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Istanbul Grand Bazaar. Photo by Babak Gholizadeh

The OLLIBAZAAR was originally designed for OLLI staff and members who wanted to explore and brainstorm curriculum development. As you may have noticed things have been rather quiet on this front!

However, in the meantime, the planning committee for the next Southern Regional Conference for Institutes for Learning in Retirement  have voiced their interest in making use of the OLLIBAZAAR for online planning. With this in mind the blog has being redesigned to help this ongoing collaboration.

At the conference Dan Campbell, the former Director of OLLI at the  University of South Carolina, Beaufort (USCB) lead a brainstorming session. Dan had run a similar session at last year’s Southern Regional Conference and by popular demand was asked to run the session again.

The OLLIBAZAAR is the result of these Southern Regional Brainstorming sessions and has been created as a venue for OLLI staff and members to share ideas and resources on curriculum planning.

A Facilitated Brainstorming Session run by Dan Campbell.

When You Care Enough To Share Your Very Best from OLLI NRC on Vimeo.

The Southern Regional Conference for Institutes for Learning in Retirement was held at the Bryant Conference Center, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. July 27-29, 2011.

Here are the additional brainstorming ideas that were suggested during the session:

• Research on Aging: Access to surveys to correct/clarify misconceptions about aging.
• Online courses: Broadcast to other OLLIs that you have made an online course available.
• Eckerd partners with McDill AFB and CENTCOM presenting lectures on international, cultural and history issues.
• Real time sharing of classes (experiment with WebX or another application).
• Learn more about videoconferencing/compressed TV/video from those who already utilize these at their OLLIs.
• Would like to see list of courses offered in the last 3 years (not just current) to get program ideas.
• University of Alabama offers what they call “encore” courses,  i.e. classes that were popular in the past.
• Propose meetings of smaller sub-groups (e.g. all OLLIs in the state of South Carolina) to discuss shared programming, resources, etc -  in SC could also discuss how to leverage coverage/partnerships with ETV/PBS in the state.
• LSU would like to see a 1 page fact sheet on each OLLI that summarizes its program, this would be useful at conferences.
• Knowing what resources already exist – making contact with other OLLIs via AskOLLI (for questions). Visiting the national resource Center website more often. Making use of the OLLIBAZAAR!

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Collaborative Initiative: Travel Programs

Collaborative Initiative: Science  &  Technology

Take a look and add your thoughts to the conversation in the comment sections of these OLLIBAZAAR pages. Perhaps you have an idea you would like to share covering a different topic area? Visit the pages listed to the right of this post. Click in the Comment box below the ‘Leave a Reply’ heading and write down your ideas then hit the submit button.

Note that you will have to sign into the comment section. You can use an existing Facebook or Twitter username and password, or you can create your own WordPress profile (and no you don’t have to start a blog to do that!)

And now for a quick OLLIBAZAAR Poll:

2. ba.zaar
[buh-zahr]
-noun
1 (esp. in the Orient) a market area, esp. a street of small stalls
2 a sale in aid of charity, esp. of miscellaneous secondhand or handmade articles
3 a shop where a large variety of goods is sold

3. OLLIBAZAAR – an exchange for brainstorming and sharing ideas about lifelong learning.

The OLLIBAZAAR has been implemented following the workshop titled “When You Care Enough to Share Your Very Best”. This workshop was a breakout session at the Southern Regional Conference for Institutes for Learning in Retirement hosted by OLLI at Furman University (July 21st to July 23rd, 2010)

This workshop was run by Dan Campbell – Director of OLLI at the University of South Carolina Beaufort (USCB)
and Jeanne Campbell – Volunteer Coordinator and Curriculum Committee member (USCB).