OER: Day Four

Submitted by Susan Cowles on Wed, 05/14/2014 - 23:21
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Posted on behalf of the AIR/OER team

Welcome to Day 4 of From Inquiry to Practice: A Guided Exploration of OERs in Adult Education.  Determining if a resource is an OER or not can be tricky if you don’t have much experience doing so.  If you recall from the Day 1 discussion, there are many resources available for classroom use that are free, but not open.  As mentioned previously, free resources are valuable, and we are not suggesting that you do not use them.  We are encouraging you to learn about, use, and create OER in addition to the other resources you already use.  The greatest value in resources that are open is that open resources allow users to remix and revise the content (see Tuesday’s discussion).  This provides the opportunity for users to take a great resource and modify it to match student needs and instructional objectives.  Today, we would like you to explore a few resources and determine for yourself whether the material is open.  First, watch this short video for tips on how to determine if a resource is open. If you are unable to access the video, click here for the PowerPoint.  Then, follow at least two of the following links and respond to the discussion questions below (please be sure to reference the resource you are writing about in your post).  If you are curious about another resource you have found or have used, you are welcome to share it, include your responses to the questions below, and we will do our best to comment to each posting. 

Links:

-        Open this link and review material on the page:

http://www.cteonline.org/portal/default/Curriculum/Viewer/Curriculum?action=2&view=viewer&cmobjid=177979

-        Open the link below and click on the first video: CC.8.EE.4 - Work with radicals and integer exponent:. http://secc.sedl.org/common_core_videos/grade.php?grade=8&category=Mathematics

-        Review this glossary: http://www.coerll.utexas.edu/coerll/coerll_glossary

-        Review this lesson: http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/adulted/lessons/lesson58.html

 

Questions for each resource that you select and review from the list above:

 Is this resource open?

How do you know?

If you determine that a resource is not open, what value would be added if it were open?

 

Comments

I couldn't get through the first link w/o a login... but the second resource has "terms of use" that say I can use them for educational purposes only unless I get permission. It doesn't say anything about revising and remixing (tho' it also doesn't say that it must be used with any particular fidelity to the original presentation).

I couldn't find any terms ofuse for the last one, but the "all rights reserved" at the bottom would seem to cover that and make it "not open."

I have to think about whether/how much it would bother me if I put materials together  which I knew worked best in a particular way, but might be "adapted" in a way that would make me cringe...