Read this and learn seven things (could be more)

If you’re reading this, then you will learn seven cool things that will help you pull together and contextualize the conglomeration of reading and viewing expected between today and Wed., June 15. Everything we’re doing in the next week is about connecting WAC and OER. This link to Educause also appears in the “Got OER?” page here, just after Open Michigan. Check this out: 7 Things You Should Know About Open Textbook Publishing.

Want to teach? Do a better job with OER. Do it with open textbooks. Do it with an open textbook YOU create.

Want to get into publishing? Know where this open and/or digital business is going–think beyond what you have grown up knowing. Think Star Trek.

Want to see the future? It’s here. And here. And here. And here. I mean here, in the Blogroll to the right. The future is you. Know everything you can about the power of your mind, your voice, your words. Then get yourself out there and share what you learn. The future–despite it being you–is going to be challenging, but you’ll know the right questions to ask and, perhaps, how to think about getting at the right answers because you were part of a group who learned to learn together.

Writing across the curriculum is a theory, a method of instruction; it’s got a history, a present, a future; it’s got real-life applications that we’ll study through looking at individual university programs; it’s got real-life applications for each one of us–and an impact on who we are–even if it’s just being part of the learning commons we are making here. WAC isn’t just about writing; it’s about freedom and possibility and contentment and thinking and peace and chaos and great conversation; it’s about everything because writing is about anything.

Writing is what I do. It’s what you do. It’s how we think and learn and share–no matter what we’re focused on: literature, biology, writing, education, science fiction, graphic design, golf, or massage therapy. It’s a commons we’re creating here, no doubt about it, a commons of thinkers about writing and what we are learning and how our knowledge production and that knowledge has rhetorical velocity. We’re a commons, and commoners have power and ancient rights.

We aren’t alone, by the way, in our quest for getting, making, and sharing knowledge. Being a commoner rocks–we’re in mighty fine company.