Open Education 2015

The Agora (http://udg.theagoraonline.net ) is an open, blended faculty development experience that was co-developed by the JIBC (http://jibc.ca) and the CIEP Docentes (a http://ciep.cga.udg.mx ) at the University of Guadalajara (UdG). Approximately 300 UdG professors are enrolled in a 6 month Diploma at UdG, with a focus teaching professors how to create student centred experiences supported by mobile devices. The JIBC team consists of a broad group of open educators and facilitators and includes Terri Bateman, Ken Bauer, Jorge Enrique López Campos, Barb Kidd, Brian Lamb, Alan Levine, Tannis Morgan, and Nancy White. The Agora functions as a metaphor for an open, collaborative space on the open web, and builds on a number of existing tools and initiatives such as the TRU YouShow (TRU Writer) and DS 106 (challenge bank, daily try). Studios and challenges created by the team exist online as CC licensed content, and the Agora site can be easily reused or cloned to other WP instances. In addition, an open tool called Discourse (http://discourse.org/) is being used as a semi-open online discussion space. The #udgagora functions as project glue to connect the various F2F and online activities. The program is designed around a series of F2F and online hands-on studios where participants are required to complete and share openly a number of challenges - small, achievable tasks that centre on active learning techniques or mobile/multimedia creation – within the context of the studios. In the 8 week online portion that follows the initial 2 week F2F, participants are required to implement some of these challenges with their students, and report back student feedback on the implementation. In order to provide more localized support during the planning and implementation of challenges with their students, participants were placed into triads as a collaboration and feedback mechanism that occurs either F2F on their campuses or via other means. A collective, open artifact of implementations will be created in a TRU Writer type tool. This presentation will describe the co-design, co-development and implementation of the Agora and will highlight both the surprises and challenges encountered.