Open Education Resources of Note

“The advent of the Web brings the ability to disseminate high-quality materials at almost no cost, leveling the playing field…We’re changing the culture of how we think about knowledge and how it should be shared and who are the owners of knowledge.“ Cathy Casserly, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

This week we put together a list of our favorite Open Education Resources on the Bon Education website.

For those of you that are new to OERs…

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.”

Our OER page contains:

• A definition and explanation of OERs
• Links and descriptions of great OERs (by grade level)
• Stories about how people around the world are using OERs
• Information on OERs and copyrights
• Quotes from major education movers and shakers on the impact of OERs and technology in general on education

Take a look! We hope you will enjoy the resources and information presented! Let us know if there are any resources that you think should be added to the list.

Anna

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Beyond Just Language Arts: Science and Math Tools for ALL Educators

Recursive Daisy (by gadl)

While my posts tend to be about literacy and reading technologies, I feel like it is time to mix it up a bit. After all, most literacy teachers I work with often teach reading within science and math themed units of inquiry and many math and science teachers I meet find themselves teaching basic literacy and language skills as well.

So, today’s post is devoted to useful math and science resources for educators of all types! Take a look at the links below and prepare to be dazzled!

• GLOBE Teacher Resources: “GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) is a worldwide hands-on, primary and secondary school-based science and education program. GLOBE’s … supports students, teachers and scientists to collaborate on inquiry-based investigations of the environment and the Earth system working in close partnership with NASA and NSF Earth System Science Projects.” For a sneak peak at what GLOBE has to offer, click here for a bird migration monitoring activity and here for an activity using GPS!
• Skoool: Select your country and have at it with the wealth of science and math simulations on Skoool. I am rather fond of the Skoool Sri Lanka Math, Chemistry, Physics and Biology English-language resources. I work with a number of Arabic speaking teachers that are huge fans of the Skoool Yemen Arabic-language science resources. For a taste of Skoool, check out this angle measuring simulation.
• MSP2 Math and Science Pathways: I recently spoke with the folks at MSP2 and was blown away by the wealth of resources here. Make sure to take a look at the Math Resource Guides and the Science Resource Guides. While on the call I learned about Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears–an online magazine integrating science, literacy, and the polar regions. Woohoo! Anything about the cold sounds wonderful to me (she says from 110 degree plus Dubai)!

If you know of other great resources that integrate math, science and literacy, please share them in the comments section of this post!

Enjoy exploring!

Anna

P.S. Looking for the perfect math and science books for your literacy, math or science classroom? Check out these thematic booklists from TeachingBooks.net. (Hint: Make sure to use the grade and curricula area search toggles at the bottom of the page to refine your selection!)

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Participation Requested: One Click Can Make a Huge Difference!

Dear Literacy is Priceless Readers,

I am writing to request your click (or rather your vote) here.

As many of you know, I am quite involved in a number of open education projects in various countries–in a nutshell projects that provide free curricula and technology resources to teachers and students across the globe.

One of the organizations I work with is Curriki–a 75K+ member community of educators that are committed to using and sharing education ideas and resources with education stakeholders across the globe. For example, Curriki has a project that is currently providing free Arabic language math and science resources to teachers in Yemen, a project to provide free curricula to teachers across Indonesia, along with various partnerships and projects in India, Bahrain, Europe, the US, etc.

Curriki is applying to get funding from the former Google Exec Paul Buchheit to build a full K-12 free curricula that can be used by any teacher in any school district anywhere in the world. In order to be considered for funding, Curriki needs a number of people to vote here (the whole process should take 1 minute max).

To learn more about the initiative and why Curriki would like to receive funding, check out this blog post.

Thanks!

Anna

PS If you happen to use twitter or if you blog, feel free to retweet and/or post this:

Your vote can help fund the development of free and open curricula! Please vote here: http://tinyurl.com/m2xn5h Feel free to RT! #OER