How was my experience in OpenCon? This is my first time, here atOpenCon. I really enjoy it. And there are a lot of approaches that have been very interesting. I have to admit there are some things that are quite different from my personality. For example, this is not a critique, but I find the consistently tweeting very amusing; I'm not like that, so something I feel kind of pressure, like you have to tweet this, and I'm like, leave me alone. But I think that depends on every person.
Claire:
Claire Coulter is an Instructional Technologist from the University of Guelph where she works for Open Learning and Educational Support as part of the Educational Development team. Claire works with instructors at the intersection of pedagogy and technology, on both ad hoc experimental implementations, but also on establishing evidence-based best practices. She also frequently collaborates on research projects across the disciplines in this capacity. Claire is also a graduate student who will complete her M.Ed. in the spring (yippee!).
In terms of the importance of open media, Claire is an advocate in this area as she sees the potential for inspiring and creating new opportunities for open educational practices and pedagogies, in that it provides "an opportunity to collaborate with our students in a more meaningful way. " By giving students the opportunity to be creators and have agency, to be the producers, Claire is confident that I think that "we'll be amazed at what they create."
Claire was told that coming to OpenCon would be an amazing, exciting, and transformative experience. She is happy to confirm that it has been everything that she was told that it would be and more. She feels it has been an inspiring, humbling and thought-provoking experience: "on a minute-by-minute basis I am experiencing heart-on-fire, mind-blown all at the same time". She has many ideas that she will take home with her, and just hearing the conversations and meeting the other participants and hearing their stories has been impactful for her in ways that she didn't anticipate.