OEAwards 2024: Who or What Inspires You?

Get to know the influences, insights, and perspectives of two of the current members of the OEGlobal Board of Directors. In this episode we listen to separately recorded conversations with Katsusuke Shigeta, a long time board member from University of Hokkaido in Sapporo, Japan plus hearing from one of our newer board members, Rajiv Jhangiani of Brock University, in Ontario, Canada. This is another episode of our Board Viewpoints series.

Katsu was a guest on our second episode of OEGlobal Voices, published in 2020. And we last had a podcast conversation with Rajiv in 2021 following his recognition of an OE Award for Excellence as an Emerging Leader. Much has changed and evolved for both these open educators who play a key role for Open Education Global.

Each guest shares a bit about the places in the world they grew up, perspectives on school, paths to open education, current interests and projects, plus a little bit about what they enjoy doing outside of work. Listen to the full episode to hear interesting surprises from both Katsu and Rajiv, plus they share a three word description of each other!

In This Episode

FYI: For the sake of experimentation and the spirit of transparency, this set of show notes alone was generated by AI Actions in the Descript editor we use to produce OEGlobal Voices.

In Episode 73 of OEGlobal Voices, host Alan Levine welcomes two members of the OEGlobal Board of Directors: Katsusuke Shigeta and Rajiv Jhangiani. Katsu discusses the importance of understanding and incorporating open educational practices internationally, and shares updates on his OER initiatives, challenges, and his creative project with Adobe Express. Rajiv reflects on his journey into open education, current initiatives at Brock University, and broader discussions on open science and generative AI. The episode concludes with personal stories and insights from both guests, painting a comprehensive picture of their contributions to open education.

• Intro Music and Selected Episode Quotes
• Meet Katsu Shigeta
• Changes in Education Post-COVID
• Challenges and Successes in OER Projects
• Creative Learning with Adobe Express
• Perceptions of Open Education in Japan
• Rajiv Jhangiani Joins the Conversation
• Navigating Life as an International Student
• A Twist of Fate: From Theater to Psychology
• Discovering Open Education
• Provincial Research and Institutional Self-Assessment
• Current Projects and Initiatives at Brock
• The Future of Open Education
• Balancing Work and Personal Life
• Closing Thoughts and Reflections

Additional Links and Quotes for Episode 73

This is a point, I focus on to have better skills and knowledge [on] how to create digital materials would be nice for students to show their outcomes and what they learn in the class. This kind of skill could be effective after they graduate the higher education institution. So I try to connect the creative learning creative learning aspects, to show the authentic assessment and show the learning outcomes in the university together.

Katsu Shigeta on teaching digital skills

• Katsusuke Shigeta (web site)
• Center for Open Education Hokkaido University
  • Digital Literacy OER (Hokkaido University)
  • Adobe Education Exchange
• OEG Voices 002: Katsusuke Shigeta (2020)
• @Katsu (OEG Connect Profile)
  • How Can We Effectively Spread the Reach of Open Education and Hybrid Learning? (Board Viewpoint post)
  • Advancing Digital Literacy Education at Hokkaido University (Board Viewpoint post)
  • Empowering Educators & Learners: The Launch of Japan’s First OER Cross-Search Service! (Board Viewpoint post)
• Open Education Japan

I think that’s part of the joy to interact with folks like that, who again, like Robin [DeRosa], give you the confidence and support that you can experiment, that you can, improvise, and you can do so knowing that it’s all right. If you fall flat, it’s okay. It’s not a big deal.

And that’s part of that vulnerability of openness. And I think modeling that is important, but it’s a special treat to be able to do it, especially in front of people who you adore so much.

Rajiv Jhangiani on OER24 keynote

• Rajiv Jhangiani (web site)
• Vice-Provost, Teaching & Learning (Brock University)
  •  Centre for Pedagogical Innovation
  • Co-op, Career and Experiential Education
  • Professional & Continuing Studies
  • OER Adoption Grant Program
• Robin DeRosa (web site)
• Betwixt fairy tales and dystopian futures: Writing the next chapter in open education (notes from OER24 Conference Keynote)
  • Watch keynote
• Faculty attitudes towards and experiences with OER & Open Textbooks (presentation at 2015 Open Textbook Summit)
• Institutional Self-Assessment Tool for OEP Initiatives (ISAT, 2019-2020)
  • How Are We Doing with Open Education Practice Initiatives? Applying an Institutional Self-Assessment Tool in Five Higher Education Institutions (IRRODL, 2021)
  • ISAT2 (Inclusive Education Lab, Brock University)
• @rjhangiani (OEG Connect)
  • Tactics and strategies to build institutional capacity for open educational practices (Board Viewpoint post)
  • Advancing open education through open science (Board Viewpoint post)

And I think one concern in general, which has already been an issue is just the, it’s like paving over the etymology of knowledge. a core value of open licensing is attribution.

Losing that is damaging, is dangerous. It’s theft. So that’s damaging. The normalization of that, because this is going to happen anyway. You’re denying progress if you’re not serving students, if you don’t equip them to use. What I think is really missing over here is that critical, generative AI literacy.

….

And every time you’re going to get the same kind of little jingle around it’s here and it’s going to hit you. And you can’t bury your head in the sand. But at the same time, I think what you don’t want to do either is to not just not bury your head in the sand, but not just stand there on the shore with your mouth open wide and just swallow the salt water without thinking.

Rajiv Jhangiani on Artificial Intelligence and values of openness

Our open licensed music for this episode is a track called The View From The Window by Ian Sutherland licensed under a Creative CommonsAttribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Like most of our podcast music, it was found at the Free Music Archive (see our full FMA playlist).

This was another episode we are recording on the web in Squadcast. This is part of the Descript platform for AI enabled transcribing and editing audio in text– this has greatly enhanced our ability to produce our shows. We have been exploring some of the other AI features in Descript, but our posts remain human authored unless indicated otherwise.