On May 29 and 29, I had the privilege to connect with colleagues in Quebec at Numerique 2018, a conference organized by the University of Montreal’s EDULib team, led by Professor Bruno Poellhuber – a very cool guy. My keynote opened the conference on the evening of May 28.
The conference looked closely at advances in thinking about OER, MOOCs, and distance education practices in general. Examples and discussions of a variety of possible futures were provided by invited speakers from France (Catherine Mongenet – FUN-MOOC), British Columbia (Tony Bates – Tony Bates and Associates) and the USA (Anant Agarwal – MIT + edX).
Numerique 2018 was also an opportunity for Quebec post-secondary educators to consider how they might see an eCampus in their province operate in the service of students and faculty. Theme-based discussions throughout the 1.5 days allowed lots of time for conversations about potential paths forward.
All in, it was a stimulating set of presentations and discussions.
On the day following Numerique 2018, the Quebec government made a huge funding announcement in support of digital education, which further buoyed the chances for the rapid ramp-up of eCampusQuebec.
