A popular conversation in higher education is about the opportunities provided by open educational resources (OER) and the prospect for educators and students to access open educational learning materials and technologies. Despite OER being a favorite buzzword, the actual adoption of OER courses has been slow. One of the key obstacles in this area is around providing support for instructors and institutions towards designing their OER-based courses, picking the right content, and packaging all of it for superior classroom experience. At Barnes & Noble College, we are developing a program to support our campus partners and the faculty in the effective use or OER courses. This session will highlight some of our ideas/thoughts in this area of growing interest.
Dr. Mimi Ito is known internationally for her expertise on how people use mobile technologies and new digital media in their everyday lives. She is research Director of the Digital Media and Learning Hub, and chair of the Connected Learning Research Network, both part of the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning initiative that investigates how today’s digital and networked media can be mobilized for the longstanding goals of progressive education. She co-led the Digital Youth Project, a landmark study of the ways young people use new media as part of the initiative, and is co-author of the book based on the study: Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media.
Her newest book is Participatory Culture in a Networked Era: A Conversation on Youth, Learning, Commerce, and Politics with coauthors and previous TLT Symposium keynote speakers danah boyd and Henry Jenkins. She is also John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Chair in Digital Media and Learning, and a professor-in-residence, Department of Anthropology and Department of Informatics, at the University of California, Irvine. She has two doctorates from Stanford University, one in education and one in anthropology.
