Thursday, April 26, 2012

OER - Open Educational Resources




I am excited about the opportunities that Open Educational Resources (OER) will bring to the table. I find them very interesting and informative. I like how they can be used by both teachers and students. The wealth of information that is out there is/can be a bit overwhelming.  No matter what you are looking for I would have to think that there is a resource dealing with just that.  There are many different sites that have OERs and OERs that cover just about everything.
 
As a learner I will use these resources to help me study.  I found sites that you can group up withothers studying the same content and ask each other questions.  I can see myself using these sites to look up and adapt lesson plans for class assignments here at Edinboro.  The sites that offer textbooks and resources like that could potentially keep students from having to purchase books.

As a teacher I know I will use OERs to plan lessons and gather information.  The fact that a lot of sites with open resources have tried, tested and approved the materials is a big bonus.  I am in awe of the amount of information and the wide range of topics that the sites I looked at covered.  The sharing of resources from one educator to another just makes sense.  I am annoyed by educators who think their material should only be used by them.  If you got something good…share it!
I think these resources can benefit students by lumping similar content together.  It will allow them to view different resources that are related to each other without having to do a new google search every time.  Research will be made easier.



 

I can see real benefits to Open Educational Resources.  While most of them are online school districts and even teaming groups can benefit from this same principal of sharing information.  Making “what works well” available to the masses will only benefit schools, teachers and students.  Teachers have a huge opportunity to make a difference, and not just in their own classroom.
I am excited to use/benefit from Open Educational Resources!
Some of the neat and useful sites I found are:




 

No comments:

Post a Comment