Ideas in Conversation
Ideas that move from values into practice
I speak about open education, learning, leadership, care, institutional change, and the structures that help people translate values into lived practice.
My work is grounded in teaching, open education, faculty development, learning design, libraries, and collaborative institutional change. I’m especially interested in the space between vision and implementation: the often-overlooked middle where people must make meaning, build trust, navigate complexity, and create the conditions that allow participation to become possible.
Across keynotes, conference sessions, panels, workshops, and facilitated conversations, I invite audiences to look beneath the visible work:
What supports people in moving from interest to action? What makes a learning environment genuinely enterable? What happens when institutions express commitments to openness, care, or collaboration without building the infrastructure those commitments require?
My sessions are thoughtful, practical, relational, and shaped for the people in the room.
Upcoming Conversations
A Door Is Only Open If Someone Can Actually Get Through It
In person · 3:00 PM · Salon M
A theory-forward exploration of enterability, care, and the often-invisible infrastructure that helps people move from valuing open education to actually participating in it.
OCTOBER 7, 2026 · OEGlobal 2026
OCTOBER 16, 2026 · OPEN ARKANSAS
The Work at the Hinge: Designing Open Education Communities Where People Can Begin Before Everything Is Ready
In person · 2:45 PM · Room 220
A practitioner-focused look at hinge work: the often-invisible labor and relational structures that connect institutional goals with the realities of people trying to enter and participate in open education.
The Work at the Hinge: Mini Structures That Make Open Education Enterable
Virtual · 1:30 PM · 20 minutes
An applied exploration of the small structural details that can determine whether people enter, stall, or disengage, culminating in a live hinge audit and a 30-day action commitment.
OCTOBER 27, 2026 · OPENED26
Sustaining Yourself as a Leader in These Times: Voices from the Rebus Luminary Fellowship
Panel · Virtual · 1:15 PM ET · 40 minutes
A conversation among Rebus Luminary Fellows about burnout, isolation, doubt, and what it takes to sustain both ourselves and the communities we lead. The session brings together solidarity and practical strategies for collective care in open education.
OCTOBER 28, 2026 · OPENED26
Past Engagements
A selection of talks, workshops, panels, and presentations across open education, leadership, learning, and institutional change.
2026 · CLOSING KEYNOTE
From Vision to Practice: The Path to Open
The Borderlands Open Access Symposium
How educators and institutions can move from believing in open education to building the practical pathways that make participation possible.
2026 · PRESENTATION
Open Education Research & Planning Mini-Grant: An On-Ramp into Open Education
OER Momentum Convening · University of Texas System
A structured approach for helping educators move from initial interest in open education toward meaningful implementation.
2025 · LIGHTNING TALK
Students as Open Education Leaders
Open Education Conference
A student-driven model for developing OER advocacy, leadership, and institutional participation.
2025 · PANEL
OER and Information Literacy Connections
ACRL Student Learning and Information Literacy Committee
A conversation about student leadership, information literacy, OER advocacy, and authentic institutional collaboration.
Speaking Topics
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Open education is often framed through licenses, cost savings, access, and reuse. Those things matter, but they don’t fully explain what openness asks of us.
I explore openness as a relational practice shaped by participation, reciprocity, trust, care, consent, and shared responsibility. These sessions invite audiences to consider what becomes possible when open education is understood not only as access to resources, but as a way of learning, creating, and changing institutions together.
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Many educators and institutions already believe in access, care, inclusion, collaboration, and openness. The challenge is building the pathways that allow people to act on those values.
These sessions focus on the structures between intention and implementation: clear processes, relational support, usable tools, shared infrastructure, and the often-invisible labor required to move from aspiration to sustained practice.
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Students are often discussed as beneficiaries of educational change rather than participants in shaping it.
I speak about how institutions can create meaningful roles for students in advocacy, open education, course design, research, peer learning, and institutional change. This work emphasizes mentorship, shared authority, authentic participation, and the conditions that help students develop their own knowledge and leadership.
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Care is not only an interpersonal gesture. It is also expressed through the way learning environments, policies, resources, and expectations are designed.
These sessions examine how accessibility, representation, transparency, flexibility, and relational responsibility can be built into teaching, curriculum, professional learning, and institutional systems.
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Meaningful educational change rarely belongs to one person or department.
Drawing from work with faculty, students, librarians, instructional designers, administrators, and disciplinary partners, I explore the connective work required to build shared understanding, align different forms of expertise, and sustain change across organizational boundaries.
Formats
I’m available for:
Keynotes and plenary sessions
Conference presentations
Interactive workshops
Faculty and staff professional learning
Panels and moderated conversations
Leadership retreats
Guest lectures
Virtual presentations
Custom facilitated sessions
Sessions can be adapted for higher education, K–12 organizations, libraries, nonprofits, professional associations, and community learning spaces.
What I Bring to the Room
My speaking is informed by both scholarship and practice. I’m interested in ideas, but also in what happens when those ideas meet real people, real institutions, and real constraints.
Audiences can expect:
thoughtful language for experiences that may be difficult to name
practical connections between values and everyday decisions
attention to systems, relationships, and hidden forms of labor
questions that invite reflection without oversimplifying complexity
examples grounded in educational practice
space for participation, dialogue, and meaning-making
I don’t believe every session needs to end with a tidy answer. Sometimes the most useful outcome is a sharper question, a newly visible tension, or a shared language that makes different action possible.
About Megan
Megan Brittany-Fruia Zara is an educator, open practice strategist, learning designer, writer, and PhD student in Leadership and Change at Antioch University. She is the founder of The Open Practice Academy, where she develops learning experiences and supports educators, institutions, libraries, and community organizations working toward more open, relational, and humane forms of practice.
Her work draws from open education, care ethics, relational leadership, communities of practice, faculty development, curriculum design, and institutional change. Across her speaking, scholarship, and professional practice, she explores how people translate values into action and how organizations can create the conditions for trust, participation, learning, and meaningful change.
Invite Me to Speak
I welcome invitations from colleges and universities, K–12 organizations, libraries, nonprofits, professional associations, conferences, and values-aligned organizations.