"OER's are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge." William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
This week we'll stray from the usual format and work completely from this blog entry and the assignments/readings on the syllabus.
Start with this video. I know that most of you have already gone through the OER Commons Tutorial, and that should have really given you a good overview, but watch this video. The speaker gives you some additional 'quick' resources to gain more of a solid foundation on the concepts. As he goes through resources, pause the video and try to recreate his steps.
Next, I'd like you to watch this video on the impact of 'open' on teaching and learning:
- Now I'd like you to read a little more about "How Resources are Organized" w/i OERcommons, then pore through the rest of the instructions to help you more easily find useful and practical Digital Content.
- Once you've finished with the dull stuff from # 1, you can then dive in and really get to use this resource. The only realistic way to get familiar with Digital Content that is free to use is to jump right in, so for the next hour or so, I'd like you explore the OERcommons site. (Ideally to find material that is practical for your setting.) Once you've had your fill, share out under the 'comments' link below the Session 3 posting. Let us know what you found, what your impression is, and forecast what this trend will mean for your workplace setting.
- When you are done with posting your comments, I'd like you to begin exploring the link below. Dozens, if not hundreds, of colleges and universities are now offering many of their courses for free. Through podcasts, videocasts, and free downloads of supplemental material a motivated person could acquire the equivalent of a degree, completely on their own and for FREE! Spend some time visiting the schools from this link and check out some of the free material available for your discipline. If you visit the MIT link you'll see that they have over 2000 courses freely accessible. It's mind-blowing and exciting, but be careful not to spend too much time there. Every time I visit this site, 2-3 hours disappear in the blink of an eye.
- Now if this all scares you a little or you feel a little intimidated---that's justified. I'm sure that you have a lot of questions. The biggest concern I hear is about the quality of the information. We'll go into more detail about that in the next few sessions, but for now think about how many teachers stray from the textbooks in their class and instead use high-quality, credible information that they have screened using their professional judgment.
Now think about how much information teachers have in their heads. If they took the time to write it out, and share it freely with the world, we would have a tremendously powerful tool.
Well, that's probably more than enough information for this week. If your eyes aren't going buggy by now then spend the rest of your time trying to exploring the different colleges linked from #3. See if you can find one to use in your educational setting.
You'll notice in the syllabus I had you read a little snippet or two on CK-12.org. I had hoped to cover some of them this week, but I was afraid that I'd overwhelm you. You'll notice that I have been 'polling' you to see how much time your spending going through these resources each week. I'm trying not to overwhelm, while at the same time, I'm challenged with giving you enough information for you to gain a solid foundation. I'll take another poll this week about the workload and will adjust each week's load accordingly. Please keep the suggestions coming.
Good luck and as always please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Dave Fontaine
DaveFontaine1@gmail.com
15 comments:
The first OER video led me to a site of great interest to my community college librarian self:
http://oerconsortium.org/
I am on a project team at my library that is exploring ways we can use e-readers to deliver content to our students - either by creating content that they can download to their own devices, or developing a lending program where we would check out devices to our students that are pre-loaded with selected resources, or both. This site gave me some exciting ideas, both for library research content and collaborating with other departments with the library as the facilitator.
Since purchasing apps is difficult under our college purchasing policies, the more free resources we can get through sources such as OER, the better.
I came across another great site through the commons that could transform the way I teach my library research course on Blackboard:
http://www.oercommons.org/courses/creating-ebooks-for-distance-education-case-study/view
It allows you to convert your existing course content into e-book format. I'm thinking that students might appreciate having the information available in this familiar format, which they can take with them after the course ends.
I'm looking forward to viewing this week's comments and checking out sites others are recommending.
And if any of you have suggestions about our e-reader project, I'd love to hear from you! We just received an iPad 2, Kindle, Nook, and perhaps one more whose name is escaping me.
You could easily get lost in this site. I found some very good ideas for next year, some full lessons http://www.oercommons.org/courses/energy-hog/view and some simple ideas (physically having my students cut their stories apart in order to add more detail “Story Surgery.") I found the ‘Top Keywords’ on the right to be really useful, just click on a word for instance ‘Poetry’, and you are offered a whole new set of lessons and ideas. This would be a useful for many of my teacher friends at the primary level as we have been getting away from text books for the past ten years. Unfortunately some of the links are no longer working for example: http://www.oercommons.org/libraries/nasa-ksnn-what-is-force/view but it is to be expected that any site such as this, cannot test and update each and every link. I sent the OER feedback about the broken link and received an immediate automatic reply with a user name. However, I have yet to get a reply to my feedback. This is an excellent resource and as I have said, I will be introducing to other teachers.
I really like the OER Commons websire and I am so glad that I signed up. It's exciting to have those resources available! I found a few good things for high school foreign language, but not anything about my biggest challenge, teaching the preterite versus the imperfect tense. Students really struggle with that. Sadly, I didn't find anything on those two tenses even independently from each other. Ah well. I guess it really is up to teachers like me to take the time to contribute to OER to expand their offerings.
When reading about the CK-12 organization, I noticed that they had said that one of their biggest challenges (besides contextualizing content locally) is changing educators' minds and getting them to contribute.
Regarding changing educator's minds and getting them to contribute . . . I was thinking about this while exploring the commons.
On the one hand, it's great that there are so many free resources out there. On the other hand, I was reminded of when newspapers started making their content available for free online beginning in the late 90s. Consumers got used to the idea that information should be free and became resistant to paying for it. Now a lot of users don't distinguish between a site that aggregates information, such as the Huffington Post, from those who employ highly skilled reporters who create original content, such as the New York Times.
I wonder if some of the resistance is related to a concern about not being compensated for creating content?
Wow! The OER commons is an amazing resource! Almost seems too good to be true! I think what appeals most to me about OER is the impact it potentially has to even out the playing field for students and teachers around the world. I absolutely love the global aspect, and it reminds me that we are truly no longer limited to the four walls of our classrooms/libraries.
I think one of the reason's teachers may be hesitant to contribute, in addition to the one's others have posted, is time. I can only speak for myself, but I have a hard time simply trying to keep up and process the amount of information we now have access to. I'm wondering if contributing OER content were somehow included with our professional goals each year, might be the push teachers need to test the waters. Then again, that might completely push some teachers right over the edge! :)
We are focusing a lot on student leadership in my K-5 building, and I was happy to find some 2nd grade lessons & resources that would enhance that initiative.
I think having good time management skills is going to be more important than ever for teachers as the OER movement continues to grow! So exciting, but it can definitely become overwhelming too!
Wow, time does slip by as one goes through all the content at OER. I am finding many things I wish to try in class. The Into the Book materials will be my first attempt when the school year starts again. It seems to have the best mix of online student activities, teacher support and regular classroom materials to use. I did find it quite amusing that so many of the areas I looked at list overhead projectors and transparencies for materials! I do miss my overhead math manipulatives.
I agree with what people are saying about the time and compensation for creating content. While I love teaching, face-to-face eventually I would like to teach digitally (from anywhere in the world). BUT I will still need to pay some bills and eat so I am wondering how all this will play out. That being said, the leveling of the playing field and the access for those who previously can’t afford quality materials, not to mention the waste of time, money and effort that goes into the traditional textbook adoption cycle are all good reasons to stop looking at the negatives and start thinking about some ways to make it happen and get others on board.
The first lesson I stunbled on at the OER Commons website was about using Windows MovieMaker in the high school English classroom. I've been meaning to learn more about MovieMaker for a while now, so I was excited to check it out. It was a really great source. The explanations of how to use the program were helpful, but what I really loved were the links to sample student projects made with MovieMaker. I watched a hilarious student-made Hamlet movie trailer, and an even more hilarious report about the Trojan War-complete with students reenacting battles at the playground. This is definitely something I'd like to try next year.
The rest of my time exploring the OER Commons site was a mixed bag. I looked for resources related to specific novels I teach, and found that I was getting only a few lessons for each text. The lessons I found were good, but I wish there had been more. I'll definitely try to do my part by trying to submit some of my own work and advertising the site to my colleagues.
I also found some interesting resources for teaching writing, and found some cool editing and revising activities that I'll try next year. Overall, it;s an intriguing site, and I'll definitely visit it again.
I am enamored of the idea of a collaborative venue for teachers. While I was surfing the many pages of the math work on OERcommons, I noticed that many of the lessons I visited were not rated, or edited from their original submission. This leads me to wonder about how much collaboration is actually going on, or is this just another site that compiles lesson plans? Even though I look on-line a lot for new lesson ideas, I had never heard about OERcommons before this class. So, perhaps there has not been enough time to see the collaboration come to fruition on a major scale (?).
I did find several lessons I plan on adopting and a great link to a math logic website with thousand of grade level questions that are presented in multi-choice form – this will work as a great warmup for my classes next year. And if I have access to a smartboard, a great review or math-fun day activity for teams of players.
I have recently been asked to serve on a junior high curriculum development committee in my school. We are investigating ways to differentiate our program to be dedicated to 21st century learning – OERcommons and ebooks are definitely ideas that I am going to suggest to my committee members. How cool would it be if every teacher published just one lesson? The process of changing our curriculum to embrace the learning style of this tech-native generation is daunting in many ways sharing our lessons and using those others have made, could make the process more manageable.
There have been a lot of comments about why teachers would not share their work. Marla, I think you are right, for some the question is – [is] it worth the time and effort if you are not getting paid to do it? Kathleen I find your comment “ When reading about the CK-12 organization, I noticed that they had said that one of their biggest challenges (besides contextualizing content locally) is changing educators' minds and getting them to contribute.” more telling with respect to teacher participation . I think there is a change in culture that will have to take place in order that the education community to embrace the idea. I wonder if the hesitance is less based the thought of compensation and more a thought of “how good is my stuff?” This venue is asking us to put our professional reputation on the table for anyone to scrutinize. That is scary! Additionally, after all the time we might put into carefully constructing a lesson – it is not easy to consider that others can make it better and then be willing to allow them to do so. There is perhaps a lesson we can take from the wiki discussion in session 2 – the idea of improving and expanding the knowledge is intended in the best interest of anyone who accesses it.
“Open is against closed” - loved that line from the second video, Impact of open on teaching and learning. I need to find that on a poster for my wall.
I see the Open Educational Resource movement as a great leap forward in education, as resources become digitized and shared, even if they are only shared within the school or the district. It’s all about communication and that is never a bad thing. The OER Commons has a wealth of information and I found it to be well organized. I found the “My OER” tool very easy to use for saving and organizing resources I found and suspect contributing to the collection would be easy also. The Community College Consortium has lots too! I need to get back to the “Training” page later on.
I believe the OER movement and resources like the Commons and Consortium sites help to keep school librarians in plain sight. Not all information is created equal, and free doesn’t always mean good, and as technology use explodes in our schools librarians are needed to not only guide students and teachers to accessing the best resources, but evaluating and using them appropriately as well. (See last week’s session on literacy.) My school is also putting a 1:1 Ipad pilot program into place this September and trying to get Moodle off the ground. This summer and in the coming year I’ll be busy purchasing, compiling and organizing digital resources, particularly for the teachers who will be using the Ipads, and entering them into our catalog or the library’s Moodle course page.
Back to “open is against closed.” We still have a long way to go at my school, as far as technology goes, but I am excited at the prospect of my library catalog being online, having more digital content in the form of e-books available outside of school, and having a Moodle course with links to good information for the students and faculty. The library will never be closed!
As far as teachers and other education professionals using these sites - I think all of the above mentioned reasons are valid - lack of time, lack of compensation, suspicions as to the quality, etc. I think that some teachers lack computers skills and are unsure of how to access and use these materials. And I think some are just not interested. I feel the culture of the individual school and education in general is ready to make the shift, however. This year there seems to be an awful lot of adopters, doesn’t there?
I agree with you Leslie - the Librarians will pay a key part in any program embracing OER philosophy. Students need more training about using web resources, discerning valid sources, and on-line etiquette. I am very fortunate in our library team which has embraced and supported any project I have tried with their time, effort and their resources- stocking our ebook files with books that would be relevant to my math projects.
I totally have to agree with all of those who commented on how easy it is to get lost in the open resources sites!
Earlier in the year I had actually been looking at some of the Yale Open Courses. Given the prestigious universities that are making content available, it does seem inevitable that the availability of materials for K12 educators will continue to expand. My school district has told teachers that there will be no more text books purchased, I'm thinking that my district is not an aberration, this is happening in many places. Also given the budget crunches, the push is going to be for finding more open content.
I know that there were several reasons given for teachers not posting content. I really think that the biggest one is going to be time. Almost every teacher I know has a number of killer lessons or projects. Almost every teacher is willing to share those with others, and I really don't think that they are going to be that concerned with people adding to the projects. I am active on LM-NET, the list-serv for school librarians. There are frequent requests and shares of lessons on that site and many times others offer changes to the various lessons. Collaboration seems to be a common theme in education right now, and I see that as being very helpful for open source content being shared. Most of the teachers in my district are constantly having time issues in trying to keep up with all of the work that they need to put in in the course of the school year. And to be honest, what may be the actually biggest block, may be that teachers don't even think about adding content. Maybe we need to start and promote a national "Add A Lesson Plan/Project/Content Day" for teachers. Or we could just promote it within our own settings.
There is one area that I could also see expanding in the near future, that of Common Core tags. This seems to one of the hottest topics in our district and state right now. In perusing the OER tags, Common Core tags are pretty limited. There are a number that are post-secondary offerings. Almost all the other items with that tag are from the New York City Department of Education.
I absolutely love the idea of OER Commons. What incredible potential we have, if people share their resources and ideas! When I first began to explore OER Commons, I tried browsing through the age group I teach. I was discouraged and reluctant to post, because I didn’t care for the content I found, either because the content did not relate to what we do or because it didn’t seem substantive. A soils unit that I shared with a 2nd grade teacher in our system said that they already do an activity like that.
However, when I applied better strategies of searching, doing an advanced search in the age group for a specific topic, I found some great ideas. I found two videos that give information about Mt. Pinatubo and volcanoes as well as some Filipino folktales that will work well with a Philippines exchange unit that I have developed.
I think that as the OER movement continues to grow, it could be a great resource for the schools where I teach. Just imagine if people nationwide share their curriculum work for the Common Core! I know that I will definitely use the OER Commons to help find additional web resources too.
Oops, I meant to say that I shared a soils unit with a 2nd grade teacher and SHE said that they already do a similar activity.
Anyway, in our school system as we modify our curriculum to align with the Common Core, we are striving to focus on more student-centered learning. If there were to be an effort as someone mentioned to have a special day when people strive to share something via OER Commons, I'd really like to see things that are more student centered.
Lots of interesting information provided from the OER site. The amount of information provided is definitely overwhelming. I do the majority of my planning during the summer and tweak little pieces as I teach throughout the year. I cannot imagine trying to view this material while teaching at the exact same time. It would almost be enough to turn a vast majority of educators off.
It is very useful to have the variety of filters to limit the scale of material available. I did a few searches for interactive material I could adopt in the "not quire ready for geometry" geometry class I teach.
There was some great information about statistics where I could borrow from some of the college courses to reinforce that the AP class is a college class taught in high school.
Amazing wealth of information...problem is overload at the moment. :)
I will be sharing this site with the members of my math department since they had resources already aligned with the new Common Core State Standards.
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