There were many changes made to this session over the weekend to ensure having the most current information, but please let me know if any links on the syllabus or readings don't connect.
Most of you should be finishing at least your outline for the Midterm. July is right around the corner. Please do not wait until the last minute.
So let's get to this week's session.
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I thought that it might be helpful to hear (first hand) about CK-12's mission, so I asked the President, Murugan Pal, if he could spare some time for us. We recently connected and I showed him how to set up a presentation similar to mine using Authorstream. He has finished and you'll find his presentation below.
Addtionally, I have CK-12's Founder, Neeru Khosla, flying into RI on Monday, June 27th, to speak to a Joint Legislative Commission to Study eTextbooks in RI schools. If anyone is in the neighborhood of Providence, RI on this date, you are welcome to attend. Just drop me a line and I'll give you more details.
Next, I'd like you to view this introduction video on "Finding and Evaluating OER's".
Then go through this unit. It was created as part of the Curriki.org Oeri Fellowship. As you go through the links and resources you’ll see various activities. Complete all of these (except for the ‘draft and email’ one) in a Word document and post them to the class blog as one posting before the end of the week. This session should really help you get a deeper understanding of OER's.
Then lastly, go through the links on the syllabus , as well as the additional links here.
Then lastly, go through the links on the syllabus , as well as the additional links here.
Good luck and as always, please feel free to contact me with any questions.
DF
27 comments:
Thanks for the clarification on the assignments.
I've been wondering. You work in a HS, right? How have your teachers received the flexbooks, OER stuff? What are some of the assignments, etc you've worked on with the teachers at your school.
Part of the problem with flexbooks is the the limits content currently available. It my social studies/english folks I work most with so they are the ones I'm more able to broach new technologies with.
I always feel sharing experiences helps me grasp how I want to tackle new technologies/curriculum.
Just finished the unit. FYI- the content cleared up some issues I had. I have a clearer picture of OER. The various codes for copyleft is still a bit baffling. However I feel these are separate issues and THAT wasn't quite clear to me before.
I would suggest for future courses...drop some of the ad videos on the different OER and have this assignment earlier as it gives a sense of the different sites out there providing portals to OERs. That's the piece I was missing..these are portals to content, for the most part, already out on the net.
@Carolyn, I too would love to hear from a teacher who is using this material in the classroom or from a librarian who had successfully integrated the use of OER into their school community. Dave, can you give us some testimony? Do teachers feel overwhelmed by the task of finding and assembling all of the materials? I will admit, that is how I feel. The OER specific search engines were a huge push in the right direction, especially when outlining our midterm assignment--it made it seem less like I have to search the entire web!
In the last sessions comments, people were discussing who exactly was going to be the copyright police and how their teachers don't worry about adhering to the law as much b/c no one is really holding them accountable--I think this becomes much more complicated with OER. Most students and teachers can recognize that song lyrics and a chapter from a new novel are protected by copyright, but if they are searching through tons of content and have to decipher the CC codes, I think they will be less likely to adhear to the guidelines b/c it's a challenge to figure out exactly what it all means. The more clearly the guidelines are spelled out, the more likely they are to be followed.
Finally, I too think this session specifcally should be presented earlier. I think it helps for the overall understanding of everything else! My brain is whirling with all of this new information!
I want to add that I just had a conversation with one of my best teachers (American History) who, to my surprise, has already created her own digital textbook! Her analysis of the OER v. traditional textbook is that it's nearly impossible to find a textbook that does everything you want it to, especially in history and you MUST supplement your materials. Finding the resources for the OER was incredibly time consuming, most teachers probably wouldn't do it, but that they should. She's excited that I'm in this class and that I'll have things to share with her--I've already sent her some links to check out. I am going to take her course for next year and revamp my midterm outline with this as my task! I guess I just wanted to share that this actually is already happening with really excellent, dedicated teachers.
Teresa, your conversation with your teacher was enlightening. As a history teacher turned librarian, and from experiences at the elementary level, I know text books rarely go along with a curriculum, unless you are working in one of the big four states that drive the curriculum choices. Maybe if districts would designate creating textbooks as part of professional development, or a paid summer activity, teachers would be able to buy into the program. I do think it is a step in the right direction, and as time goes on, we will find other ways to make it work.
I am impressed and a bit overwhelmed by the amount of resources out there- So far it seems that most of the resources are geared to students at a higher level than mine- mostly for secondary and college level, but as the movement catches on, perhaps there will b more choices for the elementary teachers. I found the government site to be most helpful as well as the North Carolina site- I especially liked the ability to search by grade level!
S7-8 922
Frustrating, disappointing, nervous. These are some of the thoughts and emotions as I explored the OER materials for US history. The first specialized search engine I used, ADRIANE, no longer exists--frustration. When I tried Creative Commons Search only old stuff that is in the public domain because the copyright ran out came up such as a text by Charles Beard, really of no use to anyone except as an historical document to how history used to be written. The resources for history on Wikispaces looked promising but then I found it was for 5th grade, not useful to me since I’m at the high school level. Also, there was no information about the creators and participants and that made me nervous. When I found something called Wikimedia Commons, it only had pictures related to US history and that was disappointing. I guess the title with “media” in it should have been a clue to me, but I missed it. It is funny how the people who have posted so far have mentioned the difficulty in finding US history OER material.
Teresa, could you provide a link to the history teacher’s text? You’re right about most history textbooks that are out there; they do need tailoring and enhancement.
I learned a few things reading about the Google search tips. I always encourage students to use the site: to help them find reputable sources. I usually recommend site:edu or site:gov depending upon what type of information they are looking for. I also tell them about the define feature. I had no clue Google search would do math! I had never even thought to try that.
The specialized search engines definitely have merit. I did find some neat sources by using Google, but I found many more using the specialized search engines. It is always good to remember to preview sources ahead of time. I liked some of the Howcast videos that I found on Learning Objects, like How to Use Twitter. However, one of the videos listed near that one was entitled How To Have Sex in a Car. Not something we want popping up on our white board in front of a class full of hormonal teenagers! Did anyone have a favorite specialized search engine? I’m not sure yet which ones I would recommend to teachers. I know they like to see content specific resources, so the content specific repositories would go over better than the general ones.
The whole idea of open textbooks is just awesome. I can see so many benefits beyond the free part. The word free will get administration’s attention, but the idea that teachers can customize or create their own just opens so many doors for students. (Differentiated instruction is the current terminology for what good teachers have always done.) I still think there would be resistance from many of the teachers, but I also would bet my house that I have a few who would jump right in and try one. In my building I haven’t heard anyone mention open or online texts like we’ve been discussing. Some of the textbook companies have provided their text online or in a CD/DVD version; that’s all I have heard about so far. I’m curious to talk to everyone about this when school resumes. The Creative Commons and copyright issues are going to be a big hurdle to overcome, but if I’m not up for that challenge, no one else will be. (Just one of the many, varied responsibilities of the librarian.)
I also want to do more with providing eBooks for my students. I want to do more to share all of the eBook options with readers. I have a few who have ereaders, but most don’t. I’ve looked at Google books and the Gutenberg website, but personally I hate to read from a computer screen. I have downloaded books from Gutenberg to my Kindle. I need to let the students know how many different eBooks are out there so they can decide what to read and how to read it.
Like Carolyne, this assignment gave me a clearer picture of OER and the numerous portals that provide access. As a whole it is overwhelming. I found that locating and exploring sources for my final project assignment varied both in results and relevance. As a librarian, it is 2nd nature that a persons specific purpose and need drive where and how you search. Not all teachers truly understand that. I can't imagine a teacher searching through all these diff engines, repositories and open textbooks sites when they try to put a unit together. Many are not tech savvy enough to be successful. And for those that are, it would take too much time and effort for most of the teachers I know. However, I think this would work well if a team or department of teachers worked together to gather and build their own textbook; one course at a time, one unit at a time. As more people contribute, I think there will be more useable stuff that will be easier to individualize. The difficulty is in getting enough people to buy in. As textbook money dries up, that may be the necessary route. As a librarian, I love the open textbook and free ebook repositories. When time allows, I hope to find more books and resources that I can load on our Nooks and provide to staff and students as more people have their own reader devices.
Google-not sure if it’s giving open/free material
Adriane-link not working
Creative Commons--best of all..
Commonwealth of Learning-link not working
Federal resources for education excellence-not listed on the ed.gov
Folksemantic-seems to provided easy search to resources and lesson plans. Most seem from reliable, vetted sites (NPR, Library of Congress, NARA)
Learning Objects-not searchable at main screen...need to dig down but once you look at LO, search box provided. Limited stuff per topic but not junkie...from good resources like discovery channel, u of ottawa, british museum.
OCW Finder- (folksemantic)not working. -search box doesn’t work, browse doesn’t but cloud tags do...so not very easy to search.
OER Recommender (folksemantic)-widget. didn’t download
OER commons-searching okay, results iffy. some are good others not, some are password protected, not all in english +/-
Opened-not sure..is this creative commons? search box doesn’t actually search sites. there may be stuff to find here but if it takes too long, I’m turned off and I imagine teachers would be as well.
TechXtra-jobs, dissertations...not middle school.
seems like creative commons is best for both kids and teachers to use, folksemantics and learning objects are pretty good as well but from what I see more for teacher resources.
Curriki
I search for 6-8 lessons on China. It seems like all of lessons are created by two teachers. I’m looking for ancient China so that limits it even more. There was a teacher resource from World Affairs Council/Seattle. That’s quite good. While the lessons looked pretty good, there’s no variety of authorship .
What’s the advantage (for this purpose) of creating an account? I was annoyed with the big donate campaign on the screen after filling in all the details.
Wikibooks actually has some nice stuff in wikijunior on elements. A lot of the textbooks stuff is too much for most of ths students at my school. I could see how these could benefit kids who excel at say math...as there is plenty of higher level stuff out there for them...Also much of the material is math / science related. Weak on the humanities.
open textbooks
Activity: What are the advantages to adopting an open textbook over a traditional textbook?
cost...but as thought about this, do people print out? If so whose doing the printing, student, schools?
can be easily updated..
weight..kids aren’t carry textbooks around. actually at my school teachers have class sets and kids take an at home copy to stay there all year..not all discipline do this if the text is available online.
2. If you haven’t used an open textbook, what are the adoption issues?
access..will all students have easy access to the text. BIG!
Do the specialized search sites ONLY provide open and free? I can’t recall, except for maybe Creative Commons, I didn’t notice any identifying copyright marks.
I also did a checklist but it seems too much for one post.
BTW anyone else not always getting updated comments via email?
Angela, I agree that getting teachers to buy in might be difficult but administrators would love it. I could see science teachers possibly finding stuff they could use, not because they are technologically more advanced than other teachers but because there is good stuff there, especially in the Flexbooks because it is geared towards science and technology. It is good that you have teachers you know would jump right in; I wish I could say the same.
Mary, I agree with you that teachers simply don’t have the time to search through all the different resources, search tools, repositories, for something they can use given all they have to do already. On another note Mary, I’d love to hear how you implemented Nooks into your library. We can do it offline via email or maybe others in the class would be interested in our discussion. I wonder if OER material can be downloaded to a Nook or other ereading device?
Mary and Hopkins I like your way of thinking. Even at the kindergarten level we are constantly revising our curriculum to meet ever changing standards and now core curriculum needs. I bet if a team of teachers were provided time and possibly funding to create flexbooks it would be a win-win. We spend so much time adapting our curriculum and content each year it only makes sense.
Dave, thank you for the video on CK-12 from the pres. It helped me to understand OER's more clearly.
I'm pretty sure flexbooks can be downloaded to a variety of devices but I would guess OER stuff, since from various resources, would be really hit or miss.
I think many teachers do use a number of these resources to supplement their curriculum. They just aren't searching OER search sites. They are most likely finding the same material using google.
FUNDING!
I totally agree a team of teachers paid extra during the school year/summer perhaps with an occasional prof.dev. during the school day with a sub covering classes.
Barbara’s Nook question:
I have 13 Nooks in my library right now. One is designated for audio books (not sure why except at the time it was the easiest way to meet my Eng teacher’s needs and it is the odd man out). The other 12 are loaded with a variety of novels. So far, I have only loaned out a couple of Nooks to students (that I know and trust) and to quite a few teachers. Mostly I have loaned out sets of Nooks to Eng teachers for Literary Circles. We piloted this year and it worked quite well. Advantages: kids could pick a book that wasn’t on the shelf and I could download their selection same day. One title purchase went onto 6 Nooks. Most of the feedback was positive. On the flip side, I am hesitant to loan out the Nooks to the general student population (we have 1700 students). The cost of the Nook is prohibitive. But, I don’t want them to sit in my cupboard either. So far, that hasn’t been a problem since my Eng teachers all want to borrow them for their classes anyway.
I will investigate more next year. I want to look into Overdrive. I hear it works with public libraries but I have to check into our costs and whether or not they limit the length of loans the same as public libraries. I don’t see most High School students finishing their books in the allotted two weeks.
@ Barbara and Mary
I have 3 NOOK and just received a grant to purchase 15 more.
This past year was a small pilot with a 7th grade English team. (80 kids) Kids who wanted to use one were require to have parents sign permission, agree to pay for damages or loss. Then it was a random lottery pick, 3 a week.
I think it went really well but we'll see how it goes with more and circulating to the entire school population.
I personally feel at my school kids aren't given enough time to select reading material. I have many avid readers but my 8th grade lose them. This is my effort to get them back to checking books out from the school library.
Also, many kids have cell phones and/or other personal devices so why not let them check one out? Even my most reliable kids have lost brand new books.
@Carolyn--Funny you should ask about English Teachers, as well as Social Studies content.. We are closing out our year here at my school. (last day is today-6/28) and looking to have two new courses starting in the Fall. An Economics course and a Sports Literature course. The Econ. teacher and I will be co-teaching using a Flexbook (http://www.ck12.org/flexbook/book/848) and then in the third quarter we'll begin having the students develop the rest of the content through research using Big Ideas and Enduring Understandings. Unfortunately, it's been an uphill battle trying to get Administrative buyin to embrace a completely ‘Open’ philosophy, but we're making progress. That's where those midterms will really come in handy. We'll all get to see each others’ work and borrow the great ideas for the future.
As far as History/Social Studies, I've found some great open resources that directly correlate with our hard copy text. I made a wiki table of contents: http://wikidave.wikispaces.com/Pre+Columbian+Era and have begun creating a wikitextbook to supplement classroom instruction. Working with English teachers is even easier. Most of the material in the traditional grammar book has been borrowed, mixed, and recycled for a hundred years, so much is already in the Public Domain and free of copyright. Just a quick search in the Connexions site (cnx.org) showed me this: http://siyavula.cnx.org/content/m22095/latest/?collection=col11061/latest
and you can create your own ELA material easily by embedding links from sites like this: http://myeslcorner.blogspot.com/2009/10/20-places-to-study-english-grammar.html
or create a wiki like this (all this material is CC BY SA licensed, so you can copy it directely and use it as a jumping off point).
Here are some additional links for reference and support:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=wiki+english+class#q=wiki+english+class&hl=en&safe=active&prmd=ivns&ei=ga8DTvPHI7O20AGVov2SDg&start=10&sa=N&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=47abf8ce1604813c&biw=1024&bih=677
http://educationalwikis.wikispaces.com/Examples+of+educational+wikis
http://fhswolvesden.wikispaces.com/home
http://honorsbrit.wikispaces.com/home
http://siyavula.cnx.org/content/search?allterms=weakAND&b_start:int=10&search=Search&words=british%20literature&subject=Humanities
http://cnx.org/content/col11304/latest/
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@Theresa---It is hard to imagine creating all of this content from scratch. It’s also challenging to find many entire school systems or school librarians creating these products, but we have to remember that we are at the forefront of this technology. All the information that I see, read, and hear points in the direction of OER’s increasing in usage and having teams of teachers collaboratively working on reiterating this content to create a localized place-based curriculum, so don’t worry too much about not finding an abundance of models out there. Your are trail blazers today, but tomorrow you’ll be the OER facilitators for your areas.
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@Barbara--One additional great resource for History wikis is to just do a simple search and to ensure that you get the most current examples do a date restriction. For example, these are the search results for History wikis that have been updated w/i the past year. Not all are wikis per se, but there is additional support material, examples, and resources there-don’t just look at the first 10 results either: http://www.google.com/search?q=history+class+wiki&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft%3Aen-us%3AIE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7ACGW&biw=1024&bih=600&num=10&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=images&tbs=,qdr:y also, Flexbooks from CK12 can be downloaded to any device (ipad, nook, kindle...)
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@Mary--You hit the nail on the head. The ideal scenario is to have a team, dept. or other group working collaboratively on building these products. As time goes on, we’ll find more and more group examples of this. I predict that w/i another year, the examples and models that we have access to will increase exponentially.
Summary of Activities from unit: Finding and Evaluating Open Educational Resources
I hope my comments are sufficiently in-depth to fulfill the requirements
General Search
Google search term: “world history flexbook”
http://www.ck12.org/flexbook/chapter/2668
Chapter: Manifest Destiny and the Slavery Question
Primary Documents
Easy search!
Specialized Search
Ariadne – dead link
MERLOT – HS and above
CCSearch and Opened - the same site
CoL – dead link
FREE – primary materials from government resources
Folksemantic, OER Recommender, OpenWare Course Finder – the same site
Learning About Learning Objects and TechXtra – good for advanced STEM
How will teachers who are not sophisticated searchers ever find what they need?
General Repositories
Curriki Lesson Review:
Lesson: “The Common Grammatical Errors Regents Skills Students Make”
Author:Sue Costagliola
I approached this lesson remembering that our teachers of English are always looking for appropriate resources for SAT review. I was disappointed to see that the lesson was little more than a collection of worksheets that could be obtained from any grammar text or workbook. I was hoping for the use of some different approach than the old fill-in-the blanks worksheet style. I would like to take this lesson and add video, humor, and some visual interest to try to help students connect with the abstract rules of English.
Content Specific Repositories
Wikibooks – Comment on advantages of open textbook over traditional:
Anyone who has done the course work so far should easily know that open textbooks are free of cost, flexible in both content and means of access, current, adaptable to various learning modalities, multimedia capable, collaborative, and open to community scrutiny.
The wording of the prompt was clearly biased.
Some random thoughts on the lesson content:
I agree that this can be overwhelming for teachers. As with anything new in education, and there really is so very little new, the idea is to go slowly and select carefully what is best for our students. The quality and content of materials is as variable as the information found elsewhere, free, on the Internet. The Evaluation Guide is a great resource. I will definitely use and recommend it to my colleagues. As I was viewing Murugan Pal’s introduction, I noted that he said CK-12 was funded by a “family foundation”. The Hewlett Foundation also funded several of the other resources we examined. That explains the heavy emphasis on the STEM subject areas and the emphasis on technology throughout the OER movement. Most of the resources available seemed to be very advanced in content but not very advanced in pedagogical application. The parts that got my heart racing as a high school librarian were the collections of journal articles and primary documents. They are and should be the basis of our teaching when we approach authentic, real-world learning. I think textbooks are pretty stupid to begin with. Teachers should, and I hope, will center their teaching on true examples from real life. One last thought, Mr. Pal said that OER content is “all original”. I assume that means that no traditionally copyrighted content is included in OER materials. Does that mean that all traditionally copyrighted material is now irrelevant or incorrect? Do we educators have the right to take away our students’ access to all the wisdom that might be contained in traditionally copyrighted materials just because they are not free?
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/
The history teacher I was speaking about used the site above to supplement the texts she assigns to students. So, it isn't that she made her own, but that she saw this great resource at a conference and the were told to use it however they could, though there was no copyright labels/CC instructions to be found. I gave her our class blog to look throughnand she was very quickly frustrated with how much work it is to find resources that are quality and not at a post-secondary level. Luckily, she's very willing to keep working with me to develop something of our own. I think we just need a few days of rest first--today was our last day of school!
Mary and Dave, you have such a great point that this needs to be a team of teachers, hopefully working with their librarian. Most people just wouldn't have the time or motivation to sift through all of the information out there! I really think the common core could be our was in, since so many schools are doing curriculum writing to align their materials with the common core.
I'm glad for everyones comments-- they are helping me makes sense of all of this.
When I was investigating specialized search engines, I found some of the links did not work (ADRIANE and Commonwealth of Learning…). I did not like the creative commons search. It might have been the disclaimer that drew me back about cc not having control over the results and having to verify yourself that the work is cc licensed. What’s the point of searching then? I did like FREE and Folksemantic. I felt they were very user friendly and applicable to students, teachers and even parents. It was nice to read open dialogue back and forth of teachers sharing ideas and resources. I also felt that Learn about Objects.net and OCW Finder were BORING, therefore I didn’t spend much time there. If I’m going to do a search I need a site that is user friendly and provides me with adequate and appropriate resources that I can take with me and use the next day. I don’t have time to search through search engines just to find what I’m looking for.
I felt like the dedicated tools were a lot more “polished” and easier to navigate than a typical search engine. Specialized search engines work better when you have a specific area of need in mind that you’re searching for. It’s also nice to be able to communicate and share information relating to your topic in “real time”.
I loved the wikijunior books site! Being that I teach Kindergarten the pages were bright, clear, filled with useful information and easy to read. After viewing several wikijunior books I welcome the idea of using open textbooks in the classroom. We dont have "textbooks" per say in Kindergarten, but we read a lot of fiction and non-fiction titles based upon student reading level and thematic units. I have created text through the use of social stories and photographs, but never an open textbook format. If I were working with my special education team (SLP, OT, and a Librarian) I would love to create an open textbook!!!
I'm certainly going to have to widen my view of OER is. I have been visiting the Apple Learning Interchange for years. I just didn't think of it as OER. I thought of it more simplistically as a lesson plan site. It going to take some time to explore some of the tools in the "80 Open Education Resource Tools article.
I too, as Hopkins Books stated, believe that teacher incentive and allocated opportunities may be the key to getting teachers to overcome hurdles in building these resources. In my state and specifically my school district, the layoffs impacted morale. I do believe that teachers aren't resistant for the sake of resistance. They do need days in a lighter, conducive atmosphere where they can plan fresh.
That's why the podcast and the accompanying document was so great for me. Something that the speaker said rings so true. We're going to have to anticipate the objectives and prepare rebuttals.
Another point in the podcast that concerned was how global high-stakes testing has become. In England, they too seemed obsessed with test performance. Many of these test in my area seems to be relegated to minimum skills. I wonder if that the case there also.
One last point that I learned a lot from was that the speaker had a lot of faith in students using Web 2.0 tools. She suggested that once students are given ownership of some of these projects and get past the silly ideas, they really come up with some substance. I'm hopeful.
http://www.slj.com/slj/home/891159-312/ala_annual_2011_aasl_unveils.html.csp
CK-12 was named one of aasl's best websites for 2011!
I thought the video from CK-12 really clarified the process they use to create their flexbooks - especially relating to authentication and editing of content. The focus on STEM materials seems to be pretty prevalent in this environment. Unfortunately I seem to have better luck "recruiting" teachers from the humanities to participate in projects, especially content creation. Going through these activities and evaluating the OERs using the OER checklist gave me a much better understanding of available resources as Carolyn and others have said.
Getting teachers to buy in to this level of content creation can also be difficult. Specifically in my district they have been burned by similar projects in the past. The have been asked to implement curriculum mapping projects that are dead in the water one year later, try new technologies that are then blocked by the district, etc. It becomes frustrating to teachers to continually encounter these hurdles. I can see flexbooks and other OER being more relevant to teachers, but updating resources to ensure they remain current is a daunting task.
I had a difficult time finding resources that had clear authorship. Did anyone else encounter this problem? There was no easy way to verify the credentials of many of the authors, other than using my own previous knowledge of a subject.
Thanks for mentioning the AASL best sites of 2011 list, Teresa. As most of you may remember, I had the founder of CK12, Neeru Khosla, fly out to RI to speak to the legislative commission we have to study ebooks in RI schools and she mentioned that AASL list in her intro. Powerful stuff. She even got a chance to show us the next generation of CK12's material. All I can say is, imagine having a eTextbook for your class and on any page the teacher is able to record a screencast explaining a concept or drawing on the text... my words can't do it justice. You just have to see it. Should be coming out of beta by January, so keep on the look out.
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