you own and that ownership is important. Throughout this week, the beginning of this region conference and everyone's willingness to participate and share with open hearts and minds that this community has begun building a new table together. The hope for all of us is that everyone will continue to welcome people to this community table, where we will continue to build to make space and hold space for each other, as we reflect and prepare for the upcoming year, and the future of open it. Thanks Lee, Ethan. Yeah, thank you. First I want to say that the sarcasm game in this community is quite strong, evidenced by the chat. So I just want to appreciate that my two, two quick reflections. You know, Nicole said a few times, just in this session, you know this committee started with a pile of data and, you know, worked forward from there. But if you were in this the plenary earlier today, you know, you also heard like that's where this whole conference started, it was a pile of people and potential. And so just immense hats off to the spark team. And then just also the number of people who voluntarily put in hours and hours to, to, you know, turn what could have been like a rebuilding year into the biggest year for open ed ever, which is pretty awesome. So my second quick reflection is just similar to that, you know how many more people there are to bring in, you know open ed is somewhat of a niche effort. But so you know like at prior conferences with 800 people there you'd kind of figure, you know, that's most of the people doing oh we are work around the world in one place. That's just so not true. You know, this year we had 1500 registrations. There are people from around the world from with us who, who aren't under the tent of this community yet. And I just, I'm so grateful for for everybody on the steering committee and elsewhere who, you know, who are centering this idea of expanding the pool or, or, you know, increasing the side of the tent size of the tent or whatever you want to call it so it can be accessible to, to everybody that's doing this work. Nicely put, Ethan and everybody. And for the rest of our steering committee members Daniel Jasmine and Christine who couldn't join us today. I don't think they're on the call. I would share some of the sentiments we were we were sharing today as well. I think our last item is to turn it over to Haley for our call to action for you all. Sure. Well, oh man I need a little bit of a moment to regroup because, oh my gosh. It's just been such a pleasure to work with all of you all and. Oh, I'm not even prepared to put it into words but thank you so much for everything. Ethan left us on a fantastic note which actually took the words right out of my mouth, which is, you know, there has been some amazing work done this week but there's also so much more left to do, and there's so many more voices who need to be heard. And so if you're, you know, still here I hope that that means that you really enjoyed this week and it's and it's had a big impact on you and if that's the case I would say, you know, please capitalize on this energy and reach out to someone in your community who you think would be interested in this work, or or whose voice you think is valuable and needs to be brought to the table. Our call to action specifically. I'm going to share sort of on our in the chat here, but just on the homepage of our website, which is open education conference.org. If you scroll all the way to the bottom you'll see that there's a little tab for updates which basically just says sign up to receive announcements about the conference. This is the email list that we're going to be using to, you know, keep in touch with all of you. You can also keep an eye out after the conference will be following up with attendees via an email with a survey. If you were at our plenary session where we went over talking a little bit about the future of the conference and your brain is just buzzing with thoughts about where we can take this in the future. Please please do your best to bottle those up. Take notes, keep them somewhere and please do share them with us. We, it's really, really important that we engage as many voices as we possibly can, going forward to make sure that this is, you know, truly equitable, truly as open as we can make it. So, if you're not already signed up I expect that many of you are double check you can also go to open education open education conference.org slash participate. And on that page you'll see sort of an archive of our community meetings and and you know I think this will be fun for us to go back and look at maybe once we've cleansed our palate a little bit and just kind of relive the planning process of what it's been like to get here but if you hadn't attended any of our community meetings that's where you can see them and sort of get a transparent look at how this all came to be and what was sort of informing our planning process. And that mailing list will be you know where we'll be putting out, not only a call to continue to attend those meetings in the future. But we're also going to be looking to bring on as many new voices as possible, both in terms of steering committee members planning team members volunteers voices to help us to decide what's going to happen after 2021. So please please if you're here today, stay engaged with us stay in the conversation. That mailing list is the way to do so, and I challenge everyone to invite three colleagues to also sign up for that as well that's my call to action that I'm just going to add in. And share the the participate link in there as well again it's just open education conference.org slash participate. It's also on the homepage as well but just at the very bottom is a little opportunity for you to sign up to the mailing list and stay in the loop. And that's all from me.