Empire State College/OER Projects

September 2011 brings the launch of the College’s first MOOC: Creativity and Multicultural Education. Dr. Betty Lawrence and Carol Yeager are hosting the MOOC which will have weekly speakers including Stephen Downes, George Siemens, and dean of the College’s Center for Distance Learning Tom Mackey. CMC11 is an open online course that over 13 weeks explores the domain of Creativity and global communication in multidisciplinary venues. Participation is open to everyone and there are no fees or subscriptions required. http://www.cdlprojects.com/cmc11blog/

In June 2011, The Center for Distance Learning received a grant jointly with the Office of Academic Affairs from the SUNY Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to complete their proposed project, Diversity and Social Justice in an Open, Online Environment. A group of 10 faculty are collectively producing an open, online course to focus on various diversity and social justice topics. The course will be available for credit in March through the Center for Distance Learning and as an open resource in spring 2012.

Center for Distance Learning faculty member Dr. Joyce McKnight received recognition from the User Page Expo (UPE) in April 2011. This recognition is given to those who have WikiEducator pages that are particularly informative, innovative, visually appealing, or clever. Faculty and staff around the College have been experimenting with ePortfolios for the past few years. With an ePortfolio provider in place, the College has 26 projects slated for ePortfolio use in fall 2011 and spring 2012.