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17 things to know about K-12 OER textbooks

Hapara

Has your school district started to use open educational resources (OER) yet? But has your school district considered K-12 OER textbooks? Printed textbooks have been used for centuries, and while they still work, there are many reasons why school districts are transitioning to OER versions. .

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When is an OER an OER?

Iterating Toward Openness

tl ;dr – If a resource is licensed in a way that grants you permission to engage in the 5R activities, and grants you those permissions for free, it’s an open educational resource (OER) – no matter where you find it or how it’s being used. I have an obsession with definitions. It’s been true for decades.

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More College Students Are Downloading Course Materials for Free—Or Skipping Them Entirely

Edsurge

Use of free course materials among college students is up, with 22 percent downloading at least one such resource during the spring 2019 semester, according to research published Wednesday by the National Association of College Stores. The percent of students who reported downloading free materials has increased each semester since.

Course 153
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How to find, curate, and assess OER

eSchool News

As schools and districts try to reduce textbook costs and digitize instructional resources, one of the struggles many teachers have is finding good repositories of open education resources (OER). The first step is to know how to access OER resources. Accessing OER. You can take the course online or download it to study offline.

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?OER Researchers Don’t Disaggregate Data on Diverse Students. Here’s Why They Should

Edsurge

With course materials averaging around $1,200 per year , many colleges over the past decade have adopted open educational resources (OER) to cut costs for students. One review offers evidence that students using OER as their primary course material sometimes perform better.) This isn’t uncommon.

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'Better Every Semester': How Faculty Use Open Educational Resources to Improve Courses

Edsurge

They worked nights and weekends to develop the resource, which can be used digitally through a WordPress website or downloaded as a PDF. But OER advocates think open access course materials hold another kind of promise for students, too. They can with OER materials. Every course should be better every time it’s taught,” he says.

Course 191
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Seven advantages of using digital textbooks in schools

Hapara

Some common 21st-century skills include critical thinking, creativity, digital literacy, technology literacy, information literacy and self-direction. With digital textbooks, students learn how to use technology responsibly and pull information from a variety of digital sources.

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