Tag Archives: OER

I Have Seen the Future — and it includes Open Educational Resources (OER)

OER, Open Educational Resources, Professional Development, Schedule Development,

What are OERs?

Open educational resources (OER) are digital materials that can be re-used for teaching, learning, research and more, made available for free through open licenses, which allow uses of the materials that would not be easily permitted under copyright alone.[1]

A key part of OERs is that they are  available under a Creative Commons License which permits the re-use and even re-mixing of educational resources.

There are a number of repositories available providing a range of resources from learning objects through to complete courses. Here are some examples:

Wikieducator

BCcampus’ Shareable Online Learning Resources

National Repository of Online Courses

OER Commons

Open Courseware Consortium

YouTube.com

To see more about what I’ve written about Open Educational Resoures, enter OER into the search box on the top right of the screen.

Pearson Introduce OpenClass

MathXL, OER, Open Educational Resources, , , , ,

Some interesting developments in online education platforms. Pearson Publishing who provides the MathXL platform I use for teaching online is introducing OpenClass. It is a new kind of learning management system that is offered through the ‘Cloud‘ via Google Apps for Education.

OpenClass will be offered free of charge. A beta version is supposed to be available October 18th. Pearson’s model is to provide and charge for curriculum content. However, other content providers will also be able to make use of the platform.

For more details see the press release here. See their website at http://www.joinopenclass.com. A promotional video, without much in the way of details, is available here.

This development could very well be the ‘game changer’ Pearson claims it to be. The demand for online learning continues to grow, here in BC and around the world.

I Have Seen the Future — and it includes Open educational resources (OER)

Schedule Development, SD2011,

I have been asked to give a brief, five minute, presentation on Open Educational Resources (OER) at our school’s welcome back event. Let’s start out with what are OERs?

Open educational resources (OER) are digital materials that can be re-used for teaching, learning, research and more, made available for free through open licenses, which allow uses of the materials that would not be easily permitted under copyright alone.[1]

A key part of OERs is that they are available under a Creative Commons License which permits the re-use and even re-mixing of educational resources.

There are a number of repositories available providing a range of resources from learning objects through to complete courses. Here are some examples:

To see more about what I’ve written about Open Eduational Resoures, enter OER into the search box on the top right of the screen.

New Mathematics Resources for Developmental Educators

Schedule Development, SD2011, ,

On June 30th, I participated in webinar presentation on the National Repository of Online Courses’ new developmental math online materials. I blogged about this earlier. See http://faculty.camosun.ca/martinbuck/2011/03/01/nroc-focus-group/ for background info.

The project’s website is http://www.nrocmath.org. A recording of the webinar is available at this link. You may also download the slides.

These media rich materials may have some application to our fundamental level learners at Songhees. I will be following up in the coming days about piloting the materials at Songhees.

Essential Skills for Fundamental and Intermediate Math Learners

Essential Skills, Mathematics, Open Educational Resources, ,

As part of my 2011 Schedule (Faculty) Development time, I’m looking at linking Camosun’s Fundamental Math (021 through 039) and Intermediate Math (052 through 057) learning outcomes to the Human Resources and Skills Development Canada’s (HRSDC) numeracy essential skills. The former are provincially articulated here in British Columbia.

Some other resources that may prove to be helpful are available below.

Google Essential Skills Fundamental Math

Google Essential Skills Numeracy

What is clearly missing is a link between Open Educational Resources and Essential Skills. A google on those terms brings up mostly references to things I’ve written on the topic.