» [Fall 2018 Workshop] ETUG Community Gathers to "Just Share It" at ECUAD

Contributed by Clint Lalonde and Robynne Devine, BCcampus
On Friday, November 2, close to 100 ETUG participants gathered at Emily Carr University of Arts + Design (ECUAD) in Vancouver for the annual Fall Workshop. The theme for the fall workshop was “Just Share It,” exploring ways in which our community can deepen the ways in which we share and disseminate knowledge to each other and to our communities.
The morning opened with a dynamic First Nations welcome from Coast Salish artist Xwalacktun (Rick Harry) who had the crowd up and dancing in the form of eagles and wolves. An Emily Carr alumni, Xwalacktun also explained the role he had in the design of the many elaborate CNC-carved doors that hang within the institution.
Paul Stacey, Executive Director of the Open Education Consortium, followed with a provocative keynote that asked the ETUG community to reconsider the idea that sharing was the best way to achieve the goal of developing a deep and sustainable Open Educational Resource environment. Instead, Paul challenged the audience to consider shifting our thinking from simply “sharing” to “commoning,” which has a deeper level of commitment and responsibility towards sustaining open educational resources.
Following the morning talk from Paul, we then moved into a series of hands-on workshops and tours of the new Emily Carr facility, led by Emily Carr’s own Grant Gregson. ETUGgers had a chance to test out some of the 3D printing facilities, and see some of the virtual and augmented reality work being done by both Emily Carr faculty and UBC’s Emerging Media Lab. Part of the UBC Emerging Media Lab demonstration included a virtual field trip of Vancouver’s Stanley Park, developed as an open educational resource by students and funded by a BCcampus Open Education grant. Chad Leaman, Director of Innovation from the Neil Squire Society, was also on hand to demonstrate LipSynch, a Google-funded accessibility initiative enabling people with little to no hand movement to operate touch screen devices.
Lunch was followed by a series of short, 10-minute lightning talks highlighting some of the projects that ETUG members have been working on. Highlights included a demonstration of H5P interactive learning elements in Pressbooks open textbooks by KPU’s Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani, and research on the recently released 2018 National Survey of Online and Digital Learning in Canada (funded in part by BCcampus) from Dr. Tony Bates.
We would like to thank everyone at ECUAD involved for sharing those spaces with the ETUG community, and a special thank you to the SCETUG planning committee and, in particular, SCETUG member Grant Gregson for all his support with the organizing the day’s events.
Here is a snapshot of the feedback from the workshop:

And, here is what a couple attendees had to say about the 2018 ETUG Fall Workshop