Literacy is Priceless has Moved – Check dotLearnt.com

[tweetmeme]After 3 years of writing Literacy is Priceless, I am officially retiring this blog and moving my education technology digital diary and passion for digital literacy to a new blog – dot.Learnt and a new digital sketchbook.

As my company’s website states:

Fall 2010: Bon Education launches dot.Learnt–a group blog written by team member and guests of Bon Education. dot.Learnt takes on topics at the intersection of education, technology and social media. It is a reflection of the work and thinking Bon does in the Middle East, North America and Asia. To visit dot.Learnt click here. Recent posts include:

• Coke is It! Why All Educators should be Mass Marketeers
• 9 Pearls of Techno-Wisdom
• What Makes an Online Community Work?
• Amateur Love
• Listening to the Web

Thanks to the thousands of educators and literacy-lovers that have read and left comments on this blog. You have challenged my thinking and opened my eyes to so many wonderful resources and stories. I hope that you will find the content, research and reviews we share on dot.Learnt useful. Please feel free to stop by, leave a comment and add us to your RSS reader.

Sincerely,

Anna

Founder, Bon Education, @bon_education, personal sketchbook on education annabatchelder.com/ideas.

Digital Tools for Homework Help

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Research shows again and again that parents have a have a huge impact on student achievement in school and throughout life (Becta 2009, Henderson and Mapp 2002, Simpson 2001). In their recent report, “A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family, and Community Connections on Student Achievement,” the Southwest Education Development Laboratory (2002) points out that regardless of demographics, children with involved parents are more likely to (1) pass their coursework and earn higher grades, (2) attend school regularly, (3) socialize more easily with their peers and (4) graduate and go onto university.

In the spirit of helping parents get involved during homework time, Bon Education created a Digital Tools for Homework Help group on Curriki to support educational resource exchange between educators and parents. The hope is that the resources shared within this group will help parents get excited during homework help time, as well as save time and stress.

Check out the group Curriculum tab to see a wealth of homework help resources including:

• Age Appropriate Educational Sites for Elementary and Secondary School Students.
• Internet Search Tips for Finding Homework Help Resources in a Snap
• Open Education Resources of Note – Free Educational Content that Can be Shared, Mixed and Modified.

I welcome you to join the Digital Tools for Homework Help group and to invite other parents and teachers to join as well. Please feel free to add additional useful resource using the group Curriculum tab. You are also welcome to use the group Messages tab to contact other group members with questions and ideas!

As you think more about parent engagement, take a look at my last blog post that includes a great video about parent engagement by Henry Jenkins, Director of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies Program.

Cheers,

Anna

Chief Education Officer

Bon Education

@bon_education

Inspiring Guys to Read!

[picapp align=”center” wrap=”false” link=”term=books&iid=7095050″ src=”f/0/f/1/Jensen_Button_Book_41cf.jpg?adImageId=7672872&imageId=7095050″ width=”234″ height=”329″ /]

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When I was working as a product manager for FreeReading, one of the questions I consistently heard from educators and researchers at literacy conferences and in the classroom is, “Where can I find books that appeal to teenage boys, especially books for striving teenage male readers?” Having just discovered Guys Read a couple of days ago, I wish I could go back and revisit those old conversations and point the people I spoke with to the Guys Read Virtual Vault of Good Books.

As the Guys Read website points out:

Research shows that boys are having trouble reading, and that boys are getting worse at reading. No one is quite sure why. Some of the reasons are biological.  Some of the reasons are sociological. But the good news is that research also shows that boys will read — if they are given reading that interests them… This is the place to come if you’re looking for something to get a guy reading. We’ve collected recommendations from teachers, librarians, booksellers, publishers, parents, and guys themselves.  These are the books that guys have said they like.

Finally! The site we’ve all been asking for!

When you visit Guys Read, make sure to check out:

• Books that Guys Read—recommended reads categorized by topics such as Outer space, but without aliens, How to build stuff, Classics that actually hold up and more!
• More Stuff for Guys—including free downloadable bookmarks, bookplates, etc.
• Start a Guys Read Field Office—info on how guys can read, rate and recommend books.

If I had to give one recommendation to Guys Read, I would request longer book reviews and a section of the site devoted to notes from guys in the field including book reviews and summaries written by male readers so that guys (and gals) would have a better sense of what each recommended read is about.

Regardless, this is a fabulous resource that is a must-bookmark for guys and literacy enthusiasts alike! Thanks to author and Brooklyn resident Jon Scieszka for starting Guys Read. This site is most certainly filling a huge need!

From a former Brooklynite who now lives in Dubai,

Anna

@bon_education

Transforming Learning with Innovative Uses of Technology

This morning I read, “The Digital Promise: Transforming Learning with Innovative Uses of Technology” by Jeanne Wellings and Michael H. Levine–a white paper that I highly recommend reading if you are looking for rationale to support the integration of technology and edtech PD within your school.

To summarize, the article points out that when technology is skillfully integrated into school curricula, the benefits are many:

• Technology supports student achievement. (ISTE 2008)
• Technology builds 21st century skills. (ISTE 2008)
• Technology engages students in learning and content creation. (America’s Digital Schools, 2006)
• Technology increases access to education, virtual communities, and expertise. (ISTE 2008)
• Technology fosters inclusion. (Apple Inc. 2009)
• Technology helps prevent dropouts. (Smink & Reimer, 2005)
• Technology facilitates differentiated instruction. (Apple Inc. 2009)
• Technology empowers learning and research in critical STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields. (CEO Forum, 2001)
• Technology strengthens career and technical education. (Apple Inc. 2009)

And, if that is not enough to make you want to brush up your school technology plan, think about this and ask yourself how comfortable you are with media:

A Kaiser Family Foundation study, “Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year Olds,” confirms the immersion of American children in contemporary media. The average child spends over six and a half hours per day engaged with various types of media,  television, movies, music, electronic games, and computers. Over one week this equates to a full-time job with a few hours of overtime (Rideout, Roberts, and Foehr, 2005).

Wow! To find specific examples of resources and innovative things you can do as an educator to promote student learning via creative and engaging uses of technology, check out the blue call-out boxes throughout the report!

For more practical and easy-to-read research on the impact of technology and digital media on children’s learning, visit the Joan Ganz Conney Center. You won’t be disappointed!

Anna

@bon_education

Internet Copyright: Be in the Know!

I just posted the blog entry below on the Curriki blog and suspect that the LIP community will find it of use as well. To see the original post, click here.

Recently on Twitter, I posted a link to “Copyright and Open Content: What do you know?”—a lesson by Curriki member Karen Fasimpaur. Not only did the link get RTed seemingly hundreds of times, but it also got a record number of clicks indicating that Internet Copyright is a topic of interest to members of the Curriki and edutweeter community alike.

As I am sure many of you have discovered in the past few years, being able to mix and mash digital content in new and interesting ways is a definite requisite of the 21^st Century. So, before you or your students post another report, blog or multimedia presentation online, make sure you know the answers to the following questions:

1) If you have drawn a picture, written a song, or taken a photo, you own the copyright (even if you don’t put a © symbol on it).

• True or false?

2) What do you have to do legally to use a copyrighted work in something you’re going to post to the Internet?

• Copy and paste it.
• Cite the source.
• Get the creator’s permission.
• Nothing

3) You can use any picture on the Internet legally in something you’re going to publish.

• True or false?

4) How long does copyright last?

• 10 years
• 50 years
• the life of the creator
• the life of the creator + 70 years

5) You can’t legally use anything copyrighted without contacting the creator and getting permission.

• True or false?

Check your answers here and check out Karen’s fabulously useful lesson on how to teach students about copyrights and open content here (assessment included!). Make sure to download this one-page overview of open licenses for future reference as well!

When it comes to Internet Copyright, it only takes a few minutes to learn your rights and responsibilities. Start learning now! And when you finish going through this lesson, click on over to the Creative Commons website to find a license for your next digital masterpiece!

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, Karen’s lesson is licensed under the Creative Commons Attributions 3.0 license.

Thanks Karen!

Anna

@bon_education

Ideas for Before/During/After Reading!

“I Love to Read” Image by Carlos Porto

I recently came across a fabulous article by Jim Burke on Reading Rockets titled, “103 Things to Do Before/During/After Reading“. Given that I am about to lead several workshops on reading and digital literacy for parents at the Magrudy’s Education Resource Center, Jim’s article will surely be on my recommended reading list for moms and dads.

Upon clicking the above link, you will notice Jim’s article was originally written in 1998. While that might seem like ions ago to some, rest assured, the recommendations are still 100% relevant. That said, I thought it would be useful to create a supplement to Jim’s article that includes a few ideas on how recent software and web applications can be used to get kids excited and thinking about what they read Before/During/After a book!

Take a look at the ideas below and feel free to add your own in the comments section of this post!

“Postcard: Write to a friend, the author, or to a character about this book.”

• Select one student to be a character in the book you are reading and to write a blog post from that character’s point of view. Other students can then submit questions and ideas to the character via the comments section of the post. To learn how to set up a blog for this project, click here.

“Mapmaker: Draw a map of the book’s setting.”

• Have students create a Google Lit Trip–using Google Earth to document and map the settings within the book at hand. To learn how to use this tool, click here.

“Trailer: Movie previews always offer a quick sequence of the best moments that make us want to watch it – storyboard or narrate the scenes for your trailer. Focus on verbs.”

• Create a movie trailer in the form of a digital story using tools like VoiceThread or iMovie. For tips on how to get started, click here.

“Collage: Create an individual or class collage around themes or characters in the book.”

• Use Wordle to create a digital word collage around key themes, characters or vocabulary in the book.

“Draw! Translate chapters into storyboards and cartoons; draw the most important scene in the chapter and explain its importance and action.”

• Create a digital comic strip book summary using tools like Make Beliefs Comix.

“Dear Diary: Keep a diary as if you were a character in the story. Write down events that happen during the story and reflect on how they affected the character and why.”

• Have students create delightfully illustrated diary entries using the online collaborative storytelling tool Storybird.

“Haiku/Limerick: Create one about a character.”

• Use Twitter to share poems with parents and classmates.

“Notes and Quotes: Draw a line down the middle of the page. On one side write down important quotes, on the other comment on and analyze the quotes.”

• Create a collaborative “wiki-style” notes and quotes page using Google’s collaborative document tools. Feel free to host online book discussions using the live chat functions within the collaborative document applications.

Of course there is nothing wrong with a good ol’ fashion book review assignment, but why not share the reviews with other kids around the world? Check out the Spaghetti Book Club: Book Reviews By Kids For Kids.

Happy Reading!

Anna

Twitter: @bon_education

Website: Bon Education

In American a Kid Drops Out of High School Every 9 Seconds…

Imagine if they didn’t.

And so goes the opening statement of the above documentary. I have to wonder what the dropout statistics are for India, Sri Lanka, the UAE…

Visit the homepage of the above documentary and you’ll learn:

This is the compelling question behind award-winning filmmaker Mary Mazzio’s newest project Ten9Eight, a thought provoking film which tells the inspirational stories of several inner city teens (of differing race, religion and ethnicity) from Harlem to Compton and all points in between, as they compete in an annual business plan competition run by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE).

I hope this film makes it out of the States and to other countries that face the challenge of high dropouts, keeping schools relevant and keeping the classroom inspiring! As President Obama recently stated:

I am calling on our nation’s governors and state education chiefs to develop standards and assessments that don’t simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test, but whether they possess 21st century skills like problem-solving & critical thinking, entrepreneurship and creativity.

To see where Ten9Eight is showing this fall, click here.

Just imagine…

Anna

@bon_education

UAE Educators Speak Out!

Recently I asked Bon Digital Learning Academy graduates and educators across the UAE what their favorite education technology tools and websites are. See what they had to say below:

1) Maram, Grade 9 English teacher, Nad Al Hamr School, Dubai, UAE

• Reading A-Z: “I like it because it supplies me with a lot of different kinds of leveled books, short stories, vocabulary, grammar, phonics and lesson plans. I let my students read stories related to the themes I teach and I use the worksheets and quizzes supplied on the website.”

2) Kim, Teacher Development Specialist, Shamsa Bint Majid Preparatory and Secondary School, Umm Al Quwain, UAE

• LearnEnglishKids (British Council): “I can easily find stories from this site for middle school students.  The stories are of different levels and cater to differentiation, which is really important since all our classes are of mixed abilities. These stories are animated and teachers can pause at any point to allow students to interact through questioning.  Moreover, students can read and hear the words being read at the same time. I normally use stories from here as a launching pad to teach new vocabulary items,grammar, LSRW skills and also visual literacy… The story on Eid Al Fitr … has a task where student can write about their favourite day and post their writing online.”

3) Rob, Instructional Leadership Coordinator, Al Deya Middle School, Umm Al Quwain, UAE.

• “My popular choice is, of course TEDtalks–a primo site with amazing material for teachers to listen to and learn from.  Much of it is far too difficult for our students (but perhaps the translations might help too.) I also like utilizing YouTube for material to take into class.  but we have to be careful, especially here with selection of ‘appropriate’ materials…As Chair of TESOL.org’s Social Responsibility Interest Section, I frequently post websites for my colleagues on our elist.  Two recently posted sites include Amazing Women Rock and ePals Team Earth.

4) Asma, Special Education Consultant, Dubai, UAE

• The International Reading Association and Read Write Think: “Both sites are loaded with information on how to promote, support and encourage literacy and reading across age groups.  They provide evidence-based practical tools for parents & teachers, lesson plans, and many more resources that are sure to be very helpful at home and in the classroom!”

5) Kevin, Grade 4 Primary Years Teacher/Education Consultant, GEMS World Academy/KDSL

• MyMaths.co.uk: “Mymaths provides educators and students with online mathematics games, tasks, and homework. I have used the variety of online lessons and games during math workshop to engage my learners and as a source of differentiation where students selected mymaths.co.uk for their learning contracts.”

6) Robin, Ph.D., Professor, Director of Graduate Studies, Zayed University

• TeacherTube: “This site has a variety of features, from lesson plans to videos of classrooms at work.  I find the videos particularly helpful in letting student teachers see particular strategies in practice before they try them in their practicum classroom. The sight also includes a variety of podcasts.  Teachers can also contribute their own materials to share with educators around the globe.”

What are your favorite education websites? Share your thoughts and feedback in the comments section of this post! And, thanks to the educators above for sharing their favorite education websites with the Literacy is Priceless/Bon Education community!

Sincerely,

Anna

Founder, Bon Education (home of the Bon Digital Learning Academy)

Finding and Adding High Quality LEGAL Images to Your Blog or Website

[picapp src=”0/f/4/1/Nelly_Furtado_Joins_b167.jpg?adImageId=5184487&imageId=6469858″ width=”500″ height=”333″ /]

NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 14: Nelly Furtado reads a book to a group of children during the Jumpstart Read for The Record 2009 launch event at the Borough of Manhattan Community College on September 14, 2009 in New York City. (Photo by Donald Bowers/Getty Images for Jumpstart)

Today while reviewing the WordPress.com blog for the latest and greatest updates, I came across a post titled, “Free Access to Premium Images“… Wow! What a find!

Finding free high quality legal images for blog posts and websites can be a challenge, especially if you live in a part of the world where websites like Flickr are many times not available. That is why I often rely on my own images, free stock photos or WikiMedia Commons for images to spice up my writing and online blog reports.

Thanks to an update on the WordPress.com blog, I now have another source to rely on for high quality free and legal photos: PicApp. As the site About page states:

We have over 20 million premium images, editorial and creative, covering any imaginable category—from news, sports, to celebrity, travel fashion and more.

Our content partners include Getty Images, Corbis, Splash News, Pacific Coast News, Newscom, Image Source and more. We support the largest blog platforms: WordPress, Blogger, TypePad and more.

Eager to see what PicApp has to offer, this morning I created an account (which took only 10 seconds!) and started exploring for pictures of my favorite actors, topics and more. A quick search for “reading” revealed loads of photos of famous and not-so-famous people doing what we know is so important to do–reading!

Next time you are need of images that are legal to post on your blog/website, stop by PicApp! To see how to use site, watch the video below! To learn what you can and cannot do with the images, click here.

Anna

Twitter: @bon_education

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Make the world a better place!

What idea do you believe will help the most people?

I recently learned about Google’s 10 to the 100th initiative:

Last fall we launched Project 10^100, a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible. Your response was overwhelming. Thousands of people from more than 170 countries submitted more than 150,000 (or around 10^5.2) ideas, from general investment suggestions to specific implementation proposals. As we reviewed these submissions, we started noticing lots of similar ideas related to certain broad topics, and decided that combining the best aspects of these individual proposals would produce the most innovative approaches to solving some very pressing problems.

The result is the list you see below of 16 “big ideas,” each inspired by numerous individual submissions. Which ones should we make happen? You tell us. Your vote for one of these ideas will help our advisory board choose up to 5 projects to fund, at which point we’ll launch an RFP process to identify the organization(s) that are best suited to implementing them.

As a huge supporter of open education resources, I voted for idea #7 “Make educational content available online for free”. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every child or adult that wished to learn something could find high quality educational materials online or on their mobile to pursue their passions for free?! Furthermore, wouldn’t it be wonderful if those resources were organized in a way such that they were easy to find and immediately useful…

To cast your vote, click here. (Note: Voting ends October 8, 2009.)

To free knowledge!

Anna

P.S. I just posted a poll on the top right side of this blog. I would greatly appreciate your feedback. Thanks for reading Literacy is Priceless.

Digital Storytelling in a Nutshell

I just published a blog on Curriki that I think Literacy is Priceless readers will find useful. To see the original post, click here. Or, continue reading below. –Anna

If you are looking for a project to build your students’ communication and digital literacy skills, why not have them participate in a digital storytelling project?! As this excellent introduction to digital storytelling by Curriki member Robin Surland points out:

Digital storytelling consists of a series of still images or video images, combined with a narrated soundtrack to tell a story. Many times an additional music track is added to invoke emotions.

Once, you’ve reviewed Robin’s excellent backgrounder, you’ll be ready to take a look at the link Curriki member Anne Leftwich posted here that provides in-depth information on how to create a digital story. Thanks Anne!

Need help visualizing the process before you get started? Here’s “How to make a Digital Story” in a nutshell:

• Determine what personal experience you wish to present in your story. If you need a bit of help selecting a topic, try filling out this worksheet on the seven basic elements of a digital story by Indiana University.
• Select images that you wish to display in your story. Beyond your own digital photos, Flickr (creative commons licensed images) and OpenStockPhotography are useful places to find images to accompany your narration. Indiana University has a nice template that will help you storyboard your ideas.
• Draft a 3-5 minute script to accompany your images.
• Select music (optional). ccMixer and Open Source Audio are two places where you can find large quantities of open music. Make sure that the track you select allows you to share and remix the original music. For example, click on the cc box featured on the left hand side of this audio. You should be directed to this page that tells you exactly what you can and cannot do with the track.
• Note: If you find this whole copyright thing confusing (i.e., What images and music from the Internet are you allowed to use legally in your digital story?), the Creative Commons website has lots of great advise. The Wanna Work Together video is particularly helpful.
• Pull it all together! Create a final storyboard that clearly shows how your images, script and music will all fit together. Indiana University has provided a useful template for this.
• Select which software you are going to use to create your digital story. Here is a list of possibilies. Voicethread is another nice tool for this. To learn how to use Voicethread, watch this YouTube tutorial.
• Produce your digital story!
• Share it with others! (The fun part!)
• Create a digital storytelling assignment for your students and share your lesson plan with others in the Curriki community here.

For more detailed information on digital storytelling, take a look at the Digital Storytelling Cookbook from the Center for Digital Storytelling. Or, take a moment to watch the YouTube video above (created by Stanford’s Teacher Education Program).

Have fun and feel free to share additional digital storytelling resources in the comments section of this post.

Anna

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On October 8, 2009 Celebrate Literacy and Early Education with Millions Around the World

I recently received an email from Jumpstart about the wonderful literacy event above. See what Kisha has to say below and make sure to open a book with your children and the children of others on October 8th (as well as the rest of the year as well)!

To Reading!

Anna

Hey there,

Just from reading your site, I can tell you know the importance of developing
solid reading skills and improving reading comprehension in classrooms and
schools.

Please join Jumpstart’s Read For The Record on October 8th, 2009 and
celebrate the joy of reading with children. I’d truly appreciate you sharing
this message with your readers, by posting this PSA from Weeds’ star
Mary-Louise Parker on your website.

Read for the Record
www.readfortherecord.org

Link to Mary-Louise Parker Jumpstart PSA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8agDSSiiDAA

Thanks in advance,
Kisha

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Are Textbooks Going the Way of the Dinosaurs?

I recently posted a blog on Curriki that I think Literacy is Priceless readers will find of interest as well. So, here it is…

Anna

Not likely, but thanks to the Internet and social media tools, the traditional model by which textbooks are written, produced, distributed and updated just might be!

In a recent post by Dan Misener on Spark, he writes:

So how is digital technology affecting on the textbook business? According to a New York Times story from this past weekend:

Many educators say that it will not be long before they are replaced by digital versions — or supplanted altogether by lessons assembled from the wealth of free courseware, educational games, videos and projects on the Web.

As more and more players enter the digital textbook and open educational content space, it is interesting to see the variety of strategies, platforms and styles of digital textbooks and textbook alternatives that are sprouting across the Web. Here are a few to sink your eyes, ears and creative sharing, mixing and remixing juices into:

• Flat World Knowledge (FWK): Looking for free and open college textbooks online? Take a look at FWK’s catalog and course listings to start browsing. If reading on a bright screen is not your thing, FWK gives you print, audio and self-print PDF options, as well as numerous mixing and remixing tools to customize your “text” to your needs. To learn more about FWK’s business model, listen to this interview with Eric Frank (FWK co-founder).
• CK-12’s Flexbook Tool: As the website states, “CK-12 Foundation is a non-profit organization with a mission to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the U.S. and worldwide. Using an open-content, web-based collaborative model termed the “FlexBook,” CK-12 intends to pioneer the generation and distribution of high quality educational content that will serve both as core text as well as provide an adaptive environment for learning.” For a sample of what Flexbooks look like, take a look at these resources on the human body. Or, if you’re feeling ambitious, start creating a Flexbook today!
• Curriki: California is pioneering an experiment with free high school digital textbooks. Curriki has two science books—chemistry and earth science—in the running, and is calling on science teachers to make these open source books the best they can be. That means you! Click on the curriculum tabs on the aforementioned chemistry and earth science links to get started! Or, if high school science is not your subject, search for digital textbooks and textbook alternatives here! Feel free to share your own content too!

Obviously there are a lot of great digital textbook and textbook alternatives out there beyond the three above. Leave a reply below to share you content and favorites!

Curriki

Note: The image above is a public domain work and can be found in its original form on Wikimedia Commons.

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Essential Web Tools for Teachers and Students

After two weeks of merrymaking while on holiday in Greece and Turkey, I am back online and supercharged for the 2009-2010 school year. While the holiday gave me a chance to satisfy my desire to read literature (The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera) and hear chick lit (Breathing Room by Susan Elizabeth Phillips via iPod) while on long bus rides and overnight trains across the border, I came back with a strong thirst to resume my ritual morning combing of the web for interesting finds in the fields of education, technology, literacy and business.

While I was offline, Mashable posted two fantastic lists of back to school apps for students and teachers. Make sure to take a look at the full lists on Mashable and my highlights below!

Back to School: 15 Essential Web Tools for Students. My favorites on the list include:

• Evernote–A note-taking and organization tool for the 21st century student (and teacher). This is a great tool for helping students stay organized, remember homework and compile research.
• Google Docs–Why use pricey Microsoft Office when you can use Google’s free collaborative spreadsheets, better-than-wiki docs and wonderful form/survey tools? If you like to assign group projects, this is a tool your students will most certainly find useful to stay organized and in touch during and after school hours.
• CiteMe–An automatic tool for creating APA, MLA, etc. citations… Need I say more?!

Back to School: 10 Terrific Web Apps for Teachers. My favorites on the list include:

• Curriki–Your one-stop-shop for free and open curricula and K-12 online resources and lesson sharing tools. Make sure to check out the new subject focused pages for ELA, Math, Science and Social Studies! The new browse page is very useful too!
• Shmoop–Resources and study guides for ELA, history and more! Learn how teachers are using Shmoop here and read my past blog about Shmoop here!

May your school year be filled with many awesome educational apps and organization tools!

Anna

P.S. Thanks to Jenny Krueger for sending me the above two Mashable links while I was away on holiday! These are two posts not to be missed!

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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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