Episode 67: OE Award Winner Jennryn Wetzler
===

[00:00:00] Jennryn Wetzler: I think I'm seeing it this week and just knowing that there are so many incredible presentations and discussions and so on going on that every chance I get to peek into one of them, I learn something new and knowing even having this constant sense of FOMO, is, in some ways like a sign that I'm on the right track.

[00:00:25] I'm in the right field. I know that we all have our different missions and our different, approaches and even definitions of OER, but we're, I think very similarly minded and in the. the causes for social justice and equity and, and seeing the different, interventions as, steps in the right direction. 

[00:00:44] Alan Levine: We are here in the OEG Voices studio for another podcast episode being held, during Open Education Week. OEG Voices is the podcast we do at Open [00:01:00] Education Global. 

[00:01:00] Really it's just to bring you the people and get to know them and their interests, that are behind the scenes and in front of the scenes and open education. This is part of a series that we're doing to bring you people that we've honored, last now it was August that the Open Education awards for Excellence were announced. During Open Education Week, we like to have these live events where people can listen in as we record. 

[00:01:22] We're really excited and honored again, to have in the studio, Jennryn Wetzler from Creative Commons, who was got the Catalyst Award this year. And so Jennryn is very humble about this, but tell us what, that was like to find out, Jennryn.

[00:01:39] Jennryn Wetzler: First, thank you so much for having me here. It's yeah, It's a total honor to be here and, get the chance to chat with you. I was shocked. I finally figured out who nominated me and, cracked that mystery, but yeah, it was. it was a delight to learn in the middle of a, symposium. I think we were holding in New York that, that I had a nomination.

[00:01:57] I didn't, I think I learned it from Jonathan actually.  It was Jonathan and maybe a couple of other CC staff members. We were both, finalists and I didn't even, yeah, I didn't realize that we were in the running, but. that was an honor in itself. And then to, yeah, to actually get the award was shocking.

[00:02:11] I try not to, I guess I waffle. I try to think of awards as "Oh, that's lovely for other people." But, also, I think of all the other people like Jonathan and so many others around the world that, are equally deserving. So yeah, it was, I don't know. it was very special.

[00:02:28] Alan Levine: Well, of course. And it is earned and I'm not just saying that because it comes through when you, see the things that, that people, write about the award winners and the whole pieces that it comes from. Anybody in the community who says , this person's work, means something to me.

[00:02:46] I recast that the catalyst award I think used to be called the Support Specialist. And it was meant to slow to honor the people who are outside, the usual kind of, recognizing of the [00:03:00] educators and like the leaders. Obviously a lot of people out there who make open education happen, who are the, the librarians and the faculty support people.

[00:03:11] And so I just thought catalyst was a little bit, better descriptor. And it certainly describes your work. 

[00:03:18] So I like to ask, what part of the world did you grow up, Jennryn? And, what were you like as a student? What did you think of school as a kid?

[00:03:27] Jennryn Wetzler: Oh man. I, so I mostly lived in the U S all along the like Eastern seaboard, but also lived up in Canada for a little bit. I was, I think, Yeah, a bit of a goody two shoes, like always wanting to get A's. but I, was pretty bad at math, I would say. yeah, I don't know, I, fell in love with, with the humanities. I fell in love with philosophy. 

[00:03:51] And, then once I, Yeah, once I got to live abroad a little bit more, I think I saw a whole another perspective on, on education, like outside of this more kind of cerebral, logical experience of the world and, something that was more, I think, all inclusive. 

[00:04:09] The education that served me the most outside of, some very specific probably philosophy classes was like the Peace Corps and living abroad and, and some other places that, yeah, that really, yeah. I think made a much more lasting impression.

[00:04:24] Alan Levine: Can I ask where you were in the Peace Corps?

[00:04:27] Jennryn Wetzler: Yeah, I was in Niger.

[00:04:28] Alan Levine: Excellent.

[00:04:29] Jennryn Wetzler: Right next to Nigeria. Before I was, given that position, I actually didn't know where to find it on a map. I thought it was Nigeria, but yeah, Niger is a landlocked, West African country, mostly Muslim, incredible country.

[00:04:45] Alan Levine: And for a lot of people, I ask about their entree to open education. Because a lot of cases people are, this project came along or this, a leader at my institution said, we need to get involved with that. It wasn't like you walk through a door of open  education, but what was the, sort of the path that led you into the work you're doing now at Creative Commons?

[00:05:06] Jennryn Wetzler: So I was really lucky to be in a, very quirky. Position and a very quirky team in, the State Department. I was part of the Collaboratory, which was, a, almost like a, innovation lab for, for exchanges in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the State department, trying to think of like different ways to, to support our cultural and our educational exchanges, such as the Fulbright Exchange and so on through virtual components and, rethinking through human centered design, some of the ways that we create meaning, across cultures. 

[00:05:47] So anyway, it was a really fun team to be on. And I remember distinctly, at one point, my boss mentioning something about chance to get,  open education into this national action plan, for our work with the open government partnership.

[00:06:07] And I was just very curious to learn more. So we went on a walk around this pond and, It was like love at first sight when I first started learning about OER. I, just wanted to learn more and then, be a part of this, effort within the government. And then, I started learning more about it beyond, what, folks inside the government were trying to do.

[00:06:31] I got to meet with Cable Green and Nicole Allen and a bunch of other folks that, that were a part of it at the time. and it, yeah, it was the most meaningful project that I ever worked on at the State Department.

[00:06:47] Alan Levine: And, people may not think of the role, the place, the attention to open education within government agencies. And so that's really important work.

[00:06:55] Jennryn Wetzler: Yeah, I was, I think a very sweet moment, and it was under the Obama  administration. It was getting to work with the right people at the right time. And I guess taking advantage of a little window of opportunity that, yeah, was definitely particular to that moment, but I expect more windows will open up. And I know there's a lot more open educational resource work going on, in the whole bureau.

[00:07:18] Alan Levine: So working at Creative Commons, you might think because they've been around so long and there's this huge organization, they have this big shiny office building somewhere down on, on, on the inner part of DC. so what is Creative Commons as, to, as a workplace, how does it work?

[00:07:32] Jennryn Wetzler: Just like that. It's just this shiny monolith of loads of people. No, we are a very humble, small group of folks around the world, mostly in the U. S. and Canada that, yeah, that work from our home desks. So I, want to say there's, there are generally between 16 and 20 of us. we're a little short staffed right now.

[00:07:56] Yeah, there's no like shiny monolith for Creative Commons. People expect that it's, the size of the Wikimedia Foundation, for example. But we're a very small group. and always trying to re envision how to work together, how to, how to work on new projects, how to continue to foster some of the things that we've, we're hoping to, to foster with communities and so on.

[00:08:19] Alan Levine: Yeah, obviously working, like we do as a distributed organization, you're doing that already when, I don't know when the pandemic happened, of course, it was like the horror of it and what's going to happen, but it's wait a minute, this is how I've been working all along. And so what has been the time, since the lockdown been like in terms of continuing the work that you do in this mode.

[00:08:40] Jennryn Wetzler: I was incredibly lucky, with that period of time with, being where I was and where I still am. So yeah, I fully, I recognize people have had it way, way worse. I lucked out in, and then I had, two kids at the daycare age that, were  relatively unfazed by the disruption. 

[00:09:03] I was already working remotely. So it was just, yeah, work wise, I think it had us, It had us rethink some of the work life balance elements, which has actually been carried forward now. But beyond that, it didn't really, it didn't really change much. It. 

[00:09:16] We had a project at, I think, in the early stages of the pandemic to have this COVID Pledge where companies would open their, their IP to, increase the likelihood of, developing cures for COVID.

[00:09:31] So that was passed on to the, to Washington School of Law. Their PIJIP program. And I'm always going to get this acronym wrong, but it's like the Program information, justice, and Intellectual Property, I think. So anyway, that, I think that was probably like the one major project at the time that was really focused on, COVID.

[00:09:51] But beyond that, we tried to, yeah, ideally meet folks were where they were in this time of crisis.

[00:09:58] Alan Levine: The work that you were, like I'm aware from the, award information. So Jennryn's pie chart of work, so what are the major pieces? I had imagined the Creative Commons Certification, but what are the places that you're pouring your attention to these days?

[00:10:14] Jennryn Wetzler: I love getting to still oversee some of the certificate work, but I've largely passed that on at this point to my wonderful colleague, Sheena Hollich. I oversee our training and learning efforts writ large, and then our consulting efforts trying to use the certificate, kind of foundational learning and apply it in different contexts for different audiences and reimagine it in different settings, too.

[00:10:40] So one of the things that we are really hoping to announce possibly today, is this micro credential program with the University of Nebraska Omaha, which, came about through the certificate program. So this is, one example of how the learning and training program finds, new partnerships and pathways to keep bringing open licensing expertise to new communities.

[00:11:05] Beyond that, I get to focus on Open Journalism, which is, It's so much fun and it has a lot of parallels to our open education work-- working with journalists around the world who also want to expand access to knowledge and verified information, but who face huge, and devastating odds right now with market failure, and mis- and disinformation and AI-- a really interesting time. Going to open 

[00:11:33] Going to journalists and saying there is an opportunity to share your news more efficiently with CC licensing or drawing from other news sources CC license content and republishing it.

[00:11:46] Alan Levine: That's very interesting. I actually had not even heard about that as a quote unquote thing. So what is the, incentive for Open Journalism?

[00:11:55] Jennryn Wetzler: It ranges. So there are tons of outlets. I think about 400 around the world that I know of, but I'm, learning about more all the time, that either CC license their content or use analogous permissions, that have different incentives. So there's, let's see, 360Info that openly licenses all of their work on climate change as a better way to start to galvanize folks to address the sustainable development goals and climate change.

[00:12:27] There's The Conversation or ProPublica that literally have, taglines along the lines of, "steal our news." And they, use the republishing of CC licensed articles as an example of impact to their funders. They're able to go, secure more funding based on their model that they can better share news, better collaborate with, other, academics in The Conversation's case, and other news sources in ProPublica's case.

[00:13:00] Alan Levine: Everything seems to be churning now in this field because I don't know. It seems every time I go to read a news story on a site, I have to go through a login or a subscription site and yeah, eventually you can get to things. But the idea of news and information being a public good feels like it's being eroded in some ways.

[00:13:20] Jennryn Wetzler: There are still plenty of options to go to paywall free sources, but they're facing extreme, economic hardship. This breakdown of their business model and so on with the former business model being based on, ads, and now they're, they haven't been able to compete with I don't know, Meta and Google and so on.

[00:13:44] There are so many local news outlets that have had to close as a result. Ideally this situation wouldn't be so dire, but at the same time, it might, yeah, this might be a really telling time for news. news outlets and Creative Commons.

[00:13:57] . I'm always heartened to see the different approaches to, to resharing news these days. I've been working closely with a couple, video journalists who train people in, creating footage in their local environments to increase the representation of more diverse voices in, in the news.

[00:14:17] And then CC license all of their content to basically drum up this, trove of really wonderful B roll or content that would, help us confront some of the stereotypes that we inadvertently come across. When you search for a particular country and you see like the same kind of images come up, then you think, oh, this must be a war torn country all the time. And there must be nothing else to reflect it. 

[00:14:41] But, they're doing incredible work I to combat that. 

[00:14:44] Alan Levine: You're also involved in running some of the CC Networks. 

[00:14:47] Jennryn Wetzler: Yeah, the Open Education Platform, which is, I think I will say the one platform that, has not had the same level of grant funding, unfortunately associated with it, but is still  doing really incredible work. Thanks to Jonathan. Thanks to other folks in the community that are just so inspiring. As of yesterday, just found out that our budget for the year has been approved and we'll have additional funds for the Open Education Platform community. 

[00:15:15] So we'll get to continue. Yeah, a lot of the, the very, minor financial incentives that we can offer for some of the really wonderful collaborations and work that our platform community does.

[00:15:27] Alan Levine: Can you give people listening an idea? I remember seeing the projects, just, some highlights for the things that were supported last year.

[00:15:34] Jennryn Wetzler: Yeah, you know one of them very well, so I'll mention that one in particular. We were delighted to have the chance to work with, with some librarians in Ukraine, as well as Paula Corti, who is a, an OE Global Community member as well. Paola's course on OER, was, offered as, it was a MOOC in, in Italian that was then translated, or wait, a MOOC in English, then translated into Ukrainian to meet the needs of local Ukrainian librarians, during this, this really devastating time frame in Ukraine. So they wanted to use this one collaboration as an example of the power of OER, as a, as a connector. So as a connector across cultures, as something to open access to more education in a time of war, and as a something to point to so other people know, if it's possible here in this really challenging set of circumstances where people are losing access to, electricity where they have, bomb sirens going off regularly, interrupting meetings and workflows and so on.

[00:16:32] If they can make it work in a place that's in the midst of war, then this can be done anywhere, this kind of collaboration and translation and the cross cultural understanding that goes with the translation can be done anywhere. So they did it.

[00:16:44] Alan Levine: Absolutely.

[00:16:45] Jennryn Wetzler: Do you have anything to add to that?

[00:16:46] Because I know you, you had interviewed Tatiana and Paula and others. 

[00:16:46] Alan Levine: A lot of it was that, they were already involved in doing, they, it wasn't like, oh, Open Education was new to the Ukrainian librarians. They were actively involved. And they don't spend too much time dwelling on how bad  things are. They really want to focus on what they can do.

[00:17:02] it's a very practical attitude, that I think we can all learn a lot from.

[00:17:06] Jennryn Wetzler: yeah, absolutely. Yeah. 

[00:17:08] Alan Levine: What does it take to be a catalyst? [laugther] ,

[00:17:12] That's unfair because I know you don't set up in the morning and say, I'm going to go out catalyze today, but, what is it that fuels you about the work on a day to day basis?

[00:17:24] Jennryn Wetzler: I think I'm seeing it this week and just knowing that there are so many incredible presentations and discussions and so on going on that every chance I get to peek into one of them, I learn something new and knowing even having this constant sense of FOMO, is, in some ways like a sign that I'm on the right track.

[00:17:44] I'm in the right field. I know that we all have our different missions and our different, approaches and even definitions of OER, but we're, I think very similarly minded and in the. the causes for social justice and equity and, and seeing the different,  interventions as, steps in the right direction.

[00:18:03] And yeah, I think just seeing what other people are doing, still learning, even though I've been in this field for, I don't know, quite a while now, is telling. I feel like I'm on the right track somewhere. I don't know where we're going, but I feel like it's so great to, yeah, feel excited about the people I get to work with and still learn from.

[00:18:20] Yeah, I 

[00:18:20] Alan Levine: I don't know if you want to read your quote, but Jonathan just put in the chat. He goes, "of course it's from chemistry and it's a chemical which helps other reactions happen without being consumed itself." 

[00:18:31] I always knew that the first part about, catalysts and chemistry enabling other things to happen, but that's really a telling part about without being consumed itself, because you can't be a catalyst otherwise.

[00:18:42] So the chem, the chemistry is in you, Jennryn.

[00:18:47] Jennryn Wetzler: I hope I don't get consumed by any one direction or another, I think, yeah, if we can help others to, to make those reactions happen all the better. that's, yeah, I hope that's what the open education platform can serve as.

[00:19:00] Alan Levine: You somewhat alluded to that, that what makes that work is "okay, you don't have all the funding necessarily" that you maybe would, dream of, but that, really what fuels it are the people like the Jonathan's . And I've heard that in several conversations today that, really what's, enabling and, gives us the hope and optimism for the future is that this is being human powered.

[00:19:23] and maybe, I ask, a lot of this, like, where are you on the, the AI spectrum between angst and utopian optimism? Of 

[00:19:34] Jennryn Wetzler: yeah. okay. Two points. One, I waffle every day. And yeah, and I'll get back to that. The second point is, this very conversation and the energy that we can get from a week like this Open Education Week where you see the importance and the power of that, human glue, is, yeah, I guess it's not lost on me.

[00:19:58] I feel like all of the, a lot of the conversations and analysis around cannot capture the importance of the kind of human to human connection that we have in striving towards our, somewhat collective goals. 

[00:20:12] We talk about the, the dire threat to our climate and, our future. We talk about the marginalization. We talk about, perpetuating already existing lines of marginalization of communities and, power uses, power dynamics only, Intensifying and the missing disinformation running rampant online and all of these like horrific things. 

[00:20:36] And then we talked about the positives like the incredible medical advances that are happening and now possible. None of that is including this kind of beautiful stickiness of our, kind of human connections and so on. Like I, I saw this really lovely, message from Paola Corti for OE Global, just recognizing what everybody's doing, even  behind the scenes. And that kind of stuff gets lost in the larger conversation on AI.

[00:21:04] So going back to the waffling side of things, I've been in an ongoing conversation slash debate with Jonathan about AI. And I feel like at least for me, it's been very helpful. I've learned a whole lot. yeah, I don't know. I don't want to come from fear with everything.

[00:21:19] I want to come from a belief that we don't have all the answers and we can't know what's going to happen but I have a serious pause when I see that, Sam Altman's trying to raise 7 trillion chip development. How are we, the small underfunded set of communities around the world and open education with not even a trillion dollars among when we, how can we expect that our interventions would have any kind of positive sway in, in this kind of larger, scope that includes, a very changing landscape and sometimes a militarized landscape with, with AI. 

[00:21:56] Yeah, I, I don't know. And this is also, this is just me speaking, with my own musings.

[00:22:00] This is not any kind of official CC, musings here, but, yeah, I think we still have to try, we still have to ideally be a voice for the values that we've tried to live and try to support and in our other projects in this new space, And we're not going to get it right all the time, but yeah, I think we still have to try.

[00:22:19] Alan Levine: How many times a day, do you like get these requests of " Can I put a Creative Common stuff" or "is this stuff from AI in the public domain?" I understand people are looking how to navigate this and they want some clear rules. It's hard to have to say, the rules are in the process of being established and, overturned. but at least they're asking the question. I think that's a positive.

[00:22:43] Jennryn Wetzler: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think we need more conversations about it. I think There are a lot of built in assumptions that all of AI is chat GPT or that, everything under the sun falls under fair use. Or, Or there's some secret [ magical way that CC licensed content has not been scraped offline, like all copyrighted content.

[00:23:07] I think we need more conversations. But yeah, I'd be curious to hear what Jonathan says, because, I feel like we're, we have a, I think a good counterbalancing of ideas on this, I would think, you tell me what you think, Jonathan.

[00:23:20] Jonathan Poritz: Can I evade your question? Can I just brag for a second about Jennryn because she doesn't brag enough about herself? I, it has been my privilege to work for her as a facilitator of this Creative Commons certificate. And I think that, I'll get back to the AI connection in just a second.

[00:23:35] But that, that she does this a little bit like Maha Bali. I keep going to your meetings, Alan, of where people I really admire are your guests. And you asked Maha, how is she so good at involving her audience and getting people to work? There's something about a Maha thing that is just amazing.

[00:23:53] And Jennryn is very similar, maybe more behind the-- I haven't seen as many keynotes you've done, Jennryn. I saw  one recently, which was fabulous, there's a thing that I, that we had meetings, periodic meetings during the time that I facilitated Creative Commons certificate courses. And Jennryn is incredibly good at making everyone feel valued, being supported, listened to, get what they need, encouraged to do things on time and do the things that they have to do, but also, when you're having a tough time, she's super supportive of you.

[00:24:22] And the thing that, here's my connection to AI, my, my wife was telling me the other day, Jonathan, "you're a bit of an asshole sometimes" about things you care too much about. And I feel like Jennryn could have, could have, said, the hell with this guy. I don't want to deal with him anymore.

[00:24:35] He's really annoying on certain topics. But she has been supportive and has been able to listen and I have learned how to talk better about things by the conversations we've had. I don't know, you're incredibly good at doing this stuff, Jennryn. I don't know. like Alan asked Maha, how do you do this?

[00:24:49] I've worked in so many groups with so many bosses, you've been my boss for the facilitation. I don't know how you, how to be a good boss and you do, and how to make a  team work so well. I don't know if you can say something about that. I think that's a much more interesting than, my tired repetition of things I find problematic about AI.

[00:25:09] Jennryn Wetzler: Thanks. That was the best evasion of a question I've ever heard. yeah,

[00:25:15] Jonathan Poritz: I tried.

[00:25:17] Jennryn Wetzler: I think the Certificate program's a, really sweet program , We got to handpick the best facilitators, around the world from Greece and Bangladesh and South Africa and Kenya and the US and Italy and, all over.

[00:25:38] One has just been, it's a total joy to work with like really good people and to get to learn from them. Every semester there's something new that comes up and, yeah, I owe you a long Slack message about the

[00:25:54] Machine readable code anyway. so yeah, working with really wonderful people is  just, that's like the best part of my job, period. yeah. And then I think also just learning from maybe some past experiences that I've had, that didn't work for me as a worker, like that didn't bring out my, my best, it was really. Yeah, that's been helpful. So yeah, leaving room for people's own, personality to come out, trusting that they're there for the right reasons. They're going to do a good job. And that like everybody else there, yeah, that we all need support. And it's not like in one of my first jobs, it's not a competition.

[00:26:41] It's not something that you have to, always prove yourself ad or anything. I remember, yeah, in one of my first jobs, we were literally pitted against our coworkers and told to compete on things we were told to like, not let the boss know  if we needed to go out for a lunch break to literally take a break in the middle of the day of, working.

[00:27:04] We, there were so many things that didn't bring out my best. I, yeah, I feel like I need to. Yeah, always try to find new ways to solicit feedback, find ways to bring out people's best and then just, yeah, let them out of the way

[00:27:19] Alan Levine: I have to admit in asking that of both Maha and you, it's an unfair question. Like you can't really break down how you do it's basically how you operate and it's evolved through your life experience. my own feeling is it comes from your, care and passion for the work you believe in this work you're doing.

[00:27:38] It sounds really simple, but you couldn't really operate like that if your whole heart and real spirit was not into that work. Otherwise you're just performing. And then also and this is why, I like having these conversations with you, Jonathan, we have to butt heads. If we're just, if we're all in  agreement, like we don't get anywhere. And so we have to have places where we can disagree. and, I, aim for those places. I don't want to avoid them.

[00:28:11] Jennryn Wetzler: stronger. Yeah, our certificate program in particular. I think it's strength is in being built to take in more of that feedback and more of that. more of those kind of contentious, challenging ideas to make it better. I think the best thing that we can do is, yeah, support those challenges.

[00:28:29] Alan Levine: And I have to tell you, I, I like, I notice like all the time, cause I get a lot of emails and I actually I had this thing. I look at the footers, the signatures in people's email. Cause if you find interesting things about them and I'm like not surprised all the time when I see people have that Creative Commons certificate, logo in their footer. And, I just, the most recent was from Sushumna Rao from India, who was part of some of our programs. And I think she said somewhere that she paid for this on her own because she believed in it so  much. and so that, that says a lot to what this program means.

[00:29:04] Jennryn Wetzler: That's lovely. Thank you.

[00:29:05] Alan Levine: Okay. So I don't have a trillion dollars, but I still have this toonie that I owe you.

[00:29:10] Jennryn Wetzler: I'll take it.

[00:29:12] Alan Levine: One day I'll either hand it to you or I'll get it in the mail. 

[00:29:15] Jennryn Wetzler: Yeah, no, no pressure.

[00:29:17] Alan Levine: I just like to also ask outside of, all the work you do, what are the things in your life that rejuvenate you or give you some energy, that you do away from the Creative Commons time. 

[00:29:28] Jennryn Wetzler: Yeah. I train with a power lifter. I am certainly not a power lifter myself, but I have a really wonderful neighbor who has a gym, down the street. It's just this very empowering women's space primarily, although there are some men who joined too that, I never expected to really get into. But after some like health issues, I was able to really get into this. 

[00:29:50] So I love weightlifting now. I thought I'd say that weightlifting and then Mom Fight Club. 

[00:29:55] So Mom Fight Club is similar, but it's with a bunch of moms in my neighborhood that,  basically are doing CrossFit and recovering from, postpartum and so on. That's really fun. Also occasionally teaching yoga to neighbors is really fun.

[00:30:09] I used to teach yoga all the time and miss it, but, yeah, it's just, it's a really sweet community here in Mount Rainier, Maryland. So getting to know folks through some of the physical activity and some activism and stuff, but mostly, pumping iron.

[00:30:29] Alan Levine: All right. let's go. I'm going to be inspired by that, power lifting. I just can't thank you enough for taking the time. I get the most out of these because I get to have these conversations with people. And thank you, Jonathan, for being my audience twice now. 

[00:30:43] But I ended up like getting so deeply when I'm editing my podcast. I'm like Oh, I just, I'm listening to it again. To go through it that, closely, you just get so much more out of it. So I really appreciate it, Jennryn. And, we just appreciate all the work that you do.

[00:30:59] Jennryn Wetzler: Thank you. Thank you for making  this possible. It's very kind. Yeah. Thank you.

[00:31:02] Alan Levine: Hey, you've gotten to the end of this episode, which is a new episode of OE Global Voices, the podcast produced by Open Education Global, where we featured a conversation with last year's Open Education Award for Excellence, the winner in the Catalyst category, Jennryn Wetzler. This was recorded live on March 7th, 2024.

[00:31:22] Wow, that was a while ago as an event during Open Education Week. And we again appreciate our guest in the studio for both of these sessions, Jonathan Poritz. 

[00:31:32] \We ask that you start thinking about a person, project, or resource worth nominating for the 2024 Open Education Awards as nominations open soon, May 13th.

[00:31:42] But you can find the information now about the awards program and start thinking about who or what you might nominate by going to our website at awards dot oeglobal dot org. Each episode of OE Global Voices features a different musical track, that we select from the Free Music Archive. I was  fortunate to find several tracks with "catalyst" in their title.

[00:32:03] The one I picked was called Catalyst by "Anemoia.". I don't know if I'm pronouncing the artist name correctly, excuse me. But it's licensed under an Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike International license. Appropriately, it's Creative Commons for Jennryn and for everybody else.

[00:32:22] So you can find this episode at our website, voices dot oeglobal dot org. You can find it many other places you find podcasts like YouTube and I think it's on Spotify. I think it's on Apple and a couple others. You can also ask some questions about what you heard in today's episode or share your comments with Jennryn in our OEG Connect community. You can find that at connect dot oeglobal dot org. 

[00:32:49] And anyone out there listening, we're looking for more voices to share. The podcast studio is open. If you want to suggest a future guest please just let us know. You can find contacts on our website. You  can email us , or you can just shout out the window, "I want to be on your show." Maybe I'll hear you. Again, come back for our next episode, we got a lot more exciting ones coming up.