Open Education Week!

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Next week March 5-10 is the first annual Open Education Week!

Open Education Week is a global event that seeks to raise awareness about the benefits of free and open sharing in education, especially Open Educational Resources (OER). OER are materials, tools, and media used for teaching and learning that are licensed for anyone to use, modify, and redistribute.

The event will take place online and in different locations around the world, with opportunities to participate in webinars, discussions and live events. Participation is free and open to all. Visit www.openeducationweek.org for more information.

How can you participate?

Sharing is good!

SXSWedu and OER!

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SXSWedu is featuring a bunch of great OER sessions this year! Here’s a quick list of ones to check out.

Tuesday, March 6

10:15am – 11:15am – Hilton Rm 400/402 – Create Something from the StoryBox – Alan Levine

10:15am – 11:15am – Hilton Rm 406 – Moving Beyond Textbooks: OER in Support of K-12 Ed – Jason Neiffer

11:30am – 12:30pm – Hilton Rm 406 – $5 Open Textbooks in High School Science Classes – David Wiley

2:00pm – 3:00pm – Hilton Rm 406 – Educating Everyone: What Next for Open Education? – Larry Cooperman

2:00pm – 3:00pm – Hilton Salon D – Implementing Open Educational Resources in K12 – Jeff Mao, Pam Buffington

2:00pm – 3:00pm – Hilton Salon C – The Power of Open: Creative Commons Licensing and its Impact – Cathy Casserly

3:15pm – 4:15pm – Hilton Rm 406 – OER: Share, Remix, Learn – Karen Fasimpaur

Wednesday, March 7

9:00am – 10:00am – Hilton Rm 406 – Making OER that is Easy to Find, Adapt & Translate – Katherine Fletcher

10:15am – 11:15am – Hilton Rm 406 – Let’s Build a Collaborative Learning Space – Karen Fasimpaur * Hands on – Bring your own device

11:30am – 12:30pm – Hilton Rm 400/402 – How Digital Content Fosters Customized Learning – Neeru Khosla

11:30am – 12:30pm – Hilton Rm 406 – The Future is Now: Mobile Open Education Resources – Sandy Khaund

2:00-3:00 – Hilton Rm 406 – Integrating OER into a Strong Instructional Model – Lindsay Bellino, Marc Nelson

3:15pm – 4:15pm – Hilton Rm 406 – Developing a Culture of Sharing – Philipp Schmidt, Karen Fasimpaur, Alan Levine, Jim Groom

Thursday, March 8

9:00am – 10:00am – Hilton Rm 406 – Is Open Content the Future of K-12 Education? David Wiley, Larry Rosenstock, Louise Waters, Neeru Khosla

10:15am – 11:15am – Hilton Rm 406 – Employing OER Evaluation Tools – Jennifer Childress, Lisa McLaughlin

P2PU School of Ed Announces March Courses

The P2PU School of Ed is happy to announce a new round of free, open-licensed professional learning groups for educators that will start March 5. These courses are available for sign-up now:

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Student Grant Writing – A group for high school teachers and students interested in writing a grant to fund a local school project

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Empower Your Personal Learning — Taking control of your personal learning is an important 21st century skill — for students and for educators. In this group, we’ll explore new ways to empower your own professional learning and how to get started.

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Writing and Inquiry in the Digital Age — Join a National Writing Project study group seminar as we explore these questions together and share our work and inquiries with the NWP Digital Is community.

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Effective Use of Multimedia and Graphics — Participants will explore and apply techniques and strategies to foster deeper learning using multimedia and graphics.

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Global Classroom Collaborations – Elementary — Elementary teachers from around the world will discuss, design, and establish collaborations between their classrooms.

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Global Classroom Collaborations – Secondary — Secondary teachers from around the world will discuss, design, and establish collaborations between their classrooms.

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Connected Learning with Youth Voices — A study group that supports teachers who are beginning to or who would like to use Youth Voices as a place for their students to post work, comment on their peers’ posts, and participate in connected learning on the site. Youth Voices is a school-based social network that was started in 2003 by a group of National Writing Project teachers.

School of Ed is about hands-on learning driven by each educator’s particular needs and classroom situations. It’s about connecting, collaborating, and creating, not just reading or studying. You can sign up for occasional updates on the School of Ed here.

State moves to open textbooks

This week Utah announced a major initiative to use open textbooks in K-12, thanks to the efforts of Dr. David Wiley.

This move is significant for a number of reasons.

  • It saves money.
    This isn’t trivial in these times of budget crisis and cutbacks. Less money spent on instructional materials can mean more money spent on teachers.
    Utah’s pilot program has demonstrated the cost savings possible from the use of open textbooks.
  • Technology is optional.
    Utah’s pilot was based on printed textbooks. You don’t have to have one-to-one, or any technology for that matter, to realize the type of gains they’ve demonstrated. Of course, if you take high quality materials and expand their interactivity with technology, you’ll probably see even better results.
  • Learning outcomes are not adversely affected and could be improved.
    Utah’s pilot program showed that simply substituting open textbooks for proprietary ones did not impact learning outcomes. Of course, many of us believe that giving teachers a greater ability to remix content to differentiate instruction can significantly improve instruction. Bottom line, though, it’s more about the teacher and the learning environment than the instructional materials.
  • State endorsement means a lot.
    There are many barriers to innovative instructional materials adoption. Bureaucratic procurement processes is one. Fear of trying anything different in these days of accountability is another. Utah bypassed a lot of this by not only supporting this project but by actively endorsing it, “encourag[ing] districts and schools throughout the state to consider adopting these textbooks for use beginning this fall.” Kudos to the state and all those who made this happen.

It’s time for more states to become active in encouraging the use of open textbooks and other open educational resources. It’s good for schools; it’s good for teachers; it’s good for kids; and it’s good for the public. Open licensing is a wise use of public funds.