My name is Kimberlee (Kim) Carter, and I have been in a newly created position of Open Educational Resource Consultant for two years at Conestoga College ITAL. Expanding Open Educational Practices (OEP), creating and developing processes to grow Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Access (OA) development, and managing the Open Learning team in Library and Learning Services. I am so lucky to have found purposeful work that allows me to pursue a passion for sharing the benefits of Open Education at my institution.
I am a first-generation learner from a working-class family and relate to some of the barriers preventing people from pursuing higher education. I returned to school as an older adult, completed a B.Ed. in Adult Education, M.A. in Leadership, and began my teaching career. My teaching has always been influenced by education leaders such as bell hooks and Stephen Brookfield. Still, when I completed the eCampus Ontario Extend Empowered Educator program, I found Open Education to align with my values and a passion worth pursuing.
In August 2020, I led and worked with a wonderful team of cross-institutional collaborators (including learners) to publish an Open Education Resource (OER), Building a Medical Terminology Foundation. What a wonderful collaboration it was and timely as the resource and many of the accompanying H5P interactives were so helpful for students in remote learning. This was such a wonderful experience that we did it again in 2021. Published in Feb. 2022 with the help of the Ontario Government’s VLS funding are Therapeutic Communications for Health Care Administrators digital text and Therapeutic Communication for Health Care Administrators Game Simulations.
Other OER/OA publications include: Co-Designing OER with Learners: A Replacement to Traditional College Level Assessments, A Project Management Crisis: Moving a Multi-institutional Collaborative Sprint Online, Building a Medical Terminology Foundation 2e, Workbook, and Anatomical Colouring book.
I started a blog when I participated in eCampus Ontario Extend mOOC. Read those reflections here. I took a bit of a hiatus, but I was back blogging again as I participated in the Professional Program in Open Education at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. What an excellent program and I hope you enjoy reading my journey.
