Based on the generosity of our sponsors, we are extremely pleased to be able to announce that there are now 3 travel scholarships available, each worth $1300 towards the participant’s travel costs.
In order to apply for one of these scholarships, please write a blog post (referring back to this one) describing:
- What you would “bring” to the conference? What can you contribute, be it a willingness to volunteer to moderate a session, some special expertise or project, an already accepted proposal…
- What you see as the most critical issue facing you in your efforts around Open Education, and how you think the conference can help you address it?
Entries are due by midnight, June 30th, and will be adjudicated by the organizing committee as quickly as possible to give as much time as we can to make travel bookings.
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I have an accepted proposal to the conference. I was also hoping to represent edtechtalk at the conference and do a little webcasting (audio and video) along the way. I’ve done a few total conference webcast scenarios and can maybe offer a little help with that, or, as i figured more likely, if i’m allowed, just drop a mic here and there and get some of the sights and sounds of the place. Some impromptu discussions/debates in the hall ways… that kind of stuff. I’m not claiming that I’ll be doing it every minute, but i had expected to come home with at least 3 or 4 good recorded discussions.
The plain truth is that i decided that i was going to go to one f2f conference this year in the interests of taking the ideas that i’ve been working on online and try the out on the group that I thought most likely to challenge those assumptions. This was the one conference that I wanted to attend and am willing to pay, out of pocket, to fly out and stay there for three days for that opportunity.
Through the last four years of weekly webcasts and other digital connecting I’ve found that too many of the thoughts and ideas that i wanted to pursue get lost in the shuffle of the choices that are out there. Just last week I had a discussion with chris lott confused and not terribly well handled (by me) and the feedback that i needed for my work almost lost.
I’ll be coming to the conference either way. If there are people coming from countries where the economic differences make coming completely prohibitive, i would not be interested in taking a scholarship to replace them. If, however, you are looking for someone who is coming, on their own, and is going to contribute energy to your conference… i think you’ll be hard pressed to find someone with more of it. More experienced? sure. Smarter? Oh my yes… but I doubt someone who will be more engaged in the idea of open discourse.
thanks for putting together such a cool conference. seems like there’s some nice vibes heading on its way in.
I’m glad that there’s a big event especially about “Open Education”. I just recently discovered “Open Education” Thanks to mozilla.org/mozopened thru P.Schimdt. I’ll try to come up with a blog as I’m interested to attend to this event but mostly be interested on how Open Education can be adopted to third world countries, like in my country (Philippines) .
Thanks for this opportunity, a help especially for international students or foreigner like us.
Hi, My name is Rehati Nuersan, I’m coming from China Central Radio and TV University, as a section chief of Teaching Resources Management Division.
First of all, let me take a brief introduction about my University, China Radio and Television University (China RTVUs) has a distance education and teaching system, which is composed of CRTVU, the academic headquarter, 44 provincial RTVUs, 987 municipal RTVUs, and over 3000 RTVUs at county levels (learning centers). Currently, it offers 49 B.A. program and higher diploma through radio, TV, print, audio-visual materials and CAI courseware for its enrolment of 2.7 millions. Its big student population, widely geographically distributed learning centers and great differences in teaching facilities and resources lead to the fact that it can be claimed to be the most complex and biggest distance education provider. The Open Course Resources
Secondly, The most important reason why I wish to attend to this meeting is that I want to introduce what we did in open education fields in china concerning open resources. I am going to bring more information about the “National High-quality Courses” and “Open Resources Committee of China Radio & TV University System” , and sharing our experience with everyone in the meeting. Actually, The open course program in china has its own characters and rules, totally different from MIT-OCWC and CORE, although the CORE—China Open Resource for Education claimed that they can represent the open courses in china and it is a consortium of universities that began with 26 IET Educational Foundation member universities and 44 China Radio and TV Universities, received approval and support for its activities from the China Ministry of Education (MOE). But the fact it that the National High-quality Courses(JIN PIN KE CHENG) supported by MOE and Open Resources Committee of China Radio & TV University System(including 44 China Radio and TV Universities ). In fact “National High-quality Courses” and “Open Resources Committee of China Radio & TV University System” in china launched the program for several years respectively, both of these open course project have not been introduce to the outside(foreign countries), and there isn’t any introduction or paper written by English, because many people take parted in these two project didn’t have a high English level, they didn’t show their program on the International Conference or the Journal as well, what’s more, although there are official website existed, only have the Chinese version ,not English, so many people will misunderstand, and they just know the CORE, and thought the CORE is the stand for of Open Course in China, which is wrong information.
Thirdly, If I have the chance to attend this meeting, it will offer me a great opportunity to fortify my knowledge and theory in open education through the study and research. At the same time, it will show me with rich experiment in this world and stimulate my impetus and innovative ideas on related areas. What’s more, I can communicate with the expert and fellows face to face from every part of the world , and learn more from them, whom dedicated to improving the quality and theory in open education fields, By the way I am very interested in new theories such as Web2.0, Mobile Learning, Ubiquitous Learning, Twitter, Feed, Facebook etc,. After this conference, It will expand my eyes and my experiences, and I will introduce those new stuffs and avant-garde theories to my fellows as soon as I come back to china.
In addition, although CCRTVU is a giant university in distance education in china, but the Stuff in our university seldom supported to attend the International Conference in open education fields. Our president and some official leaders in university take part in the ICDE annual conference and AAOU conference every year, both of them are official conference and so much big-name in open education fields, so, that means we don’t have the chance to attend the real conference. Honestly, according to my salaries (600$ per month) I can’t afford the whole fee, such as registration fee/Airplane ticket/Booking Hotel. I just can afford to attend the meeting which held in China and have to facing big registration fee (about 300$) and can not afford to book a room at the fancy hotel usually held at 5-star standard hotel. So I think this is so generous behavior to let us having an opportunity to apply for this scholarship.
Finally, Your favorable consideration towards this self recommendation and application is greatly appreciated. If I can be of any further question, please feel free to contact me.
I think it’s a really great thing that the conference offers these fellowships. I had the good luck of being selected for one last year, and it really helped me out. This summer, I’ve been travelling through China meeting a lot of professors and graduate students studying the Chinese Open Educational Resources project, and international projects, who are really interesting and have a lot of great insights. I just spread this news to a mailing list and some of my friends in China, and I really hope to see some Chinese applicants for this award.
(I am not applying, since I received the award last year - but I will be there, and I can’t wait).
Stian
A quick thought: Next year, if it is possible to continue the tradition of funding some scholarships (which I really hope it will be - thank you to all sponsors!), it would be great if this “contest” could be held early enough, so that the winners could also submit a proposal… I for one would love to hear about the projects they are working on, or the situation in their countries. Perhaps there could be some opening for this anyway, even though it’s not a formal presentation, for example through a poster presentation or something similar?
Best
Stian
Stian, you are of course totally right about this, and it was only our delays in lining up all the sponsorships that prevented this. Now is as good a time as any to also mention that this year there will be an ‘unconference’ style strand at the conference; we have an extra room which we plan to leave set up in a less formal setup, and a wiki where people will be able to pitch sessions that may get slotted in that room. So there still will very much be a chance for any scholarship winners to share with others.
My entry for the scholarship is here: http://gcaspers.fts.educ.msu.edu/wp/2009/06/28/open-education-conference/
Thank you for providing this opportunity to those of us interested in this conference!
~Greg
http://sociallearnlab.org/blog/?p=450 , here is my application entry for the scholarship, thanks. I will keep an eye on this conference from Twitter.
I’m Jia Yimin, coming from China. I am a teacher, teaching Learning Sciences and Learning Technologies, and I am also a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Technology in South China Normal University, Guangdong Province，P. R. C..
I want to attend this conference because I want to introduce what we did in Open Education Recourse in China. Scince 2002，I and my Colleagues had done our research on OCW and OER. We had received two National research Programs. The first is the comparison between china and Foreign Countries. The Second is The Development Mechanism and Sharing Model of “National High-quality Courses”( Chinese OER). We had some findings in this two research program. I think this conference is a good opportunity to sharing our findings and comuunicate with researchers in other countries. It will be much helpful for our reasch.
At last, thanks to Stian Haklev told me this conference news.
Here’s my blog post, just in case the trackback will decide not to work: http://tinyurl.com/la6zf8
Thanks for creating this opportunity!
My blog post (also in case the trackback doesn’t work) http://teleogistic.net/2009/06/empowering-through-openness-my-application-for-the-opened-2009-travel-scholarship/
I posted with the trackback but I am not seeing it show up so here is the link. ; )
http://geek.michaelgrace.org/2009/06/tomorrow-is-built-on-todays-education/
http://www.johndbritton.com/post/2009/july/01/open_education_conference_2009_vancouver_canada_scholarship_application
Got mixed up with date…well I hope this still be considered anyway … here’s my blogs….
http://nosiness.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/open-education-is-this-for-real/
If not ..all my questions are open and feel free to use it…:)
Goodluck all!
I have posted it today. I hope you can still extend the deadline and consider it.
http://beespace.net/opened-2009-crossing-the-chasm/
My Submission was posted before midnight, what timezone is this blog in?
I want to thank all those who applied for scholarships. We did have to close it at midnight on June 30th (Pacific Standard time). We will be announcing the winners of the scholarships early next week. Cheers, Scott
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