A Thumbs Up to Open Up for Delivering Free, Curriculum-Scale OER
The Journal
JULY 11, 2017
Finally, OER is coming of age!
On the Relationship Between Adopting OER and Improving Student Outcomes
Iterating Toward Openness
AUGUST 31, 2022
This article started out with my being bothered by the fact that ‘OER adoption reliably saves students money but does not reliably improve their outcomes.’ ’ For many years OER advocates have told faculty, “When you adopt OER your students save money and get the same or better outcomes!”
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38 Community Colleges Share What It Takes to Launch an OER Degree Program
Edsurge
JUNE 22, 2017
And that’s been the driver behind nonprofit Achieving the Dream ’s (ATD) OER Degree Initiative , where 38 U.S. community colleges are creating full degree programs that utilize open educational resources (OER) from start to finish.
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Maha, the Path to OER-Enabled Pedagogy, and Technological Determinism
Iterating Toward Openness
JANUARY 24, 2019
Among other things, the post discusses her role in my decision to abandon the phrase “open pedagogy” and adopt the phrase “OER-enabled pedagogy.” Notes on Open Pedagogy (2016), a response to some writing by Mary Burgess and Amanda Coolidge. ” (For more detail, reference the blog posts listed above.).
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OER is Growing at Religious Colleges, But Raises Unique Challenges
Edsurge
OCTOBER 24, 2018
Communications librarian Kristen Hoffman oversees much of the OER work at Seattle Pacific University, a Christian university in Washington. From January 2006 to July 2016, the price of college textbooks increased 88 percent , according to the U.S. One course at the university is completely using OER, Whitchurch says.
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113 ISTE Highlights: Tips for Effective Blended Learning
Teacher Reboot Camp
JUNE 27, 2016
The panelists discussed current models of blended learning and provided visual examples of what these models looked like in various schools, classroom structure, open education resources (OER), learning management systems (LMS), creating flipped videos, flipped instruction , workflow, and challenges. The free version records up to 10 minutes.
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OER-based Degrees: Momentum
Iterating Toward Openness
JUNE 28, 2016
Creating and sharing OER did not harm their ability to succeed in accomplishing their core missions – the education of their students. And there are many reasons to believe that their efforts in creating and sharing OER actually advanced their core missions. 18) for the creation of OER-based degrees (see SEC.
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OERwashing: Beyond the Elephant Test
Doug Levin
MAY 16, 2016
Doug Levin (@douglevin) May 3, 2016. What I do want to comment on (in greater than 140 characters) is the practice of ‘openwashing:’ what it is, why I believe not being able to go beyond a pro-OER elephant test for organizations and service providers is untenable in practice, and some thoughts on what we can do about it.
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Lumen Scores $3.75M — and OER Gets a Foot in the Traditional Publishing Door
Edsurge
APRIL 20, 2017
Open Educational Resources (OER) have yet to cozy up with the more orthodox academics and pushy print publishers of the world. The most recent example occurred this week, when OER company Lumen Learning announced a partnership with one of the country’s largest textbook distributors, Follet Corporation.
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Free Textbooks Are Not Always Free: New Study Analyzes OER’s Costs to Colleges
Edsurge
OCTOBER 18, 2018
But OER is not free, since it costs money to develop the materials, takes time for professors to evaluate and adopt them, and typically involves other campus-support services as well. A report released last week gives perhaps the most detailed accounting of the pricetag to colleges looking to make signiciant moves to OER.
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154 Heard, Overheard and Announced at ISTE 2016
Edsurge
JUNE 29, 2016
Back in February, an EdWeek brief reported that Amazon Education was beta-testing a new platform with educators, helping teachers navigate the jungles of open educational resources (OER). Matty Fox (@what2foxsay) June 28, 2016. In 2016, Mary Jo was named to the Forbes "30 Under 30" list in education. pic.twitter.com/4ZIax3aDBA.
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How an OER Rookie Dove Deep Into a Zero-Cost Textbook Degree Program
Edsurge
MARCH 28, 2018
The initiative intends to create degree pathways with courses that only use open educational resources, known as OER, so students don’t have to spend money on class materials. College of the Canyons’ history with OER starts before Anagnonson’s dabble, however. Those professors’ individual efforts got a boost in 2016, when Gov.
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OPEN UP RESOURCES RELEASES ITS FIRST FREE OER CURRICULUM
eSchool News
AUGUST 24, 2017
It is the first curriculum made openly available by Open Up Resources, which was founded to develop new high-quality alternatives to curricula offered by traditional publishers, and to increase equity in education by distributing these materials freely, as OER.
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The 5 Strategies States Should Pursue Now to Make the Most of Future EdTech Investments in ESSA
Doug Levin
FEBRUARY 2, 2016
It should not be controversial in 2016 that there is a baseline expectation of access to technology in schools, just as there are baseline expectations for access to textbooks and desks. In 2016, this includes a statewide strategy for technology in K-12 education. These also speak to implicit expectations for technology availability.
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Do We Need a National Open Education Strategy?
Iterating Toward Openness
FEBRUARY 5, 2024
To hear some OER advocates describe it today in 2024, the same format that was being used in the late 2000s – traditional-looking textbooks published under open licenses – is the state of the art when it comes to open educational resources. OER have also been used as part of personalized, interactive courseware systems, too.
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A Thinking Person’s Guide to EdTech News (2017 Week 16 Edition)
Doug Levin
APRIL 23, 2017
Among them, I’ve updated my site to include a dedicated FAQ on open educational resources (OER). The FAQ is a collaboration of many involved with the movement and includes an OER infographic , suitable for downloading and re-sharing. My thanks to EdSurge for highlighting its availability. What then of the students?
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Of Progress, Problems, and Partnerships
Iterating Toward Openness
APRIL 17, 2017
In 2012 Kim Thanos and I founded Lumen Learning because, through our Gates-funded work on the Kaleidoscope Project, we had seen first-hand how hard it was for faculty to replace publisher materials with OER. It seemed like lots of people wanted to publish and share their own OER, but no one wanted to use anyone else’s.
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From Static to Interactive and From Open to Free: Consequences Both Intended and Unintended
Iterating Toward Openness
MAY 8, 2019
The most recent issue of IRRODL included an article titled Effectiveness of OER Use in First-Year Higher Education Students’ Mathematical Course Performance: A Case Study , by Juan I. This was justified by the fact that there is a lack of empirical evidence to support expanding the use of OER. Venegas-Muggli and Werner Westermann.
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Nationwide OER Degree Program Launches Today
Iterating Toward Openness
JUNE 14, 2016
In case you didn’t see it elsewhere, I’m republishing the press release from Achieving the Dream about the incredibly exciting OER Degrees work that launched today. The effort is intended to spark more rapid adoption of OER within higher education, beginning with community colleges. It’s really happening!
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Open Educational Practice: Unleashing the Potential of OER
Edsurge
AUGUST 9, 2016
It’s been a good year for open educational resources (OER). made commitments this year to establish entire degree programs based solely on OER. Governor Jerry Brown set aside $5 million for OER degree programs in California community colleges. But “free” is not the only important characteristic of OER.
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60 Amazon Launches 'Inspire,' a Free Education Resource Search Platform for Educators
Edsurge
JUNE 27, 2016
Back in February, an EdWeek Market brief reported that Amazon Education was starting to beta-test a new platform with educators, helping teachers navigate the jungles of open educational resources (or OERs, for short). Tory Patterson, co-founder of Owl Ventures As far as calling itself an OER platform, that is somewhat correct.
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113 A Thinking Person’s Guide to EdTech News (2017 Week 16 Edition)
Doug Levin
APRIL 23, 2017
Among them, I’ve updated my site to include a dedicated FAQ on open educational resources (OER). The FAQ is a collaboration of many involved with the movement and includes an OER infographic , suitable for downloading and re-sharing. My thanks to EdSurge for highlighting its availability. What then of the students?
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150 Using Tech to Support Literacy Across 13.8 Billion Years of History
Edsurge
OCTOBER 30, 2017
Using OER is hard. Over sandwiches and iced tea, we talked about the challenges of OER. Working across so many disparate texts, it would be nearly impossible for a teacher to create anything like this when using OER. The 2016-17 assessment results show strong growth over the year among high school students. Source: BHP.
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Wiley to Acquire Knewton’s Assets, Marking an End to an Expensive Startup Journey
Edsurge
MAY 6, 2019
Under Brian Kibby, who took over as Knewton’s CEO after Jose Ferreira stepped down in December 2016, the company attempted to remake itself with a new business: selling digital courseware directly to higher-ed institutions and students. Knewton’s Alta, by contrast, is tapping into openly-licensed, or OER, materials.
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155 Are K-12 Curriculum Tools a Smart Investment? What Investors and Our Data Say
Edsurge
SEPTEMBER 17, 2019
In conversations with edtech investors, some reported that the K-12 market has seen an influx of instructional content, particularly in the form of open educational resources (OERs). OERs are openly-licensed educational materials that can be downloaded, modified and shared with others to help support student learning. Source: EdSurge.
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Where Are All the Faculty in the Open Education Movement?
Edsurge
MAY 16, 2018
Open educational resources (OER) are gaining increasing popularity. To answer this question, I have to examine my own experience with OER and its advocates. To me, using OER felt like a no-brainer. Many working in open education praised me for being so involved in the movement as an educator dealing with OER on the ground.
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6 Edtech New Year’s Resolutions
Tom Murray
JANUARY 12, 2016
With the new year now upon us, listed below are six edtech resolutions for 2016. Districts having success in this area have comprehensive refresh plans, work with high quality partners, build relationships with local businesses, work diligently to receive grants, and leverage a variety of open educational resources (OERs).
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189 Amazon’s Education Hub, Amazon Inspire, Has Quietly Restored ‘Sharing’ Function
Edsurge
JANUARY 11, 2018
Inspire was launched with great fanfare in 2016, touted as a hub for educators to exchange lesson plans and other open education resources. Peters says that some states ended up deciding to pick other platforms, like OER Commons , in their efforts to organize and review open materials created or used by their teachers.
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University of Georgia Kicks Fresh Courseware Pilot Into Gear
Edsurge
JULY 5, 2016
Open educational resources (OER) have saved students at the University of Georgia (UGA) nearly $2 million in textbook costs alone over the past three years. Rather than roll out a broad campaign to promote OER on campus, the center is focused on working with individual faculty members who teach large enrollment courses, Watson says.
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TCC Takes Z-Degrees to the Next Level With Adaptive Learning
Edsurge
JUNE 24, 2016
Now benefits like those cost reductions and higher student success rates are prompting the school to roll out more Z-degrees programs and extend its partnership with Lumen Learning by piloting next-generation adaptive OER courseware. But Tidewater doesn’t have plans for total conversion to OER, despite the benefits.
OPINION: Three misunderstandings about open resources
The Hechinger Report
MARCH 6, 2017
Increasingly, ‘early mover’ districts support OER at a district level, to reflect constraints on teacher time. For example, in the ‘COW Project ’— a collaborative initiative between three of our districts that is profiled here — teams of educators produced new Social Studies and Science unit content entirely from OER.
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MAD about Mattering: A New Global Collaborative App Project #steam
The CoolCatTeacher
JANUARY 21, 2016
A toolkit for teachers will be made available at the end of the 2015-2016 school year as an OER (open education resources), allowing other teachers across the world to follow this method of quad engineering. “So This project will happen this semester as teachers develop and share best practices for collaborative app development.
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150 Open Up Resources Takes A Digital Leap Through Kiddom Partnership
Edsurge
NOVEMBER 1, 2019
She first discovered Open Up Resources in 2016 and rolled out its K-8 English curriculum for the 215 students at her school in the fall of the following year. It spun out as a separate nonprofit in 2016, and has received grants from foundations to support its work. Both executives said more specific pricing will be finalized in 2020.
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96 What Happened to Amazon Inspire, the Tech Giant’s Education Marketplace?
Edsurge
JUNE 26, 2017
That official Facebook page for Amazon Education hasn’t been updated since June 30, 2016. My sense of publishers is that they’re in this mode of dismissing OER entirely, and it’s a crazy mistake,” he adds. We remain committed to Amazon Inspire and are continuously innovating to help educators and improve student outcomes.”
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132 Inspiring Math Excellence in the Classroom with Po-Shen Loh
The CoolCatTeacher
JULY 26, 2017
This means that you can write your own textbooks, share them, or use them as you would any other OER or open education resource. His approach to coaching the national Math Olympiad team received significant press coverage after the USA’s historic back-to-back #1-rank victories in 2015 and 2016. What makes Expii unique?
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245 A Thinking Person’s Guide to EdTech News (2017 Week 33 Edition)
Doug Levin
AUGUST 20, 2017
K-12 Cyber Incident Map: 8 School Districts Have Experienced Multiple Cyber Incidents Since 2016 , which reports on a trend that I’ve seen in tracking K-12 cyber incident reports: school districts suffering repeat cyber incidents, even in the short time I’ve been tracking the issue (since the start of 2016).
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150 What Would Dewey Do? Quotes…Ideas…Resources for Genuine Learning
21st Century Educational Technology and Learning
JUNE 23, 2016
As I prepare for ISTE 2016 I can’t help but think about the amazing thoughts and ideas that John Dewey has brought to education. This partial list of sources introduces the scope of OER and the organizations cultivating its increasingly vital role in opening higher education up to the greatest number of people worldwide.
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105 Self-Paced E-Learning Market Evaporating, Report Finds
Marketplace K-12
AUGUST 30, 2016
market is the trend toward open and free educational resources, or OER. Similarly, the trend toward OER and greater competition among vendors is also expected to negatively impact the LMS market. Similarly, the trend toward OER and greater competition among vendors is also expected to negatively impact the LMS market.
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Cash Awards Honor Faculty and Institutions for Innovative Use of Digital Tools
Edsurge
JULY 3, 2017
2016 Institutional Awards. For boosting student retention and success and reducing costs by embracing online OER textbooks Northern Arizona University. 2016 Faculty-Led Team Awards. The competition is open to schools that award associate or bachelor’s degrees and to programs within those schools. Apply here. Bay Path University.
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103 Pearson, an Investor in Knewton, Is ‘Phasing Out’ Partnership on Adaptive Products
Edsurge
MAY 12, 2017
The notion that adaptive technology is the reason why one school should choose one company’s content over OER (open educational resources) or other options” has become a staple of many publisher’s marketing claims, says Trace Urdan, an education market analyst. Ferreira left Knewton in December 2016 but remains on its board of directors.
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Students Collaborate on Supporting Bee Populations with Digital Tools
edWeb.net
FEBRUARY 7, 2018
Mountain Heights Academy in Utah, the 2017 Student Voices Award winner, encourages students to participate in the instructional design process using an OER curriculum. Since the majority of their lessons and assignments are open educational resources (OER) they wanted to license their Operation Bee curriculum as OER.
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Looking Back on Three Years of the ConnectED Initiative: Did It Deliver?
Edsurge
DECEMBER 19, 2016
In October 2016, Sprint also announced its 1 Million Project , providing up to 1 million lines of free broadband service and a free device over a four-year period to low-income high school students who lack internet access at home. In 2016, Mary Jo was named to the Forbes "30 Under 30" list in education.
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Amazon Inspire’s relaunch
NeverEndingSearch
JULY 28, 2017
Offering a familiar, filtered Amazon search/shopping interface, Inspire allows educators to discover, download, curate and share Open Educational Resources (OER). For more ways to access and use OER content, check out: Pearltrees on OER Portals. Symbaloo on OER Resources. Why the delay? Sample entry. Sample collection.
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44 Storms over liberal education: notes on the 2016 AAC&U conference
Bryan Alexander
JANUARY 24, 2016
Last week I participated in the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) 2016 conference. The event became much more dramatic than expected, once the hosting city, Washington DC, was clobbered by the great snowpocalyspe of 2016. Let me share some materials here, along with reflections on the conference.
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