A sort of ode to eCampusOntario.

Most people who attended TESS18, eCampusOntario’s Technology-Enabled Seminar and Showcase, held in Toronto earlier this week left on a high. eCampusOntario has established itself as a facilitator of meaningful discussion and innovation in the college and university sectors. The consortium’s programs and initiatives have been a catalyst for real progress in areas like open education and the innovative use of educational technology. This poem, written while at TESS, is one way of acknowledging the impact of eCampusOntario has had, both on my educational practices and those of the province as a whole.

We need more groups like
eCampusOntario
changing higher ed.

We need more Jennis
Helens Jessicas Maureens
Lauras Aarons too.

We need Julias
Terrys Emmas Pegs Lenas
Joannes and Davids.

Plus Bens, Chris’s, and
all those who are improving
Ontario ed.

What are they doing
that nobody was doing
up until just now?

They’re bringing people
from across the province and
beyond together.

They’re exploring new ways
of shaping education
for the present age.

They’re promoting
new approaches to learning
that have great promise.

It’s ideas like
Open Education that
can change how we teach.

It’s ideas like
Open Education that
can change how we learn.

Open ed builds on
the premise that learning is
something we can share.

The best way to share
is to make resources free
for others to use.

If we insist on
restricting copyright, we
restrict access, too.

Restricting access
limits engagement with and
ways into knowledge.

And why would we want
to prevent others gaining
access to knowledge?

Knowledge is power;
knowledge is preparation
for what will come next.

The world is not a
happy place at this moment;
we have work to do.

This work requires skills,
insights, new ideas, and
collaboration.

Open ed equips
people like you, and like me,
with all of those things.

And monetizing
learning at times like these seems
very, very wrong.

It goes against the
obligation that we have
to share what we know.

We are fortunate:
we’ve been given wonderful
opportunities.

Opportunities
to learn, study, grow, all thanks
to education.

We need to share what
we’ve gained with the rest of the
province and beyond.

Leading this charge is
eCampusOntario,
and that’s a good thing.

This is the seventh of my nine contributions to the eCampusOntario 9x9x25 challenge.

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