In this section, we will introduce you to free education tools called Open Educational Resources.
Open Educational Resources, commonly referred to as OER’s, are free and openly licensed educational materials.
OERs are used by students, instructors, and anyone who has a desire to learn about a particular topic. The many benefits of using OERs include a significant cost saving to students, immediate access to course materials, and more course content due to the growing “bank” of materials that are available to them.
The content of OERs are items that have been generously donated to be reused and remixed as needed.
OER’s reflect the idea of the 5Rs: retain reuse, revise, remix and redistribute. These were coined by David Wiley and are the cornerstone of the OER movement.
OERs are available as complete textbooks, courses, lectures, images, class activities, and many other teacher resources for anyone to utilize.
As you design your own stories and content, you may find that you want to deliver this material in multiple ways, beyond traditional methods. Using these non-traditional methods to design your stories and content can make it more accessible to students compared to the traditional method of delivery.
If you don’t have time to create your own high-quality materials, perhaps you can locate pre-existing OER’s to help you convey important concepts.
There are many options available to you that include vetted, scholarly, and multimedia-rich resources from a wide array of disciplines that cost nothing other than proper attribution. SUNY Open textbooks and OER services is a wonderful support and resource that is available to assist faculty in getting started on the journey of locating, adopting and implementing OER’s.
This MOOC will introduce you to many OER services as well as catalogs that will allow you to search for content. Or even give you a place to publish your own creations!