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• 1 2022-06-08T20:13:39+00:00 Teacher Education 43 literature review of teacher education and teacher educators plain 2023-10-29T21:00:05+00:00 "Simply put, it is reasonable to assume that quality teacher education depends on quality teacher educators. Yet, almost nowhere is attention being paid to what teacher educators should know and be able to do" (Goodwin & Kosnik, 2013, p. 334).
  
  Teaching is described as both art and science (Biesta, 2022; Marzano, 2007). Elements of teaching, according to Banner and Cannon (1997/2017) included learning, authority, ethics, order, imagination, compassion, patience, tenacity, character, and pleasure (see Figure 2). Across the provincial education jurisdictions for kindergarten to Grade 12 (K-12) education, elements of teaching practice are identified in the standards of practice and the ethical standards outlined for the profession (Alberta Education Office of Registrar, 2023; BC Teachers' Council, 2019; Ontario College of Teachers, 2020). Examining documents from Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario, I notice a range of attitudes, ethics, competencies, fluencies, and skills. The teaching standards may be applied for verification and certification of graduates from a FoE course of study; however, these are not explicitly identified for the context of teacher education, nor are these standards connected to the practice of teaching by teacher educators. Although the connections between teaching, knowledge acquisition, learning, and literacy development are worthy of further investigation, these were not the primary focus of this conceptual investigation. I focused on the conceptual frameworks that grounded my investigation into media and digital skills, fluencies, competencies, and literacies of teacher educators as these are experienced within an open educational practice and defined the elements of a teaching practice.
  
            As the statement by Goodwin and Kosnik (2013) illuminated, there was an identified need for research into how TEds do what they do (Ellis & McNicholl, 2015) and delve into what it means to be a teacher educator. In this research, it is timely that teacher educators share their expertise as practitioners and theorists as part of an open educational network; making explicit what is often tacit and unspoken while sharing their knowledge, reflections and actions (Beck, 2016; Bennett & Bennett, 2008) outside of the traditional silos of academia. In this way, TEds may well showcase what they know and how they enact and embody the art and craft of teaching (Biesta, 2022; Marzano, 2007) (see Figure 3).
  
           With a focus on TEds as being a critical component in faculties of education, it was essential to examine factors relevant to teacher education and specifically on research relating to teacher educators. Teacher education programs are referenced here as faculties of education (FoE). These are departments in higher education institutions providing a course of study in the discipline of education, sometimes referenced as initial teacher education (Association of Canadian Deans of Education, 2017). Courses in the FoE were designed and delivered by teacher educators (TEds) to teacher candidates (TCs) who graduate to become licensed teachers, usually employed to work within the kindergarten to grade 12 sector (K-12) of education. For this research, FoE programs are differentiated from professional development courses, instructional design departments, or higher education centers for teaching and learning, where opportunities and support for the development of teaching skills and competencies may also be provided. These alternative learning opportunities are often informal or short-term and frequently come without the full range of courses, subject matter, or credentialing systems found in initial teacher education within a FoE.
  
            An additional consideration for this research was the inclusion rather than exclusion of reference to online course offerings and recognizing that open educational practices are not constrained to being only online. Chickering and Gamson's (1987) insights into good teaching practices for undergraduate online education included actions that encouraged contact between teachers and students, developed reciprocity and cooperation within course contacts, used active learning techniques, provided timely feedback, emphasized time on task, communicated explicit and high expectations, and respected diversity in learner’s talents and ways of learning. These elements may subsequently be seen as qualities of open educational practices.
  
            Since education in Canada falls under provincial jurisdiction, initial teacher education programs in FoE are developed with limited national oversight. An undergraduate degree followed by a course of study in the education department is the most common design of FoE in Canada (Russell & Dillon, 2015). Some universities offered a concurrent education program whereby education related courses are incorporated into the undergraduate course of study. A graduate degree at the master or PhD levels of study should not be confused with initial teacher education, alternatively called the professional-years study. For the purpose of this research, the focus was on initial teacher education, commonly completed within one to two years of study following an undergraduate degree.
  
            Research literature revealed two key issues in teacher education. First, teacher education programs faced the challenge of managing two competing demands - the ‘theory-practice’ and ‘research-teaching’ tensions (Cochran-Smith, 2005; Eisner, 2002; Zeichner, 2012). This episteme – phronesis dichotomy was an ongoing issue in teacher education (Pisova & Janik, 2011).  In Canada, these tensions were the focus of many FoE reform initiatives (Russell & Dillon, 2015). As outlined by Russell and Dillon (2015), teacher education program design traditionally included the what and the how of teaching practice. The what focused on foundational elements such as subject specific methods, aspects of teaching such as behaviour management or assessment, as well as the sequencing of courses and the organization of practicum experiences. The how focused on the process of enacting teaching in the classroom and the contexts of learning such as within a community of inquiry. Tensions emerged in FoE in a push/pull relationship for time, space, and attention to theory or practice. These tensions were exacerbated by recent pandemic-influenced teaching and learning constraints (Danyluk et al., 2022). The OEPr of TEds can reveal how working thing and through these tensions occurred. Through actively 'thinking out loud' in blogs, social media, and open publications, particularly when sharing details of the what, how, and why they do what they do, teacher educators may reveal integrated MDL activities, strategies, and opportunities within their OEPr.
  
            A second issue was the nature of those who teach in FoE. The term teacher educator (TEd) described those individuals tasked with teaching in the FoE. These TEds were seen as gatekeepers and lynchpins to the teaching profession and considered to be a critical factor in the quality and transformation of teacher education programs (Kosnik et al., 2015; Stillman et al., 2019; Voithofer et al., 2019). Yet it was noted that here is a highly transient nature of precarious employment within teacher education (Kosnik et al, 2015). Some TEds bring extensive practice from the field of education into their course designs. Other TEds may be new to the discipline, or become TEds as a result of an academic and research stream of study. Although teachers in the K-12 sector in many provinces are licensed to teach by a governing body, such as the Ontario College of Teachers, this is not a requirement for employment or teaching in higher education sectors such as FoE. Research noted that some TEds had extensive research experience yet may have little or no formal knowledge of teaching practices. Although TEds were considered central to good teacher education, they received little attention (Vloet & van Swet, 2010). TEds were often overlooked, invisible, and rarely researched within the field of education (Crawley, 2018; Izadinia, 2014; Kosnik et al., 2015; Voithofer et al., 2019; Woloshyn et al., 2017). Perceptions suggested that TEds:

  should be able to handle themselves in their practice, to act in an effective way, to take care for themselves and to be physically, emotionally and cognitively balanced. They should have a realistic self-concept, concerning who they are, what they are able to do and how they want to develop themselves, especially when coping with educational innovations. … They should have insight into their personal experiences, feelings, values and motives, and gain self-knowledge about processes of their identity development, construction of meaning and their professional development (Vloet & van Swet, 2010, p. 150).

            With rapid changes in media and digital technologies impacting the preparation of teachers in FoE, there were increasing demands on teacher educators to improve outcomes (Buss et al., 2018; Garcia-Martin et al., 2016). Research and change efforts in FoE included: a) self-study (Hordvik et al., 2020; Kosnik et al., 2015); b) the infusion of technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge (TPACK) frameworks (Allen & Katz, 2023; Jaipal-Jamani et al., 2018; Voithofer et al., 2019); c) the application of participatory teaching (West-Puckett et al., 2018); d) networking and collaborative teaching and learning (Heldens, 2017; Lohnes Watulak, 2018; Oddone et al., 2019); e) digital literacies and digital citizenship (Choi et al., 2018; Nascimbeni, 2018); and f) open educational practices (Albion et al., 2017; Kim, 2018). Recent research showed some of the issues and opportunities TEds face when digital literacies were infused or integrated within Canada’s teacher education programs (DeWaard, 2022). Changes to FoE programs are politically driven, as suggested by the US Department of Educational Technology 2016 report on the Advancing Educational Technology in Teacher Preparation: Policy Brief (Stokes-Beverley & Simoy, 2016) calling upon "leaders of teacher preparation programs to engage in concerted, programmatic shifts" (p. 4). The political impact on teacher education is evident in governmental reforms that drastically changed the organization and application of initial teacher education programs in Faculties of Education in Ontario (Kitchen & Petrarca, 2015).
  
            Although not explicit to MDL or OEPr research, this research was informed by the teacher educator technology competencies (TETCs) proposed by Foulger et al., (2017) in their exploration of the technological practices of TEds. The TETCs establishes a foundational set of skills and attributes which can support self-reflection and professional development (Foulger et al., 2017). Subsequent research examined these competencies in practice (Thomas et al., 2019), but explicit connections to MDL within OEPr of TEds in FoE have yet to be made. Allen and Katz (2019) proposed that teacher educators were positioned to impact the future or OEPr within K-12 education. With this in mind, this research focused on the nexus between MDL and OEPr found in teacher educators in FoE in Canadian contexts, recognized the complexity of teaching in teacher education, and hinted at a life-long learning approach to teacher education (Livingston, 2014, 2017). 
   
• 1 2022-06-08T18:22:01+00:00 Background 36 describing confluence of fields of study and influences of the lived experiences of the research plain 2023-10-27T15:36:50+00:00 I design and teach about teaching and learning in a teacher education program in Canada. I am a life-long practitioner of the art and science of teaching and learning. It is through this research that I aim to understand the lived experiences of teacher educators as they apply media and digital literacies (MDL) within Canadian teacher education, as evidenced within their open educational practices. This is of interest because I am a Canadian teacher by profession and a teacher educator by choice.
  
            Critical literacies is an important research focus, as evident from the growing political and public demands for literacies in all areas of education (CMEC, 2020b; OECD, 2018; Zimmer, 2018). Calls for educational responses to ‘fake news’ (Gallagher & Rowsell, 2017) and the teaching of digital citizenship to combat cyberbullying (Choi et al., 2018; Jones & Mitchell, 2016) increasingly influence educational landscapes in Canada (DeWaard & Hoechsmann, 2021; Hoechsmann & DeWaard, 2015).
  
            Digital literacy and competency frameworks have been developed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), where the notion of education as a common good(s) is amplified, and shifts from previous notions of education as individualistic and economically entangled good(s). UNESCO promotes a focus on open educational practices and networks as mechanisms for change (Daviet, 2016; Law et al., 2018). Common good(s) and contributing to societal well-being are undergirded with a humanistic and holistic belief system (Daviet, 2016). This is echoed in the European Union (EU) documents where efforts enhance education for citizenship (Carretero Gomez et al., 2017; Law et al., 2018).
  
            Although research focuses on MDL in the K-12 education sector (Buss et al., 2018; Gallagher & Rowsell, 2017), on teachers in the classroom (Choi et al., 2018), teaching and learning in higher education contexts (Castañeda & Selwyn, 2018); and, teacher candidates being prepared for a career in teaching (Cam & Kiyici, 2017; Cantabrana et al., 2019; Cervetti et al., 2006; Gretter & Yadav, 2018), there is little research studying the media and digital literacies or the open educational practices of teacher educators (Foulger et al., 2017; Knezek et al., 2019; Krumsvik, 2014; Petrarca & Kitchen, 2017). From this preliminary review of the literature, I generated a direction for my research study.
  
            The Canadian Council of Ministers of Education (CMEC) and the National Council of Teachers of English emphasizes the need for enhanced literacy development in conjunction with technology competencies in education for all provincial education jurisdictions (Gallagher & Rowsell, 2017). The Canadians for 21st Century Learning & Innovation document Shifting minds: A 21st century vision of public education in Canada (C21, 2012), identified key skills and competencies learners should possess, which suggests that teachers, teacher candidates, and teacher educators should also possess these skills and competencies. In the United States, the development of a set of technology competencies for teacher educators (Foulger et al., 2017) indicated the need for a reconceptualization of current faculty of education (FoE) structures and teacher educators’ practices.
  
            Since a “teacher’s knowledge is an essential component in improving educational practice” (Connelly et al., 1997, p. 674), this research explored the lived experiences of teacher educators who openly share experiences and applications with a consideration toward MDL as part of their teaching practice. Sharing openness in educational practices “does not require overcoming huge technical obstacles, but rather, requires a change in mindset and a differing view of practice, and of how learning can be achieved” (Couros, 2006, p. 188). A better understanding of the contexts of MDL within FoE can emerge when teacher educators’ voices and stories are represented. A better understanding of the contexts of MDL within FoE can emerge when teacher educators’ voices and stories are represented. This investigation adds to the limited research addressing the needs of teacher educators or how teacher educators infuse MDL into their teaching practice (Lohnes Watulak, 2016; Phuong et al., 2018; Seward & Nguyen, 2019; Stokes-Beverley & Simoy, 2016).
  
            Because I espouse to be an open educational practitioner, promoting open educational practices in the courses I design and teach, I aim to further understand the role of OEPr within teacher education in general, and within the lived experiences of others who work openly as teacher educators. Through this research I aim to explore, revise, and add to current definitions of OEPr (Couros, 2006; Cronin & MacLaren, 2018; Nascimbeni & Burgos, 2016; Paskevicius, 2017; Tur et al., 2020). In this research, I aim to uncover connections between current conceptualizations of OEPr with understandings of MDL (Buckingham, 2020; Gee, 2015; Hoechsmann, 2019; Stordy, 2015) and living literacies. (Pahl et al., 2020).
  
            This research responds to a call from Zawacki-Richter et al., (2020) to “re-explore the benefits of openness in education to respond to emerging needs, advance the field, and envision a better world” (p. 329). Cronin (2017) reveals connections between OEPr and digital literacies which I believe to be essential to the work of open educators. Through this research I endeavour to find connections between MDL and OEPr within the lived experiences of teacher educators (TEds) as they navigate and negotiate their teaching practice into the open.
  
            This research not only adds to rapidly evolving discussions about OEPr but also contributes a focus on teacher educators (Zawacki-Richter et al., 2020). I believe that teacher educators bring experience in educational teaching practice to the nexus between OEPr, teaching, and MDL. Teacher educators from diverse Canadian FoE sites were invited to participate in interviews to “story” (Clandinin, 2015) their OEPr, and reflect on their MDL negotiations. The ubiquity of electronic technologies in the functional milieu of today’s educational environments, particularly in light of the global COVID-19 pandemic, suggested that digital tools are both field and method for research studies (Burrell, 2009; Markham, 2016).
  
   
• 1 2022-06-08T21:22:24+00:00 The Gathering 19 relating to data and how it is managed plain 2023-10-02T13:42:01+00:00 Vagle (2021) suggested P-IP researchers gather materials rather than data. This distinction is important in order to semantically separate research endeavors from qualitative, positivist perspectives about what researchers collect. Thus, I applied the term data gathering for this research work. Vagle (2018) suggested that phenomena determined “how it is to be studied” (p. 75) and described multiple data gathering moments including observations, writings, interviews, drawings, and music collected over a specified period of time. In fitting with the research topic, this method honoured the ethos of openness of OEPr, examinined the multiplicity of textual information, and revealed an openness in data gathering. Vagle (2018) suggested data moments could include arts-based methods such as drawings, paintings, photos, visuals, films, and performance art. Knowing that these were potential options did not mean that I would use all of these formats in my research.
  
            I planned the interview protocol (see Appendix D) to be fluid and flexible since unstructured interviews were the most common interview type in phenomenology due to their open dialogic nature (Kennedy, 2016; Vagle, 2018). Data gathering began with web searches of FoE sites for participant related information. Digital information originating from daily digital interactions by participants in online platforms were “extremely insightful to understand what digital actors ‘do’, rather than who they ‘are’” (Caliandro & Gandini, 2017). I searched for open sources of information, such as participants’ social media locations including blog sites, Twitter, Instagram, and course websites wherever these were posted openly on the internet. This information supported the focus and topics that I wove into the interview, often as a conversation prompt or question. Although information garnered from multiple web sources may reveal MDL in action, these data gatherings provided insights into the lived experiences, intentionalities, and digital identities of the participants.
  
            For my own processes in this research, I used a variety of digital technologies to manage and generate data gatherings. First, digital data analysis was done using NVivo on an Apple Macbook Pro laptop computer. I used Zoom video conferencing software to capture the interviews. The web-based audio transcription software Otter.ai generated drafts of the interview transcripts in a timely manner, sometimes allowing me to return transcripts within forty-eight hours to the participants. The web-based word cloud creation software WordArt was used to re-create the transcripts into graphic renderings. This was selected from the abundance of word cloud generators since I already had a free account with this service. This software allowed me to download a portable network graphic (PNG) image and provide a web-access link to the interactive word cloud image. I used the web-based open access software Draw.io for concept mapping since it integrated into an existing Google account. I used the graphic visualization software ProCreate on an iPad to generate sketchnotes of concepts and research findings.
  
            Since both digital and paper forms of research journals were fluid territories for me, I kept both versions of research journals to capture notes of my thoughts and observations. This included annotations, video recordings, and textual artifacts. I curated, stored, and organized notes within participant folders on my computer hard drive, on private blog posts, and posted thoughts on open blog posts when anonymity was maintained. 
  
            Notes and annotations for this research included jottings, descriptive observations of social media sites such as tweets and blog posts, and linkages recorded as marginalia on transcripts. Since jottings and cognitive connections occurred at any time, these were recorded at the time, place, and available media, indicative of the fluid nature of the research process. Saldaña (2016) suggested these private, personal, written and recorded musings become “question-raising, puzzle-piecing, connection-making, strategy-building, problem-solving, answer-generating, rising-above-the-data” heuristics (p. 44). I heeded Saldaña’s (2016) caution to not rely on “mental notes to self” (p. 45) as a method, and took advantage of the technologies at hand to capture my wonderings and wanderings along research paths. 
  
            Vagle (2018) suggested taking walks to provide time and space for phenomenological musings to occur. With the COVID-19 pandemic in full swing as I conducted the research, outdoor walks and bike rides not only provided time to think, or to NOT think, but also became an avenue for mental health and well-being during this research phase. In true P-IP fashion, the technology made me as researcher while I made notes about research data gatherings (see Figure 14). As the liveliness of my notes and musings also became data gatherings, these notes revealed the “affective or entangled engagements with materializations or textualualizations whether as a glow or a strange idea or an imaginative glimpse into a new becoming” (Ellingson & Sotirin, 2020, p. 22).
  
            Throughout the process of gathering these data materials, I created observational notes and began to establish preliminary connections to MDL frameworks. In the early stages of the research, I engaged with data making (Ellingson & Sotirin, 2020) in order to create dynamic representations for each participant. I created and revisited conceptual maps of connections, locations, and literacies using a variety of software in order to “animate new ways of thinking and relating by affirming heretofore unimagined configurations” (Ellingson & Sotirin, 2020, p. 11).
• 1 2022-06-04T15:43:12+00:00 Glossary 19 alphabetic listing of glossary items with links to notes that describe each item plain 2023-06-28T15:29:30+00:00 Here is an alphabetic listing of the glossary items included in this dissertation document. Each item is linked to a note where the item is defined, described, and/or examples provided. These glossary items are also embedded throughout the document as notes within pages, where they provide 'just in time' clarification for you, the reader.
  • Actor Network Theory
  • Affinity Spaces
  • Alternative Dissertation
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Black Box technology
  • Block Chain
  • ChatGPT
  • Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS)
  • Creative Commons
  • Cynefin framework
  • Data Gathering
  • Digital Rights Management (DRM)
  • Educommunication
  • Emirec
  • Episteme / Phronesis
  • Faculty of Education (FoE)
  • #FemEdTech
  • Free and Open Software (FOSS)
  • Homo Faber
  • Hupomnemata
  • Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)
  • Learning Management Systems (LMS)
  • Makerspace
  • Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • Media and Information Literacy (MIL)
  • Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
  • Open Educational Practices (OEPr)
  • Paywall
  • Platforms
  • PDF
  • Portable Graphics Network (PNG)
  • Post-Intentional Phenomenology (P-IP)
  • Practice - both noun and verb
  • Research Ethics Board (REB)
  • Safety, Security, Privacy, Permission (SSPP)
  • Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada (SSHRC)
  • Teacher Candidates (TCs)
  • Teacher Educators (TEds)
  • Teacher Educator Technology Competencies (TETCs)
  • TPACK
  • Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans
  • UNESCO
  • Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
  • Universal Serial Bus (USB)
  • Visitors / Residents
  
   
• 1 2022-06-08T18:24:54+00:00 Rationale 18 key elements that led me to this research plain 2023-10-30T14:38:54+00:00 Educational issues resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic heightened awareness of the need for literate and digitally proficient individuals within every facet of the education sector. In my role as a learning designer and teacher educator in Canadian faculties of education (FoE), my lived experience is immersed into my work designing logistical and navigational elements for teaching within digitally enabled learning environments. Rapid emergency online instruction (Hodges et al., 2020), around the clock media consumption focusing on educational deficit narratives, and ongoing changes in digital technologies and expectation are shaping the push for the development of global competencies (CMEC, 2020). 
  
            Prior to, and emerging from the global pandemic, the need for an informed and technologically prepared teaching workforce is identified in policy and position papers nationally and globally:
  • the United Nations Leading Sustainable Development Goals - Education 2030 (United Nations, 2015) report establishes teacher education as one of the priorities in the achievement of sustainable development goals;
  • the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) continues to examine policies and practices for media and information literacies (Singh et al., 2016), digital citizenship (Law et al., 2018), and open educational resources (Sobe, 2022; UNESCO, 2019), and information and communication technology competencies in teacher development (UNESCO, 2022, 2023);
  • the push for open educational resources (UNESCO, 2019) and open access extends through the open consultation process by an international commission from UNESCO on the Futures of Education which highlights the need to "mobilize the many rich ways of being and knowing in order to leverage humanity’s collective intelligence" (UNESCO, 2019, paragraph "The aim ...");
  • the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) researches and documents the need for teachers to be “high-level knowledge workers who constantly advance their own professional knowledge as well as that of their profession” (Schleicher, 2012, p. 108) noting that the demands on teachers are continuing to increase (Schleicher, 2018); 
  • a position paper from the European Literacy Policy Network indicates that teachers may “lack competence, confidence and knowledge of effective strategies to harness the potential of diverse technologies to enhance digital literacy teaching and learning” (Lemos & Nascimbeni, 2016, p. 3); 
  • the U.S. Department of Educational Technology released the document Advancing Educational Technology in Teacher Preparation: Policy Brief (Stokes-Beverley & Simoy, 2016); and,
  • in Canada, the Canadian government report Democracy Under Threat (Zimmer, 2018) outlines the need to address education of digital literacies. The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (2020) provides a systems-level framework for global competencies which further drives the transformation of the educational agenda in Canada (CMEC, 2020a). The Digital Learning in Canada in 2022 report identifies digital literacies as a pressing issue (Irhouma & Johnson, 2022).
  These identified needs from global and national levels are ever more pressing during current priorities for online and remote educational instruction. I suggest that pressures resulting from the pandemic will continue to push the field of teacher education and the application of media and digital literacies (MDL ) within FoE into the forefront. Yet the field of teacher education, and more specifically the MDL of those who teach in FoE from an open educational stance, remains a misunderstood and ignored field of endeavour. This research will add insights into the impact of these influences and pressures on teaching and learning within teacher education programs since these are rarely researched.
  
            These are not new issues, despite the many changes that occurred in the light of the response of educational systems, particularly in FoE, to the global health crises precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, these are not new issues. Along with a public outcry for media literacies in the face of fake news (Singh et al., 2016) and increasing demands for technologically and digitally literate populations, there is a push to change teacher education generally and the teaching practices of those who teach in teacher educator programs more specifically (Beck, 2016; Ellis & McNicholl, 2015; Foulger et al., 2017; Stillman et al., 2019). Connected to this issue is the revitalization of teacher education programs in order to “prepare teachers who will teach in transformative ways and leverage technology as a problem-solving tool” (Schmidt-Crawford et al., 2018, p. 132). The paucity of research relating to the MDL work of teacher educators practicing in open educational spaces is a disadvantage when evidence for the effectiveness of educational practices is increasingly demanded (Beck, 2016). 
  
            It is in this context, from my lived experiences as a teacher educator and learning designer in Canadian faculties of education that my investigations were shaped. My purpose for this research was to add to the corpus of research focusing on teacher educators and aims to expand understanding of open educational practices (OEPr) from teacher educator's contexts by examining the lived experiences of teacher educators who reveal their teaching practices openly, with a specific focus on their understanding and practice of media and digital literacies. I intentionally selected Canadian FoE since this was contextually familiar and where I engaged and share materials openly within my professional learning networks. I initially considered conducting the research to only include Ontario FoE but realized I may not find enough participants that fit the established criteria within that limited context. Limiting the participant pool would also exclude some of the voices in Canadian open educational contexts that I hoped to include in the research. Although I understood that each FoE in Canada is unique, it was this dissimilarity that I hoped would add nuance and richness to the lived experiences of the participants. I also considered global FoE contexts but determined that this wider scope would hinder the research; the extent of the dissimilarities would interfere with finding commonalities in the stories of lived experiences within MDL in the OEPr of TEds in FoE. These delimiting factors helped me frame the research questions.