Assignment for an OER class

1. Open Educational
Resources (OER)
What I learned spring 2015

2. What and When are Open Educational
Resources?
 Educational material or materials used to enhance education
 In public domain or licensed to permit free use & re-purposing
 Any medium is possible
 Available on-line so use… whenever
 Can upload your work on line…whenever

3. Who makes OERs?
Who uses OERs?
 Anyone!
 Schools have set website of free courses to educate anyone in the world
 Individuals, including students can license their work
http://creativecommons.org/

4. Where can you find them?
 Easy to use site abound depending on type of materials desired
 Check out http://www.openwa.org/find-oer/
Hit the down arrow on the screen and a wealth of open texts appear
 Check out Project Gutenberg for classic books http://www.gutenberg.org/
 Check for “public domain and creative commons licensing on other sites

5. Benefits of OER
…other than already listed
 Accessible by the entire world!
 Quick circulation of new projects
 Decrease cost$$$ for learners
 Ties alumni to institutions
 Contributes to free lifelong learning
Augments regular in classroom

6. Drawbacks of OER
 Verifying material are truly open access resources
 Keeping OER texts, videos, images current with state of the art teaching
 What is the free content is poorly written, presented, or downright inaccurate?
 Dependent on grants and soft donation sources for updates
 On-line learning with no opportunity for student teacher interaction
 Cultural or language barriers/misunderstanding with world learners
 Technical issues- some students may have poor internet connectivity
 Courses may require software students cannot afford