When I first started teaching, I used the traditional textbook publisher that everyone else was using and created my courses around this. 11 years ago when I first started teaching online, I used a basic version of Blackboard and the internet to link to additional data. I copied images from the internet without any knowledge of Creative Commons licensing, posted information that was likely not always accessible, and did not fully understand the depth of what the internet had to offer, as well as it's biases. Facebook was popular, but the emergence of social media sites had yet to explode.

Taking this course has really opened up my bubble of teaching to see how the digital world affects so many areas of our lives. As an instructor, I need to think critically about the digital environments that I am using to educate my students. In addition, I learned that my digital identity is firmly rooted in social media and what I do professionally.

As a sociologist, we analyze the physical world from a perspective that includes how social institutions, social factors and much more contribute to who a person is, their opportunities or disadvantages, and how they view the world. In this world of technology, social media, and online education, I have learned through this class that our digital citizenship is no different. The environments available to us online pose many of the same issues (and more) that we experience in everyday life.

My assessments in class have often focused on disposable assignments that did not necessarily help to contribute to open education. I have been convicted in this class to make necessary adjustments. Please see below for examples.

The topics of 21^st century skills, including the resources on “gig economy” and “platform economy” pointed out that our students are potentially being prepared for jobs that don’t even exist yet. My teaching needs to stay current with these changes, including a new mindset in terms of creating assignments. There is a 21^st century skills workshop series on campus this semester and I am offering extra credit for students to attend.

I plan to bring open pedagogy more to the forefront of my teaching as I update my courses and assignments. Creating more non-disposable assignments that can be shared with other students to help them learn is a primary goal of mine.

Finally, I am the Co-Chair for Open Educational Resources/Zero Textbook Cost at Saddleback. My co-chair and I are now the State Senate OER Liaisons for our school. In addition, we are the OER Equity Champions (state program) on campus to work toward a Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) Degree Path in the near future. We are working with our student success committee, along with Pathways and Equity to ensure ZTC/OER is common language and is being used to help students succeed.

College-wide we have 131 courses in the class schedule listed as ZTC. 2 1/2 years ago we had 6 classes. This is a savings of about 1 million dollars annually for our students. We are working to increase the number of faculty using ZTC, as well as create several ZTC degree pathways.