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    The Action Aspect of OFAR

    As I finished up my OFAR Action Plan, I remembered how I had originally conceived of this work as being as static as the course packs I used to love. My initial vision was to create the digital version of my previous paper course pack for literature courses, now made with OER materials and with a Creative Commons License. The path, I see now, is far less static and much more ongoing. Though I have gathered plenty of OER materials online that I can use to foster to principles we have discussed during the OFAR course, this collection and application is just the beginning. My first step will be to…

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    A return to the past for English 30: Introduction to Literature — Developing a course pack, OER style

    Back before the pandemic, I was a fan of course packs. Customizing this booklet for the class, complete with an interesting cover, helped me plan out the semester, stay organized, and provide a no-cost solution to students. (At this time, the copy center would make full class sets for me, sometimes even providing spiral binding.) I made a digital copy to be stored on Blackboard and annotating this text was a major course assignment for the class. The days of my course packs quickly slipped away during the pandemic. I went from a largely paper-oriented class to a wholly digital one. Now, each unit has associated readings, organized into units.…

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    Using the Commons to streamline resources over time

    Hello everyone! I started teaching in 1998 and have been a faculty member of Kingsborough’s English department since 2008. I haven’t yet decided if I am going to adapt Eng 24: Composition II or Eng 43: Drama on the Commons, but the aspect I would like to preserve (and improve) is the same for each. For either choice, the most functional part of my Blackboard course is also its most dysfunctional. In my BB shells, I always devote one of the side tabs to collect essential documents and links that can be referred throughout the semester. For my composition courses, it might be helpful handouts I’ve come across about writing,…