Krista's Tech Tidbits

Open Educational Resources

September 19, 2010

This post is cross-posted from my contribution to WWW on Technology Integration in Education. Enjoy!

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/4383230458/

As the Internet weaves its way into most homes and schools venture into the 1-to-1 arena, there is a hot topic that keeps coming up. That topic is textbooks! Will they stay? Better yet, should they stay? I, personally, am not a big fan of traditional textbooks. They take too long to publish and print, they often contain errors, and they are always out of date! However, I do think it is important for teachers and students to have reliable text to access for their academic work. This brings me to this week’s topic – Open Educational Resources.

According to Wikipedia, Open Educational Resources are “materials that are freely available for use, remixing and distribution.” While this is a very broad definition and I always recommend reviewing the terms of use on any site, it gives you the big picture. Open Educational Resources are free resources, typically on the Internet, that are available to the end user. The benefit for you as a teacher is the ability to bring in up-to-date information from around the world with the click of a button.

There are many examples out there as this trend continues to grow, but I want to focus on a couple of my favorite for you to check out!

HippoCampus claims to be “Your Free One-Stop Educational Resource.” It is full of content, problems, quizzes, electronic textbooks and much more. It covers Algebra (English and Spanish), American Government, Biology, Calculus (English and Spanish), Environmental Science, Physics, Psychology, Religion, Statistics, and US History. Academic Earth states that it contains “Online degrees and video courses from leading universities.” Imagine showing your students an overview or segment of a topic explained by an MIT Physics professor. With a shift in pushing College Reading Standards, I think this is a definite must see!

MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Education) and OER Commons (Open Educational Resources) are both great resources for searching for ideas, lessons, and online resources to cover specific topics. I will say that these two sites can be overwhelming if you visit them without a specific topic in mind. For example, if I search for Astronomy at OER Commons, I will receive 2, 267 options to work through. However, if I search for stars, it narrows down to 101 options. You can continue to narrow the search with keywords and by choosing material types.

The four sites featured this week, will definitely help you find new content, material, and/or lessons for your classroom! I challenge you to visit at least one of the sites and look for new information for your classroom! As you explore and learn more about Open Educational Resources, I hope you will leave us a comment and share your finds!

Entry Filed under: blended learning,TIE WWW. Posted in  blended learning ,TIE WWW Tags: OER.