2. What and When are Open Educational
Resources?
Educational material or materials used to enhance education
In public domain or licensed to permit free use & re-purposing
Any medium is possible
Available on-line so use… whenever
Can upload your work on line…whenever
3. Who makes OERs?
Who uses OERs?
Anyone!
Schools have set website of free courses to educate anyone in the world
Individuals, including students can license their work
http://creativecommons.org/
4. Where can you find them?
Easy to use site abound depending on type of materials desired
Check out http://www.openwa.org/find-oer/
Hit the down arrow on the screen and a wealth of open texts appear
Check out Project Gutenberg for classic books http://www.gutenberg.org/
Check for “public domain and creative commons licensing on other sites
5. Benefits of OER
…other than already listed
Accessible by the entire world!
Quick circulation of new projects
Decrease cost$$$ for learners
Ties alumni to institutions
Contributes to free lifelong learning
Augments regular in classroom
6. Drawbacks of OER
Verifying material are truly open access resources
Keeping OER texts, videos, images current with state of the art teaching
What is the free content is poorly written, presented, or downright inaccurate?
Dependent on grants and soft donation sources for updates
On-line learning with no opportunity for student teacher interaction
Cultural or language barriers/misunderstanding with world learners
Technical issues- some students may have poor internet connectivity
Courses may require software students cannot afford
