Tag Archives: OER

OER: Open Educational Resources primer

photo-1443745029291-d5c27bc0b562Leave it to Edutopia to give us an excellent primer on open educational resources or OER. OER has become quite the buzz acronym recently but did you know it’s basically FREE stuff you can use in your classroom or library?! Technically, “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.” We like FREE things too!

But OER isn’t just about consuming, it’s about contributing to the repository too! Edutopia has you covered there, giving you ideas on how you can get some of your lesson plans, ideas, and materials added to the network.

Read all the details about OER and how you can get started contributing to them!

Image credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/cF6fz9QwfrY (William White), licensed under CC0

Amazon launches OER platform for K-12

photo-1453814279372-783dc5b638aeRecently the School Library Journal shared that Amazon is in the process of launching a new platform that will allow K–12 schools to upload, curate, and share open education resources (OER). SLJ reports that the site, called Amazon Inspire, is currently in beta and is expected to go live in two to three months and will be free of charge.

While exciting and new, the announcment drew many educators/librarians into a discussion about the pros and cons of such a service. Although free, how will Amazon use the information and data it gleans from users is one question. Hack Education’s Audrey Watters’ piece about those issues struck a cord with many who thought that Amazon’s true aim is ultimately about making money.

Regardless, CMLE is excited more OER resources are being made available to educators. How about you? Will you use Amazon Inspire? Why or why not? Are you currently using other OER services? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

Image credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/R-HXWCbCBGU (Alex Holyoake), licensed under CC0 1.0

Minnesota is part of a K-12 Curriculum Collaborative

color_pencils01Open Educational Resources (OER) are in the news and Minnesota is part of an 11-state coalition setting out to create resources to support math and English/language arts in K-12 schools. The materials will be released under a Creative Commons Attribution license version 4.0, meaning that the materials can be freely copied and redistributed in any medium without additional cost.

Interestingly, studies show that the quality of teaching and learning improves when teachers are closely engaged in developing, assessing, and continually improving their learning materials.  This Collaborative appears to be a win-win for Minnesota for two reasons: 1) It supports local control, which is monumental in Minnesota, and 2) it could provide high-quality, low-cost ways to help students meet learning standards.

Read the following blog post to read more about this effort, including the deadline and process for being considered as a content developer. Go Minnesota!

Go to this link to see how Minnesota is involved and what the other 10 states and supporting organizations have to offer too!

Image credit: http://tinyurl.com/ogazd4l, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0