OER15 – now with added keynote awesome

I mentioned that I’m co-chair of the OER15 conference in Cardiff next April. One of my duties was to sort out the keynote speakers, which was great as I get to ask people I really like and admire to come and talk. The theme of the conference is “Mainstreaming OER”. There is a sense that having been around for over a decade now, and established a sizeable community, the next stage of OER adoption is for it to enter into everyday, mainstream practice. This also means not just operating on belief and evangelism, but looking at issues around OER, and solid research.

It was this theme that shaped my choice of keynotes. They are on the website, but for completeness, I’ll list them here:

• Josie Fraser – most of you will know Josie, and if you don’t, shame on you. I wanted Josie to speak because, apart from being a great speaker and fun person, she’s been doing some really great work with OERs on schools (look out for more on this soon from Josie). And if we’re going to mainstream OER they need to move away from a higher ed focus and get into schools.
• Cable Green – Cable is Director of Global Learning at Creative Commons. As such he’s done work on policy at different levels, has worked with all aspects of open education and driven a lot of mainstream adoption. I’ve had the pleasure of being at a few conferences with Cable and he’s an excellent speaker. There is no-one better suited to the subject of mainstreaming OER than Cable.
• Sheila MacNeill – like Josie, if you’re in OER/ed tech in the UK in particular then you have to know Sheila. She was also another obvious choice for me when the topic of mainstreaming OER was agreed. Sheila brings a wealth of experience from her CETIS days and her current role in GCU. If we are to make OER part of everyday practice then Sheila’s experience of working at the coalface as it were will be invaluable.
• Martin Weller – errm, okay, look, we were going to have only 3 keynotes, but I worried that people would need to leave the conference early, so didn’t want to waste a proper keynote on this slot. So in a buy 3 get 1 free deal, I’ll do a battle for open thing. And besides my co-chair Haydn, begged me to do a keynote and you don’t like to see a grown man beg (I may have made that bit up).

Anyway, if you were undecided about coming to OER15 then I’m sure that keynote line-up has you booking your tickets to Cardiff.

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