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AI, Instructional Design, and OER

Iterating Toward Openness

And, because you’ve got to play the hits, let’s look at what their impact will be on OER as well. Current funding for the creation of OER (when it’s available at all) typically focuses on the courses enrolling the largest number of students.

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What does an OER lesson plan look like?

Hapara

K-12 schools and districts turn to open educational resources (OER) for their flexibility. When you search for OER, you can find already-created lesson plans or other resources to add to your own class plans. Let’s look at the benefits of using an OER lesson plan and what it looks like.

OER 290
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Faculty are Losing Interest in Adopting OER

Iterating Toward Openness

The authors then explain these results as follows: There has been a notable increase in the amount of faculty creating and using OER since 2018 (see Figure 39). Which would lead to an eve greater overestimation of OER use.

OER 169
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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? First, OER are free for anyone to use. That’s right — OER textbooks don’t cost money. You don’t have to physically store OER textbooks.

OER 163
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OER / ZTC Advocates Have an AI Problem

Iterating Toward Openness

At some point over the last decade, open educational resources (OER) advocacy in US higher education became zero textbook costs (ZTC) advocacy. ” OER / ZTC advocates have largely succeeded in turning a blind eye to the courseware elephant in the room.

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On the Relationship Between Adopting OER and Improving Student Outcomes

Iterating Toward Openness

This article started out with my being bothered by the fact that ‘OER adoption reliably saves students money but does not reliably improve their outcomes.’ Leveraging the “No Significant Difference” Effect for OER Advocacy.

Outcomes 187
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An OER curriculum brings my students’ lives into our classroom

eSchool News

That’s why I’ve turned to open educational resources (OER). I’ve been using an OER science curriculum called OpenSciEd for five years, and it has completely revolutionized the way I teach. Related : How to find, curate, and assess OER 5 steps to implement OER in your LMS.

OER 103
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A New Model for OER Sustainability and Continuous Improvement

Iterating Toward Openness

I’ve been interested in sustainability models for OER for decades. And for just as long, I’ve believed that there are useful lessons for us to learn on this topic from open source software – OER’s far more popular and influential sibling.

OER 147
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OER 3.0: K-12 Teachers in Michigan Are Creating and Using Deeply-Digital, OER Curricula

The Journal

OER – Open Education Resources — will play an increasingly important role as schools move to 1-to-1. In this week’s blog post, we describe OER 1.0, OER 2.0 and OER 3.0. Examples of OER 3.0, deeply digital curricula, created by Michigan K-12 teachers, using the Collabrify Roadmap Platform, will be highlighted

OER 150
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Some Thoughts about OER Research

Iterating Toward Openness

Student: I’ll study whether students learn better with OER than with traditional course materials! ”, see this article where researchers from OpenStax “demonstrate that even if there is a learning benefit of [increasing access to] OER, standard research methods are unlikely to detect it.” You’ve likely crossed over into the realm of OER-enabled pedagogy.).

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The Fans, Fanboys, and Fanatics of OER

Doug Levin

and I am merely a fan – not a fanboy – of open educational resources (OER).** Others surely see me as some sort of OER fanatic. After all, I’ve advocated for federal support for the development, use, and adaptation of OER (see, e.g. , the May 5 Education Week story by Sean Cavanagh, “ ‘Open Educational Resources’ Promoted in U.S. So, if these are the actions of someone who is an OER fan, what stops me short of claiming fanboy status?

OER 297
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Introducing the CARE Framework for OER Stewardship

Doug Levin

In a post of nearly two years ago (“ OERwashing: Beyond the Elephant Test “), I argued that the OER community lacked a reliable way to assess new entrants to the OER field, especially for-profit organizations, in terms of their support for openness and OER community values. It is for that reason that I am pleased today to introduce the CARE Framework for OER Stewardship. “The Care Framework for OER Stewardship.”

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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. For several years I have used a shorthand definition of OER as “free access plus permission to engage in the 5R activities.” Consider the following scenarios: A person downloads an OER to their laptop.

OER 118
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Some Thoughts on the UNESCO OER Recommendation

Iterating Toward Openness

There’s great news out of the recent UNESCO meeting in Paris, where member states unanimously adopted the draft Recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER). Regardless of what other individuals, institutions, or organizations may think or say, UNESCO is the creator of the term “open educational resources” and, as its creator, UNESCO’s definition of OER is the canonical definition. This dramatically simplifies understanding what is and isn’t OER.

OER 153
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Course Hero Quietly Took Over Hosting Lumen’s OER Content. They Say It’s No Big Deal

Edsurge

They were trying to prep summer courses by linking to the freely available, openly licensed alternatives known as Open Educational Resources, or OER, content offered by Lumen Learning, a courseware provider that argues that OER can be a tool in making higher education more equitable.

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Why This Professor Believes OER Can Make STEM More Inclusive and Affordable

Edsurge

For some folks in higher ed, the very idea of using open educational resources (OER) sparks dread. The right OER provides professors opportunities to teach the latest research and even make areas like math and science more inclusive.

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ECM #149 OER: Teaching Without Traditional Textbooks

The CoolCatTeacher

Award Winning Science Teacher Amy Pace Shares How She Uses OER Textbooks Amy Pace is a Presidential Award winning science teacher. She is using “free” OER textbooks for all her courses. OER stands for Open Education Resources which are often curated by experts via grants and other means. Visionary states, districts, and schools might find a money-saving resource with OERs. The Utah Open Textbook project teams up top teachers to curate and create OER textbooks.

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Reducing Friction in OER Adoption

Iterating Toward Openness

Last week I promised I would write a few posts about reducing friction with regard to OER. In last week’s post I talked about how we’re making it ridiculously easy for students, faculty, and others to contribute to the maintenance and improvement of OER.

OER 106
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Expensive Textbooks Are Still A Problem. Will Higher Quality OER Help?

Edsurge

These days low-cost alternatives known as Open Educational Resources, or OER, are getting a boost as a potential solution. Officials plan to make an OER Statistics 101 course available by 2023. Cost savings are not the only benefit to OER , according to proponents.

OER 126
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Gooru.org: Making it Easier to Use OER

The Journal

Gooru.org is an OER marketplace with 5,000,000+ open education resources. But, most excitingly, they are posting "just" 35 full courses that teachers can "copy and customize." We applaud gooru.org for taking this major step in providing support for teachers who are trying to #GoOpen

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Big step forward for the K-12 OER Collaborative

K12 Open Ed

The K-12 OER Collaborative has taken a great step forward as Karl Nelson has agreed to join the organization full-time as of later this month. For those unfamiliar, the K-12 OER Collaborative is a state-led initiative involving 12 states and other organizations working to develop core, free, openly-licensed K-12 math and ELA curriculum aligned with state college ready standards. EdTech Update Uncategorized K-12 OER Collaborative OER

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K-12 OER Collaborative enters next phase

K12 Open Ed

Last week, the K-12 OER Collaborative entered the next phase of their project, awarding contracts for rapid prototypes to the following developers: edCount LLC. As a refresher, the K-12 OER Collaborative is a project to create comprehensive CCSS-aligned curriculum for grades K-12 math and English Language Arts that is open licensed under a CC BY license. This may be the one of the important opportunities for OER, blended learning, and CCSS we’ve seen to date.

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5 Reasons to have OER and Open Up Resources on Your Radar

Teacher Tech

Have OER and Open Up Resources on Your Radar Guest Blog post by Shaelynn Farnsworth OER or Open Education Resources has been around for over 20 years. Previously, OER was more prominent in higher-ed, but awareness of OER continues to grow across the nation in PreK-12 settings. The post 5 Reasons to have OER and Open Up Resources on Your Radar appeared first on Teacher Tech. Guest Post OER

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The Real Threat of OER

Iterating Toward Openness

He writes, “While to an OER advocate faculty are mere pawns to their agenda, to publishers, faculty are critical partners in academic success.” ” The overwhelming majority of OER advocates are faculty, and they have become OER advocates for two reasons. However, the second reason faculty have become OER advocates – and more of them are becoming OER advocates each day – has less to do with price and more to do with empowerment.

OER 150
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Schrodinger’s OER

Iterating Toward Openness

” Stephen’s fears of conversion are possible in part because his definition of OER begins with access: Access is most frequently left off the definition of OERs, and yet is the most important. It appears that he means that any copy of an OER placed outside your reach ceases to be OER (constituting the “change in the conditions related to the resource” mentioned above). When someone asks “is such and such resource an OER?”

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SABIER Makes OER Work in K–12 Classrooms: A Conversation with Dan McGuire

The Journal

In this week’s blogpost we explore the Minnesota Partnership for Collaborative Curriculum, a group of Minnesota educators dedicated to creating and disseminating quality, OER-based curriculum. And we have a Q&A with the founder of SABIER, a nonprofit that provides support services to schools who are adopting OER-based courseware, like that produced by the MPCC

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Thinking about OER as core curriculum

K12 Open Ed

As I’ve mentioned, I’m in the midst of a series of interviews with states and districts to explore how they adopt core curriculum and what factors might be especially relevant to those looking to have OER adopted as core curriculum. This has interesting implications for OER.). Uncategorized curriculum K-12 OER Collaborative k12oer2015 OERCredit: Kayla Galway.

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What is OER Commons and How Can it Be Used to Teach? Tips & Tricks

techlearning

OER Commons is an open source of free resources for educators to use as they need

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Some Very Bad News about the UNESCO OER Recommendation

Iterating Toward Openness

I recently wrote a brief essay about the wonderful new UNESCO OER Recommendation. For those of you who don’t want to read the full analysis below, here’s the key takeaway: Imagine what would happen if making copies of OER was illegal. The tl;dr.

OER 146
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Teachers Creating and Curating OER-Based Curricula: An Example from Tullahoma City Schools

The Journal

Expanding the conversation around "Reinventing Curriculum": In this week’s blog post, Superintendent Dan Lawson explains how his district is creating OER curricula. Dan's post is a thought-provoking response to our earlier blog post about the challenges teachers face in creating OER materials

OER 273
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Maha, the Path to OER-Enabled Pedagogy, and Technological Determinism

Iterating Toward Openness

Among other things, the post discusses her role in my decision to abandon the phrase “open pedagogy” and adopt the phrase “OER-enabled pedagogy.” To make this easier for future scholars looking for a (relatively) short description written from my own perspective, here is the tl;dr of the process by which I adopted the term “OER-enabled pedagogy.” OER-enabled pedagogy does nothing of the sort. oer-enabled-pedagogy

OER 113
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OER-Enabled Pedagogy

Iterating Toward Openness

At the Hewlett OER Meeting last week over a dozen people spent another hour talking about the issue during the unconference time. Some definitions are centered on OER. What teaching and learning practices are possible (or practical) in the context of OER that aren’t possible when you don’t have permission to engage in the 5R activities? You may find the idea of OER-enabled pedagogy utterly uninteresting.

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Enhancing OER to Improve Learning

Iterating Toward Openness

One of the defining features of open educational resources is permission to engage in revise and remix activities with regard to OER. While those permissions make it possible for us to change and improve OER, they do nothing to tell us which OER to spend our time and energy improving – or how to improve them.

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Thoughts on Continuous Improvement and OER

Iterating Toward Openness

Recently I’ve been doing both more thinking and more roll-up-your-sleeves working on continuous improvement of OER. And this process of making OER more effective every semester – also known as “continuous improvement” – is where we see some of the most exciting opportunities to collaborate with faculty. Once we’ve identified that content, we invite faculty to Shine by contributing their expertise to the improvement of OER. Analyzing the Effectiveness of OER.

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S3: A Holistic Framework for Evaluating the Impact of Educational Innovations (Including OER)

Iterating Toward Openness

I wanted to include a reading summarizing my current thinking on ‘evaluating the impact of OER’ in the course, so I’m letting some thoughts spill out below. In the past I’ve written frequently about how we evaluate the impact of OER use.

OER 169
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Questioning the OER Orthodoxy: Is the Commons the Right Metaphor for our Work with OER?

Iterating Toward Openness

At OpenEd18 I gave a presentation titled “Questioning the OER Orthodoxy: Is the Commons the Right Metaphor for our Work?” After this brief discussion, I asked “what if the commons is the wrong metaphor for our work with OER?” Primary among the reasons we might ask the question is this – much of what is central to the idea of a commons is exactly the opposite in the context OER. OER cannot be overused or overconsumed.

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Exploring the Nexus of OER and Educational Technology

Doug Levin

While increased access to the internet and computing devices has been instrumental to the growth and institutionalization of the global movement toward open educational resources (OER), technology choices (often made by educational institutions – and their vendors – on behalf of students) can serve to amplify and/or mute key features of openness. Blog OER infrastructure The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

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Memo to OER Purveyors: Teachers Don’t Want Content, Teachers Want Curriculum!

The Journal

While OER marketplaces tend to tout the amount and types of content on offer, we must remind ourselves that content is not curriculum — and it is curriculum that teachers actually want. We go on to describe the life-cycle of a digital lesson — and argue that support for all the life cycle phases is only just beginning to be provided

OER 276
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OER in 2015 – The Future has Never Looked Brighter

EmergingEdTech

Awareness has Been Slow to Evolve, but OER Appears to be Well Positioned for Growth Thanks to Numerous Encouraging Developments. Have you heard of OER … Open Educational Resources? Free Tools & Resources Future of Education Technology _ Miscellaneous Tools and Topics encouraging developments for OER OER for higher education OER in the news open educational resources for college the state of open educational resources

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The OER Adoption Impact Explorer

Iterating Toward Openness

I’m very excited to announce the launch of the OER Adoption Impact Explorer. This interactive tool lets users adjust a range of Institutional Settings to match their local context and estimate what the impact of adopting OER would be on their students and campus. (Cross-posted from the Open Education Group blog).

OER 132
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Of Sunlight, OER, and Lumen

Iterating Toward Openness

Because I can’t stop thinking about open, I’ve been pondering the relationship between solar power and OER. ”, “How can you sell OER if they’re free?”, ”, and “If OER are free, why would anyone pay you?” OER are a lot like sunlight. Are you trying to replace commercial materials with OER across an entire degree program or in just a single course? Which OER should you use, and where do you find them?

OER 112
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Beyond OER: K-12 Needs An Open Standard for 'Deeply Digital Lessons'

The Journal

OER – open education resources are a boon to K-12. But OER is a start, not an end. As K-12 moves to fully 1-to-1 and blended learning, K-12 needs to go beyond digitized versions of paper-based lessons (and proprietary formats) and develop an open standard for the "deeply digital lesson

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OER: Some Questions and Answers

Iterating Toward Openness

Earlier this week I read an op-ed – sponsored by Pearson – titled “If OER is the answer, what is the question?” OER often shine in their variety and ability to deepen resources for niche topics. While it’s possible to build a complete course from OER, the finished product often lacks the scaffolding found in courseware authored by single author/editorial/product teams. What does the Drake Equation have to do with OER production and enhancement?

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