An exciting week of activities to celebrate Open Education Week awaits the campus March 7 to 11.

Open Education Week is a global event showcasing open educational activities around the world, and the Office of Open Learning and Leddy Library are joining forces to highlight some of the work UWindsor is doing in this area.

“We have a full slate of activities scheduled for the week, so I’m sure there will be something for everyone,” says Nick Baker, director of the Office of Open Learning.

The week kicks off with a streaming party of Creative Commons Open Education Resources at 4 p.m. in the fourth floor seminar room of the Leddy Library. The live webinar, facilitated by Cable Green, director of Global Learning at Creative Commons, will provide an introduction to the non-profit organization’s licencing and Open Educational Resources.

Tuesday, March 8, sees drop-in sessions on ePortfolios, WordPress and Open Textbooks, from noon to 2 p.m. in room 1112, Erie Hall. The sessions will help people get started with building their own ePortfolio, website or blog, and finding open access textbooks for their disciplines.

Baker says there are literally hundreds of high-quality open access textbooks across a wide range of disciplines that are free for instructors and students to use and adapt to their own courses, and this drop-in session will help them find the right resources for their context.

A series of roundtables on Wednesday, March 9, will showcase some of the tools and supports available to instructors to help them build, adapt and use open learning environments. There will be a series of stations in Erie Hall where instructors can drop in and learn more about particular options and tools, including:

• What does the Office of Open Learning do? (ER1112)
• Lightboards, drones, and other cool tools for your teaching (ER1111)
• Streaming live classes and building learning objects (ER1110)
• Creating and incorporating educational videos in your classes (ER1115)
• Opening your scholarly self: Crafting an impactful academic profile online (ER1110)

A second streaming party on Thursday, March 10, at 11 a.m. in the fourth floor seminar room of Leddy Library will host a live webinar on the SUNY Open education initiatives, including discussion with faculty who are creating and using open courseware and open textbooks.

Friday, March 11, wraps up the week with an introductory workshop on Blackboard Collaborate from 10 a.m. to noon in room 2103, Lambton Tower, followed by the Online Instructors Community of Practice meeting from noon to 1 p.m. room 1115, Erie Hall. This informal and open group meets once a month to discuss issues around online course development, teaching, and research.

More information and the complete schedule of events are available on the event website, or contact Alicia Higgison at higgison@uwindsor.ca or 519-253-3000, ext. 2008.