What is KSC Open?
KSC Open empowers you to use the web as a platform for creative expression, critical thinking, and integrative learning— inviting you to connect your learning in unique ways based on your experiences and interests.
How Does it Work?
KSC Open allows you to register a personal domain name and provides you with a free, hosted web space. Participating faculty, staff, and peers, will provide you with support as you shape your thoughts and ideas, build a digital presence, and share what you are learning with your peers and experts.
Why KSC Open?
Critical and independent thinking, a hallmark of a liberal education, is at the core of KSC Open. With access to a domain and digital tools for creating and learning, KSC Open offers you a platform for creative expression, critical thinking, and integrative learning. KSC Open offers you the opportunity to
- develop strategies to build a digital identity through designing and curating a personal domain that represents your work in the classroom, your co-curricular activities, and your personal interests
- cultivate digital fluency to understand the personal, social, cultural, and political complexities of the web, and to navigate and critically resist digital technologies
- create information and knowledge by integrating your coursework, undergraduate research, creative endeavors, and partnerships in the College and Keene communities
- make connections through creative and critical work with others using digital tools to build your own project portfolios, exhibits, galleries, blogs, or wikis
- share your ideas and engage others with your interests and expertise through digital scholarship and citizenship
What happens when I graduate?
Students learn to manage their domain throughout their College years and can move anything they create to another hosting provider or an individual account when they graduate. You can transition your account from your cPanel in a few clicks. You can also transition to another hosting provider; costs and services will vary but we recommend Reclaim Hosting. For more information about migrating your KSCopen site, read How do I migrate my site.
KSCopen Founders
Jenny Darrow is director of Digital Learning and has been collaborating with faculty on web-enabled projects for over 17 years. Jenny works with faculty to design strategies that are centered on sound pedagogy and she is a passionate advocate of using digital tools to help students learn. Her current interests are Open Education and how the resulting ethos of DIY (do-it-yourself) supports student empowerment.
Karen Cangialosi is professor emeritus of Biology and a former USNH-KSC Open Education Faculty Fellow. While teaching at Keene State, Karen incorporated Open pedagogical practices, including use of OER and digital technologies, into her courses. She is passionate about Open Education as a movement that emphasizes social justice and a learner-driven philosophy of teaching. As an advocate for public higher ed, she is also deeply committed to playing a direct role in making higher education and knowledge more accessible. Karen is currently the Program Director, Regional Leaders of Open Education Network and the Director of Open Education/Open Science @ RIOS. She continues to consult and support OE at KSC.
Mark C. Long is professor emeritus of English and the former director of the Integrative Studies Program. Ever since 1992, in the computer-integrated courses program at the University of Washington, Mark has been experimenting with emerging technologies in his teaching and scholarship. His interests include the use of digital technologies in collaborative intellectual work by faculty and students.
Content on the parent site KSCopen.org, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
