Sharing Resources & Practicing Open Learning

Teachers can find and use Open Educational Resources (OER) using the internet. I like how Roberts and Noble summarize their article by stating that teachers understand and emphasize the importance of “sharing is caring”. I have learned throughout this program that teaching is a team job and you really do work together with your colleagues and administrators quite closely. If you are looking for good OER you can ask your colleagues, coworkers, administrators or reach out to professionals in the field to find new sources.

I already believed that OER can be more beneficial for learners than using textbooks. I think Kimmons provides excellent examples of possible limitations of textbooks “1) It may not be written at a reading level appropriate for classroom students; 2) It  may  not  be  organized  in  a  manner  that  aligns  with  state  standards  or  with scaffolded learning in the subject area; 3) It  may  not  include  supplementary  resources  that  can  be  useful  for  students  and teachers,  such  as  meaningful  practices,  quizzes,  lesson  plans,  classroom  activities, rubrics, and so forth; 4) It may not be written in a manner that allows teachers to easily integrate the material into   diverse   classrooms   in   response   to   cultural,   community,   or   geographic  considerations or to individual student needs “ (Kimmons, in press).

I learned from the Wiley reading that the copyright licenses of OER allow everyone to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute. These are otherwise known as the 5 R’s.

I hope to compile a list of OER incase I need them one day as a teacher. This week I have seen the value of OER and learned ways to find them.

Reflective summary: I believe I have covered all the learning outcomes in my optional activities and by doing this blog post as my final activity it really brings them all together. The act of blogging and sharing my learning online with others connects to “Develop an awareness of the potential of human-centered learning in online and open learning contexts”.  From the weekly reading I can check off “Explore and engage with current literature on the distributed and open education movement”. I wrote about alternatives to hard copy textbooks which related to the outcome “Critically reflect on and articulate concepts around modality, pedagogy, and access, including distributed and open learning theory, online and open learning history, privacy laws, online learning communities, open research, and open data.” and also touched on how OER can be more inclusive which relates to “Examine and reflect upon the potential for equitable access for all learners in online and open learning contexts.” Blogging is also a form of digital networking so this activity also connects to “Practice digital, networked, and open literacies in support of learning about distributed and open learning”.

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