Tomorrow I will give a presentation on “Open and Collaboratively Developed Education Resources” at the 2009 Gobal Forum on Innovation and Technology in Teaching and Leading in Dubai. So that presentation attendees don’t have to take copious notes (and so that others can benefit as well), I’ve decided to post links from my presentation here!
Just in case you’re wondering what open education resources (OERs) are… Wikipedia defines OERs as “educational materials and resources offered freely and openly for anyone to use and under some licenses to re-mix, improve and redistribute.” I like to think of OERs like a delicious cookie recipe–Sara passes her recipe to Michiko. Michiko decides to add dark chocolate chips to the recipe and passes the recipe along to several people over the Internet. Mustafa gets a hold of the recipe and decides it would benefit from some rock salt and an egg yolk. He then posts the recipe for others to see… and so on! Just replace the cookie recipe with a lesson plan, an educational video or a collaboratively developed unit or other resource and you’ve got yourself an OER!
There are several fabulous OER projects that are 100% worth checking out if you are looking for lessons, eager to share resources or interested in collaborating on education projects with people around the globe:
- FreeReading–a K-3 open source literacy curricula program and community
- Curriki–a community of educators that share K-12 multilingual OERs with people across the globe
- MIT Open Courseware–with over 1000 free college courses online, this one is NOT to be missed
- Open Learning Initiative–sponsored by Carnegie Mellon, take a look at the site’s tutors, virtual labs, intro courses and more!
- Connexions–Based out of Rice University, the site contains content in the areas of arts, business, humanities, math and tech and social sciences
- CK-12–if you are look for free full textbooks, this site is a must-bookmark!
- OER Commons–more wonderful K-12 and higher ed OERs! Do a search for OERs and you’ll find a ton of useful background information on using and finding OERs
Finally, if you are interested in finding teachers to collaborate with on OERs or other cross-border initiatives, make sure to spend some time on:
- The Global Education Collaborative–“a community of teachers interested in global education”
- ePals–connect with thousands of teachers and students around the world on collaborative education and volunteer projects
- Curriki groups–create or find a group that interests you and start building and exchanging OERs
Enjoy,
PS Don’t forget to think about copyrights when you use and post OERs! To find a flexible license for your intellectual property, take a look at the Creative Commons!
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Literacy is Priceless 
Oh I see. Congratulations.