Keynote Speakers

Following the keynote format we premiered in 2011, this year’s keynote addresses will come in pairs. These paired keynotes will provide a range of perspectives on timely topics of critical importance to the field of open education.

Keynote Pairing 1: Openness and the Future of Post-Secondary Education

Michael Feldstein is an educational technology consultant and a lifelong educator. Previously, he has been the Senior Program Manager of MindTap at Cengage Learning and Principal Product Strategy Manager for Academic Enterprise Solutions (formerly Academic Enterprise Initiative, or AEI) at Oracle Corporation. Prior to to that, Michael was an Assistant Director at the SUNY Learning Network, where he oversaw blended learning faculty development and was part of the leadership team for the LMS platform migration efforts of this 40-campus program. Before SUNY, he was co-founder and CEO of MindWires, a company that provided e-learning and knowledge management products and services to Fortune 500 corporations, with a special emphasis on software simulations. In a previous life, Michael was a middle school and high school teacher and a tire wrangler at a Yokohama Tire warehouse.

Phil Hill is an educational technology consultant and analyst who has spent the last 10 years advising in online education and educational technology markets. As an independent consultant and analyst, Phil helps higher education institutions develop effective strategies to understand and implement online education programs. Phil’s clients have included the University of Iowa, UCLA, California State University, DeVry University, Colorado Community College System, University of Maryland University College, among others. Phil is also an author, blogger at e-Literate, and speaker, and he has become recognized in the educational technology community for his insights into the broader education market trends and issues. In addition to e-Literate, Phil has also written for EDUCAUSE Review and been quoted at Inside Higher Ed and Washington Business Journal.

Keynote Pairing 2: Supporting Open Textbook Adoption in British Columbia

Mary Burgess is the Executive Director of BCcampus, an organization that supports the work of the BC post-secondary system in the areas of teaching, learning and educational technology. Prior to joining BCcampus in 2012, Mary was the Director of the Centre for Teaching and Educational Technologies at Royal Roads University where she started the University’s first open educational resources project. She is a career instructional designer and longtime advocate of OER.

David Porter is Associate Vice-President – Education Support and Innovation, BCIT. He is the former Executive Director of BCcampus, where he advocated for the use of open pedagogical practices and open educational resources (OER), including the implementation of Canada’s first large-scale, government-funded open textbook program for post-secondary education. He is also a board member of the Open Education Resource Foundation, a non-profit society that is the coordinating body for Open Education Universitas (http://OERu.org), a network of 30+ universities worldwide that are interested in providing low-cost access to higher education using open resources, practices and pedagogies.