Episode 65: Julia Alards-Tomalin on Buds, Branches, and Bark
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[00:00:00] Julia Alards-Tomalin: What got me going about open education at first was just the idea of having resources that people could use for free all over the world. They would be something that you could update more easily too, like things that you could change over time. They could be customized for different regions and having that kind of equity and justice piece to education. 

[00:00:28] Alan Levine: Welcome. It's a new episode of OEG Voices. This is the podcast that we get to do at Open Education Global,. Every episode we try to bring you personalities, practices, and ideas, via conversations with open educators from around the world. I'm your host Alan Levine, and I'm joined by my colleague in the studio, Marcela Morales.

And so it's been a few months, Marcela, actually maybe more than a few since we announced the winners of the OE Awards for Excellence. And in fact, we kind of came into a new year, so happy 2024. We're now continuing catching up with our award winners which I, I think makes interesting because we can talk to them about things that have happened since we gave them the award.

And that certainly has happened in this case that we're gonna hear about. In fact for good reason, I think it's very appropriate that we're doing this in the North American winter time as you learn about when we talk about the book. So I'm really happy to have with us, Julia-Alards Tomlin from British Columbia Institute of Technology.

She received an open pedagogy award for a fascinating project that we're gonna hear about called " Buds, Branches and Bark". I sometimes get the order wrong there, so, excuse me, Julia, I sometimes have been saying "Buds Bark and Branches". But I just love this project so much and I'm really happy that we have some time to talk about it, how it came to be and what's happening with it. 

So first of all, Julia, let the listening audience know where you're sitting right now and, and maybe what it looks like out the window.

[00:01:58] Julia Alards-Tomalin: Wonderful. thanks for having me here. So I'm currently situated in Vancouver, which is in BC in Canada on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. So the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh. And if I look out my window, it's a beautiful sunny day, blue skies. I can see my rhododendrons have their green leaves out and I can see my twiggy maples, bare out there with their buds hanging out.

So it's starting to get a little spring-like here, but not quite the end of winter yet.

[00:02:31] Alan Levine: I'm a few provinces to the west and I'm in Saskatchewan or Treaty 4 Territory, and I actually can see a red, Osier Dogwood. That's a specimen that I know is in your book. 

I'm just kind of curious about where did you spend your, your childhood years, where did you grow up and were you always interested in the outdoors?

[00:02:48] Julia Alards-Tomalin: I grew up in Manitoba on a little farm just north of Gimli, and I played outside a lot. We were lucky to have forest around our little farmhouse that I grew up in and I love go outside and play in the woods. We didn't really have tv, so it's like so different than nowadays.

A lot of the time I just played outside. My mom said I used to love to go and pick leaves off the ground. Even when I was like, as young as maybe two years old, I was running around leaves off ground in the bush with her. My mom also had a big garden, so my mom and dad and my brother, we would often grow vegetables and, and harvest things from the woods as well, harvest highbush cranberries and make cranberry jam. 

I've always felt really connected to the natural world, being able to grow up and play outside a lot a kid. So I'm really grateful that to the earth.

[00:03:41] Alan Levine: How'd you feel about school as a kid? Were, were you really interested in learning?

[00:03:46] Julia Alards-Tomalin: Oh man, I love to learn as a kid, I was really keen. I love to read, I was always reading books. Like my had to bring tons of home the library for me 'cause I was just reading voraciously. So I loved school. In particular, I loved arts and crafts classes, making things. My mom says to me too that ever since I was a little kid, I've always been interested in kind of helping other people learn. So yeah, it's kind of like, seems like a natural, natural progression for me to be an instructor at this point in my life 'cause I've always been kind of helping my fellows out. 

Yeah. Really loved school.

[00:04:22] Alan Levine: And so you actually were a student at BCIT studying in the natural resources programs. What were you thinking of going into when you went into that program?

[00:04:32] Julia Alards-Tomalin: Well, I moved out to Vancouver when I was about 19 and I looked at few different schools when I got here. I went to BCIT's open house night where you get to see all the different programs. 'Cause I was so interested in the natural world from growing up in Manitoba, I went and looked at the different renewable resources programs. 

I was just so blown away by how kind the instructors were at the open house and how passionate they were. There were students who were in the programs and they were just so excited about what they were doing. And I was like, wow, this is just such a good school. People are so enthusiastic to be here. And, it just felt like coming home. I was so grateful to be able to have the opportunity to go to go to an institution like that, and so I ended up taking two different programs through BCIT.

I did a diploma in the forestry program and I went on a few years later to do a Bachelor Science in the ecological restoration degree program that they had there as well. So was so fun, I went for two different experiences as a student.

[00:05:33] Alan Levine: Still loving that learning. You may have told this story a lot, but to me it's one of the favorite parts about the book that we're gonna talk about is that the idea came to you as a student, right?

[00:05:43] Julia Alards-Tomalin: Yeah, definitely. So the time of year when you're a student, like it's not ideal for looking at plants. Courses start in the Fall and they go from September till May. And in that time period, it's mostly the winter here. It's really hard to learn about the natural world when all of the resources that we had were focused on looking at plants during the growing season when they have leaves. 

I remember standing outside in the forest looking at little trees and trying to figure out what the heck they were. And all we had was our book that only has pictures leaves and things in it. And I was so frustrated. 

I remember talking to one of my instructors about it being like, well, why aren't there any resources? And he was like, well, you'll just have to make one. I guess that kind of where seed was planted. I really wanted there to something to help me.

When I came back as an instructor, I had that kind of same experience where I saw my students struggling to learn plants because the time of year just isn't ideal. For all the resources that we had at the time.

[00:06:44] Alan Levine: What actually got you moving to make that first edition of Bud, Bark and Branches?

[00:06:50] Julia Alards-Tomalin: It was in the back of my mind for a long time, but I never really felt like I had the capacity to do it myself. Taking on a book all by yourself is like such a huge undertaking. So I kind of felt that I never had the capacity to do it on my own. But when I got hired at BCIT I started there as an assistant instructor . I remember getting an email about open education grants.

BCIT had put together a program where they were gonna be funding different proposals around open education. And that was kind of the first time I even heard of the term. And so I did a little bit of research and I put in an application. I got approved to create a card game about plant identification called Plant Press.

It was a very small project but I kind of caught the open education bug at that point. I'm always really interested in developing professionally, especially as an instructor. I've gone and done different webinars and conferences and I was at this online webinar about a woman who had been making an open textbook with her students as part of the class.

So like the entire class was just her and her students co-creating this textbook together. And I thought, wow, what an amazing idea. Because my first open education project was just kind of me sort of working in isolation or with just very few other people. I hadn't really realized that open education could be open pedagogy too, like exploding it beyond just me creating a resource for free for other people, but me working together with other people to create a resource as part of our class. That was kind of a different mindset. I thought, wow this is, this is possible if I work together with others.

So I put in another open education grant proposal for the book. That would've been in 2019 and we were approved. That was very exciting to be inspired by other educators in the open education field and to have the capacity to move forward and see that it could be possible.

[00:08:47] Alan Levine: Obviously BCIT has been promoting the idea of open education. What was it about open education that made that first appeal? Was it making the resource available? I'm just curious as to what was the, the thing that that said "this is interesting to me." Obviously then it led to the open pedagogy discovery, but it sounds like something else sparked it first.

[00:09:08] Julia Alards-Tomalin: What got me going about open education at first was just the idea of having resources that people could use for free all over the world. They would be something that you could update more easily too, like things that you could change over time. They could be customized for different regions and having that kind of equity and justice piece to education. 

I know as a student myself, I've struggled sometimes with, you know, education's really expensive. I've seen that with my own students too. So, to think about the ability to create a resource that people can use and it gives them the opportunity to learn without costing them extra above and beyond what they already are having to pay tuition. That was kind of where I was inspired originally by open education.

[00:09:57] Alan Levine: And how did you first approach this with your students? What was the setup or the lead in that you put out there that they were gonna get involved.

[00:10:03] Julia Alards-Tomalin: So yeah, that was an interesting time. I didn't really know what I was getting into with creating a book. I'd never done anything like that. And so I left it pretty open. The first time I talked to the students, I wanted there to be some flexibility in what they picked. I made a list of different plants that I thought would be good choices for the book, and I let them pick, and I've still been doing that.

As I've gone along, it gives them a little bit of choice. But the thing I let them pick that I shouldn't have [laughs] was the template. So I was like, you tell me what the book should look like. Everyone made their own templates. We had PowerPoints, we had Microsoft Word, Canva. It was just a real kind of a big mess to have that first influx of information in all these different formats.

But it did help me kind of see what the possibilities were for how the book could look. It was good in a way, but it was definitely very chaotic and yeah, it was a bit of a challenging time as well. 'cause I had intended for them to go out and see their trees in person and to help them with that.

But we got our funding in January, 2020. And this project kind of began right around when the lockdown happened. So the students weren't able to implement it fully as I had intended in that first go around. But luckily I've been able to kind of take this and evolve it with many different groups of students now.

So every time I kind of tweak it a little bit and I, and the results seem to just be getting better and better as the students kind of see what the other students have done in the past. And I give them more detailed feedback. Now, the work that the students are doing is excellent. I, I barely need to edit it at all.

It's so high quality. I'm honestly really impressed with how it's evolved over time. 

[00:11:47] Alan Levine: When people see it, like, it looks like an off the shelf polished textbook. It's just beautiful. And so when did the idea come to extend the open pedagogy approach to involve students from your design programs to help with the page layout and the formatting?

[00:12:04] Julia Alards-Tomalin: That was really fun. I personally hadn't even thought about reaching out to other people at BCIT beyond my own department because we're pretty siloed. We have our different schools, people aren't really collaborating across them very much. But I was invited to speak at BCIT Professional Development Day as part of this open education session.

So they asked me to come in and just give an example what I was doing to showcase to other BCIT instructors what open education and practice can look like. I had a very short talk was maybe about five minutes right at the end of this presentation about what is open education. At the end of the session, this awesome woman Darinka Aguirre from the Design Program came to me and she was like, wow, that's amazing, but it, it could look so much better than what looks like.

And I was like, wow, yeah, I know I'm not a designer. She said to me, "I want to take this and work with you" and work in my class to get my design students to create template for you. I was just blown away because she recreated her class basically to have this authentic learning experience and to help make the book into a book basically.

Without her coming up to me and chatting with me I don't know that I ever even would've thought to reach out to the other people at BCIT. It's been amazing the more I put the word out there and reach out to other people. I'm surprised people reach back a lot.

After working with Darinka, I emailed one of her colleagues out of the blue to ask if could help me with doing some Adobe Illustrator map versions for the newest edition of the book. And again, he was just really excited to collaborate. So I think a lot of people at BCIT want to collaborate. They just don't always have the capacity or think that anyone else wants to reach out to them. 

[00:13:51] Alan Levine: It's brilliant because many times we see that instructors will involve students in the open pedagogy approach of researching and writing. But to do also the production level is-- now it seems like an obvious thing. I hope other people pick up on that. 

[00:14:06] Julia Alards-Tomalin: Because again, I kept getting more and more inspired about who could I reach out to at BCIT, the other thing was this book needs editing. I'm not a professional editor. I ended up reaching out to an instructor in the Communications program and he connected me with a student who was doing technical editing and she needed a project.

So I worked with a student editor as well, Jessica Sutherland, and she did an amazing job. Being able to work with the students through all of the phases has just been really special. I've learned so much from my colleagues at BCIT and from the students too. Like, I had no idea what a style guide was.

Now I know a lot more about what takes to actually design and edit a book. I'm grateful for those experiences too.

You must be very good at organizing.

[00:14:50] Alan Levine: It's a lot of moving parts to organize and, and to stay on task with everybody's schedule. We got to see you present at the O E Global conference in October, and that was brilliant. And then you emailed and let us know that the third edition came out in December.

What came into the third edition that you're really proud of or would like to share?

[00:15:10] Julia Alards-Tomalin: Oh, I'm so excited about third edition. Every edition has improved in quality so much in so many ways. The things I'm really excited about in the third edition, well, the editing, it's, it's been totally edited properly. That's one piece, like when you have several hundred student contributors, you really need to have a good editor to make it flow properly.

So really grateful for the professional editing in the third edition. The maps, I mentioned a little bit about how we made some maps with another instructor at BCIT and his students. And the maps are amazing. I decided to go around create a series of plant tour maps in the lower mainland.

I picked different parks and places that I, I'm familiar with. I went and created a series of digital maps. Then the students created beautiful drawn versions of them that are in book. I'm hoping that this helps inspire people go out and see plants in person. I feel like that's really the best way to learn them, is to see them in person. 

A book never is, is as good as seeing a plant in person. And the photography piece. I, worked a lot on becoming what I'm calling a twig photographer. That's my specialty now. I've worked on trying to get a lot more better quality photos in the third edition. The students and I created a Flicker album as well with some of their photos and my photos in it. We've made those openly accessible images as well. So we've tried to share images with the world. 

The new edition also has 28 more plants than the second edition. 

It's something I'm really proud of and I know the students are proud of what they achieved well.

[00:16:47] Alan Levine: Yeah, the layout and the design is, is beautiful. I also enjoyed the drawings too. Are, are they done by hand or are they computer generated? How does the drawing part fit into plan identification?

[00:16:59] Julia Alards-Tomalin: Drawings are an important part of plant identification. They kind of summarize the key features that you don't always, you know, you can't always point them out on photo as clearly as you can in a drawing. So drawings can be really helpful for plant ID. Some of them were done by me. Some of them were done by the students. We had quite a few different illustrators . And so because of that, you'll see there are some different styles in the drawings. Mine were hand drawn, 'cause I'm, I'm not a tech expert. 

I think a lot of the students drew theirs in probably in Adobe illustrator. They were able to use images that I provided them and they were able to kind of sketch over top of some of the different images and, and create some of those drawings. 

[00:17:39] Alan Levine: I also really like the format each plant has three key things, tips to identify by. Was that in the book all along or is that something that evolved and, and how do you go about sorting those out and figuring out what are the three key things that would help someone?

[00:17:55] Julia Alards-Tomalin: Oh yes. I really like the, the three key things. It's something wasn't in the first edition. It sort of evolved over time. But it was a way that I was trying to think like when I walk up to a tree, how do I know that it's that tree? Like what is it about that? Because when I use other plant ID books, sometimes it's not super obvious what to look at. Like what is the most important thing about that tree? 

So I was trying to think of how, how can we organize the book so that when people are flipping through it, there is something you can look at that really quickly sums up like, okay, if you're not seeing cones or whatever, if you're not seeing pointed buds, then don't eat that. You can rule that plant out. 

With plant identification, it's not always as much about what is the plant, it's it's about all the things that it's not. So if you could cross off a bunch things off the list by showing some key features and being like, okay, well that one doesn't have, that dot doesn't have that, then you could kind of get to the answer that you're looking for a little bit quicker. 

It isn't easy to pick what the three key features are. Like. That's probably one of the things that me and my students kind of go back and forth on a bit. Especially when you're not as familiar with the tree, how do you pick, which is the feature that's like, aha. If I see that, then I know for sure this is a red alder or whatever plant it is.

[00:19:15] Alan Levine: How often are you stumped by a tree or a shrub that you're looking at?

[00:19:20] Julia Alards-Tomalin: That's a great question. I, I still get stemmed. I, that's one of the things I love about trees and shrubs in the winter is that it's like a mystery. You have to be a detective. You gotta look around on the ground, you gotta look for clues . 

Actually, I was out walking yesterday and at a new park I'd never been to that one of my students had said, "you gotta go to this park." There's tons of trees there. I don't know what any of them are and they're all different. And I was like, okay, that sounds intriguing. So I went walking there yesterday and I was able to tell what a good number of them were, but there was definitely some real stumpers there. I was like, oh, might have to come back and have another look at these on another day.

I don't always know right away. Sometimes I just take some clues back with me, like photos or, or if I find some leaves or cones on ground and then I try to figure it out later. I enjoy that, 'cause it's like, you know, it's a bit of a game. It's a bit of a journey there's always more to learn.

So I, I still love to learn new, new trees and shrubs.

[00:20:20] Alan Levine: Okay. So I'm looking out my winter window at some shrubs, and I have your, your book with me. What should I do to identify the, this? I can't describe it. I know what it is actually, but like, what, what's the approach that someone who might be new to this goes about the winter identification when they're just staring at that thing and they're trying to figure out or they wanna know what it is.

[00:20:40] Julia Alards-Tomalin: It was a bit of a concern or, or a challenge on how to organize the information so that the book would be really usable people. But the way we organized it is you first have to decide is it a tree or a shrub? So if it's big, has one single stem, it's woody, you're probably looking at a tree. If it's small and it's got a bunch of multi stems, you're probably looking at a shrub. 

So the book is split into those two major sections. And then within each of those sections, you look at your plant and you look at the buds and you say, are the buds alternate? Or are they opposite?

And again, in those two sections, in the trees we have them broken up into opposite and alternate. And in the shrubs we have them broken up into opposite and alternate. And they're just really quick, easy things you can observe right away, that'll put you in the right section of the book. 

And then when you're in that section, then you flip through and can compare the three key traits of some of the different features and look at some of the bolded key terms and look at some of the photos. And we also have a similar tree or similar shrub section in each one. If there's two plants that look really close alike, we try to put in some information on how to tell those two apart. If you're looking at a salmonberry and you're not sure, is it a salmonberry or thimbleberry, there'll be some information there about like, okay, how do you tell this salmonberry apart from the thimbleberry. 

That was another thing that I like from my experiences identifying plants over my life. It's sometimes it's just these two things that they're very similar and how do you tell them apart? And that's the key sticking piece. So we tried to address that as well.

[00:22:11] Alan Levine: Yes, and I apologize, Marcela, I've been asking all the questions 'cause I'm pretty excited here and I didn't even let you get a chance to say anything. I'm gonna shut my big mouth... 

[00:22:19] Marcela Morales: no, I've been following the conversation. Super exciting. You have been asking all the questions that I had in my mind as well. But yeah, thank you for the opportunity. I just love being part of this conversation, julia, your, your project, your OER is so beautiful. I'm looking at it right now. 

I have to say congratulations on the third edition. I cannot stop looking at it. Everything, like the portrait, the key elements that you put in there. It's so easy to look at, so concrete and clean. I just really, really love it. 

And more than question, I also want to say that there's so many layers to this project that are just amazing. So it's not only the open pedagogy, which is the award that you got for this from OE Global, but there's so much openness into it, the collaboration, that incorporating of the students, the other departments working together. So you should be proud of it. It's an amazing, amazing project that just love it. 

I also was very intrigued on knowing what's next, because this third edition, it seems very complete to me. Probably you would be able to continue to maybe perfect it,. I do remember looking at the first one and really liking that one, but that tweaks and the details that you have been perfecting through the additions really show.

To me, it's a totally professional, perfect book and it's usable, the pictures are amazing. The text is wonderful. 

I do have a landscape Master's that I did. I'm an architect by training. And then I had a landscape architecture Master's afterwards. So I am so familiar with how you laid out the book that I could perfectly see it used, not only for the means that you are describing, but in many other areas. 

Well, I have two questions. One what's next? And the other question, which you were very modest at saying in the beginning, you didn't feel that you could take on the building of a book like this. So I wonder if you have any tips or suggestions for people out there that might be in the same position as you. 

There was one point in time that you decided to take the dive and say, yes, I'll take this on. What was it that ignited that action for you to start exploring this option?

[00:24:35] Julia Alards-Tomalin: Those are great questions and, and thank you for all the kind words. I'm really pleased with how the third edition looks as well. Yeah. In. In terms of what's next for the book, I, I am pretty happy with the third edition as a standalone. If, if if we don't make a fourth edition, that's, that's okay with me in a way, but I always like to add more plants.

To me, always the thing that we can keep adding is more plants. There's more trees, there's more shrubs that we could put in there for sure. I'm always still going out and collecting new photos of different plants. Sometimes I'm collecting more observations of things like when are things blooming or when do they drop their leaves? I'm always continuing to collect information. 

Oh, and make more maps too. That's partly what I was out doing yesterday was looking at trees to create more maps. There's definitely elements that could be continued, like our Flickr gallery as well could be built upon. 

There's definitely some elements of the book that I think we could keep building on, but basically the, the template and everything is kind of at the point where I'm happy with it. We would just continue to add some of the more elements. 

Other things that I've been trying to consider around the book is getting it printed. People are really keen on seeing a printed version of it. I'm still trying to sort of figure out how to make that happen. 

Part of the challenge is that the digital version that we have is a digital version. And I had no idea, but the students told me this, there's different file formats for pictures when you do it as a digital version versus a physical version. Basically we would have to recreate the entire template over again to make a printed version. Not to say that you can't take the existing PDF and print it. I'm sure you probably could and it would, it would look okay. I think we would need some additional funding to get someone to reformat it to a version where we could get it printed.

And I've been trying to find different partners to see if someone could print it on demand because we have the book you know, it's, it's Creative Commons Non-commercial license. I've been kind of doubtful that any publisher would want to invest in it in that way, but I don't know, maybe there's, maybe there's different publishing companies that are interested in, in printing OER non-commercial books.

That's some of the stuff I'm kind of thinking about right now. 

And I'm also working to run a bunch of workshops about winter plant ID right now. So I'm partnering with a few different institutions. I did a talk at VanDusen Botanical Gardens and I'm doing another talk there at the end of February. I'm actually doing a hybrid event through UBC Research Forest at the end February . I'm doing an online talk about winter Twig ID and a walk as well. 

So I'm trying to help get the word out about the book to people through looking at twigs 'cause it's the right time of year for it. 

And to touch on your other question about how did I get to the point where I felt like I could kind of dive in on this sort of work? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I'm, I've always been quite a go-getter. Like I really like taking on different projects and working with other people. I mentioned earlier that I started at BCIT as an assistant instructor. I was actually on contract for a number of years, and in some ways that was a good thing because it allowed me to work with different people on different projects. I think that was where I got my foundational way of, of working collaboratively at BCIT was that I got to work with a few people doing different research projects. That's where I sort of started with collaborative work at BCIT. 

In terms of the book and how did I get started there, I guess I just sort of dove in. It was kind of like, I want this to happen. I think this is an amazing experience. I'm gonna give it my best shot and I learned kind of as I went. I didn't really know anything about templates, style guides, editing how to get people to work collaboratively on such a large project.

I sort of just learned as I went. Obviously there was some ups and downs because of that. The quality of the student work has improved vastly over the years, partially because I've been able to clarify to them what we're doing together. 

So I, think. If people are interested in, in doing something like this, I just encourage you to just dive in. You're gonna have a real fun time because there's so much that you can learn from working together with other people, students included. I've learned so much along the way and really been a real honor to be the captain of the ship and have so people excited to work together.

Like post-secondary education, we don't always work collaboratively. There is that competitive element. It's been real special for me and for the students I think as well. They're so excited to see what we made together. When I told them about the award, they were so happy.

[00:29:37] Alan Levine: Thank you for putting the little icon on the front of it .

[00:29:39] Julia Alards-Tomalin: It's an honor.

[00:29:40] Alan Levine: It's an honor for us. How do you use the book as part of your teaching ? Do you do activities around it, is it a reference or do you do very specific things with your students?

[00:29:52] Julia Alards-Tomalin: For the first few years when it wasn't quite like a usable book yet, like we still bringing together all the content. I was mainly using it in my classes as like a, an assignment, an in-class assignment where people would pick different trees and shrubs and we would work together on creating the content. 

This was the first year that I felt like I was really able use the book as like a full resource. In January I started a class called Urban Forestry, and we get to go outside and do tree identification as part of that class, as one of the learning outcomes. I was able to bring our book and tell people, put it on your . iPad or on your phone. And we're gonna go outside and use the maps that we've made and use the the information in there to help you learn how to ID plants. So I like to approach plant identification with that group of students, especially 'cause they're second year students. 

I don't walk around and point out trees and tell them, oh, this is a red alder and that's a cottonwood. We walk up to the tree together and I say. Let's do some detective work. Let's figure it out. And if you figure it out before your friend, don't shout it out. We all wanna get there. So we all work together. And if they're struggling, I try to point out things like, look at how pointed the bud is, or this is the leaf, or look at the bark. It's really smooth. 

So I try to work together with them. They have the book as a resource because I tell them, as much as I like going on plant ID walks with them, I won't be there when they go to work in the future. I won't be there to tell them what plant is. So they have to figure out that process how to a detective on their own.

[00:31:32] Alan Levine: I remember once visiting a friend from Vancouver. She was a bird watcher and we went down south where she likes to take pictures of all her big birds. I was really fascinated to see how people learned to identify birds 'cause you have to be out there with someone who could do what you just described, help you think through that process, and that would be really hard to do without that experience. So I can see this being an aid in that process.

[00:31:57] Julia Alards-Tomalin: Yeah, birds are hard. I like plants 'cause they don't fly away. [Laughter]

[00:32:00] Alan Levine: I might use that as a quote. 

Because I have my thinking on, because we're doing Open Education Week, it be fun if we could put a little challenge out to people to do a bit of winter identification. Obviously it, it may be better off in the British Columbia area where the plants are in your book, but you know, going through the book, I, I know where I am there's a couple of them that we have out here. So it, it'd be fun just to think about trying that, that process and asking people to do some winter identification.

[00:32:32] Julia Alards-Tomalin: I love that idea. One of the things that my friends do is they'll send pictures of plants they know what they are.

Mystery plants, I call them. So I love that idea of, of getting people to go out and look at things at this time of year where, you know it's hard to be motivated to go outside sometimes, it's cold, it's snowy, it's rainy.

But there's just so much beauty out there and I found especially the last few years, like working on this project, having a reason to go outside and just take time to slow down look at my surroundings. It's been so good for my physical and mental wellbeing and also I've learned a lot.

So like I totally think that's an awesome fun idea. If people wanna to go and look and, even share what they found. Even if they can't figure out what it is, share just their pictures or what some of their observations were 'cause that's of it too.

You don't always figure it out.

[00:33:26] Alan Levine: Have you been approached by anybody to do something similar in a different part of the country or the world to do a winter identification guide? Like someone says, okay, I, I live in Nova Scotia and I teach here, and like, I would think other people in your field would wanna take it on. Because you've kind of set, a model for what it could be. 

[00:33:44] Julia Alards-Tomalin: I think it would be amazing to have like, like Pacific Interior and East Coast field guides. We could pull them into the different books because their ranges overlap. So some of that work could be reused. I would love to do that if there was anyone out there who wanted to reach out to me. 

I have tried to collect all of the winter ID guides that currently exist. I just have big giant pile of, of plant books, and some of them are winter plant books. They're actually harder to find than other guides and there aren't. Really a lot of newer ones.

There's one that came out from Kew Gardens in England that's really good. And there is someone on the east coast of the United States that also did a photography based winter plant ID book because most of 'em are drawing based. It's super rare to have a photography based one.

[00:34:37] Alan Levine: I have to tell you, ever since I learned about this, it seems obvious to me like this is something that's needed. It should be how did I not think about this? When you're trying to identify something and all you have are the perfect pristine examples. I studied Geology and you look in the book and you see all these pretty minerals and you go out in the field and they don't look like that at all.

[00:34:57] Julia Alards-Tomalin: That's a great analogy for sure. It does seem like there was a need that we're filling here sure. And that's one of the things I really like about plant ID guides too, is they really can be used for a long time, like some of the plant ID guides, I have one of them. Is probably almost a hundred years old and like relevant, right? Because plants, although they're sometimes their scientific names change and, and other things might change about them where their ranges are and whatnot. The information is still relevant. So I think that, you know, the book that we've co-created could be used for. A long, long time, so it's amazing to have co-created that together bunch of enthusiastic people. hopefully, hopefully this continues to be a useful resource long into the future.

[00:35:49] Alan Levine: Yeah, I think it will too. I'm so happy that you were willing to talk about this and, and like it went in different directions. We learned more about this than, than I even expected. We're very proud of the work that you've done. It's an amazing project and absolutely was deserving of this open pedagogy award.

[00:36:05] Marcela Morales: Just wanted to chime into what you were saying of maybe somebody else taking the opportunity. You have already done the hard work, so I'm looking, I cannot keep my eyes off it. I have it open right now and I keep on seeing things that I, oh, that's such a good idea. 

So having given the template reused for any other topic. It's, it's already, it's quite, it's beautiful, Julia it's really beautiful. So congratulations to you and your team . Hopefully somebody is gonna continue the work in other areas and be inspired by the work that you have done. It's amazing. Very well deserved award, and we're so honored that you're sharing this with us.

[00:36:44] Julia Alards-Tomalin: Thank you. When I found out that we were shortlisted. I was like, oh my God, that's amazing. I was so excited even just to be shortlisted. And then when we won, it was like I was on cloud nine. I was so honored. I was like almost in tears really. And when I went to school the next day and told students like they just burst out into a round of applause.

People were hugging each other. I was so proud to see people working together, using each other's different strengths, collaboratively. It's just really touching to see what we can do when we work together.

[00:37:19] Alan Levine: And to circle back where we started, it was beautiful in, in Edmonton to see that your parents came to see you do your presentation. How, how fulfilling was that?

[00:37:28] Julia Alards-Tomalin: Oh, lovely. Having them there, that was, that was so huge for having them to drive out from Manitoba and be there. Yeah, it was really wonderful. They loved it too.

[00:37:38] Alan Levine: Thank you. And I've actually been to Gimli.

[00:37:41] Julia Alards-Tomalin: Oh, really?

[00:37:41] Alan Levine: Yeah.

[00:37:44] Julia Alards-Tomalin: It's a surprisingly famous little town.

[00:37:47] Alan Levine: Yeah, the big Viking and the plane. Anyhow, that's, that's not the story that we're talking about, but I, I just wanna thank you again, Julia, for spending some time with us, and thank you for everybody listening to this episode of OEG Voices.

This is, again, the podcast we produce here at Open Education Global. And each time we do an episode, I like to pick a different musical intro track from the Free Music Archive. So for today's show, I found a track called, and I, I'm hoping this is appropriate, "I Don't See Branches. I See the Leaves" by an artist named Chris Zabriskie and it's licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.

Julia will will get to hear this when we publish the episode. You'll find that episode on our site voices.global.org. And we open it up to follow up conversation with Julia or even ask her plant identification questions in our OEG Connect community. if you're listening and wanna share your own open education work or suggest a future guest for our show, please let us know.

And thank you Marcela. Thank you julia again. 

We should all go outside and do some plant identification. I'm inspired. ​