Doug Levin

JUNE 17, 2015

If technology doesn’t disrupt the very notion of the textbook first, its future is surely digital. OER remains a recent invention and the relatively large technology investments required to successfully implement a digital content strategy in schools just hadn’t been made in very many places. Image credits.

Instructional Materials 387

Instructional Materials OER Student Data Privacy Broadband 387

Edsurge

APRIL 19, 2022

These days low-cost alternatives known as Open Educational Resources, or OER, are getting a boost as a potential solution. Last week, for example, Lumen Learning, a company that sells low-cost OER textbooks and courseware, announced it received a $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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OER Course Company Report 184

Doug Levin

FEBRUARY 21, 2016

K-12 education system by open educational resources (OER) since 2009, although my first exposure to the ideas and leaders of the movement stretch back to the launch of the MIT OpenCourseWare initiative. This is where context matters most for the OER movement. Even within the U.S.

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OER Instructional Materials Meeting Advocacy 170

Hapara

AUGUST 17, 2022

Has your school district started to use open educational resources (OER) yet? But has your school district considered K-12 OER textbooks? Printed textbooks have been used for centuries, and while they still work, there are many reasons why school districts are transitioning to OER versions. .

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OER Differentiated Instruction Hapara Resources 162

Edsurge

NOVEMBER 15, 2021

For some folks in higher ed, the very idea of using open educational resources (OER) sparks dread. The right OER provides professors opportunities to teach the latest research and even make areas like math and science more inclusive. EdSurge: Why are you such a proponent of OER in higher ed? Here’s how I look at it.

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OER STEM Course Libraries 169

Edsurge

JULY 11, 2022

They were trying to prep summer courses by linking to the freely available, openly licensed alternatives known as Open Educational Resources, or OER, content offered by Lumen Learning, a courseware provider that argues that OER can be a tool in making higher education more equitable. Hi OER Friends! There was confusion. “Hi

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OER Course Chegg Company 185

Iterating Toward Openness

NOVEMBER 21, 2019

There’s great news out of the recent UNESCO meeting in Paris, where member states unanimously adopted the draft Recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER). This dramatically simplifies understanding what is and isn’t OER. Resources in the public domain or released under an open license are OER.

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OER Advocacy Resources Accessibility 153

Edsurge

OCTOBER 11, 2018

Regardless of where you stand on the debate over open educational resources, you’re probably wondering: Does OER actually improve learning outcomes? At least, that was one of the main takeaways from a short session led by Phillip Grimaldi, director of research at OpenStax, a nonprofit OER initiative out of Rice University.

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OER Learning Outcomes Comparison 140

Iterating Toward Openness

MARCH 7, 2018

tl ;dr – If a resource is licensed in a way that grants you permission to engage in the 5R activities, and grants you those permissions for free, it’s an open educational resource (OER) – no matter where you find it or how it’s being used. I have an obsession with definitions. It’s been true for decades.

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OER LMS Laptops Accessibility 125

Edsurge

JANUARY 4, 2018

But who makes the pitch for free or low-cost alternatives to textbooks known as OER, or open educational resources? One project she led this year involved creating a series of videos promoting “Textbook Heroes,”professors who have replaced commercial textbooks in their courses with OER. Increasingly, the answer is the campus library.

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OER Libraries lynda.com E-rate 167

Edsurge

DECEMBER 28, 2017

Open educational resources (OER) have long been touted as “the next big thing” in higher education, but the drawn-out hype has led many educators and administrators to wonder if it would ever live up to its expectations. Those days are over: 2017 was OER’s breakthrough year. That happened in 2017. Ohio University is doing the same.

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OER Tools Industry LMS 155

Edsurge

OCTOBER 30, 2018

The number of colleges running efforts to help professors shift from published textbooks to low-cost online materials known as OER is growing rapidly. That was one key finding in the latest Campus Computing Survey , one of the largest annual surveys of college technology leaders in the U.S., which was released today.

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OER Survey Data Course 141

Iterating Toward Openness

DECEMBER 2, 2019

I recently wrote a brief essay about the wonderful new UNESCO OER Recommendation. For those of you who don’t want to read the full analysis below, here’s the key takeaway: Imagine what would happen if making copies of OER was illegal. Under the definition of OER now adopted unanimously by UNESCO member states, it can be.

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OER Accessibility Examples Resources 146

Edsurge

JANUARY 15, 2019

But fans of OER are increasingly facing a problem. While OER started off as free online textbooks, it still costs money to produce these materials, and professors often need guidance finding which ones are high quality. So OER advocates are realizing they need to change their pitch.

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OER Course Resources Libraries 154

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.” So when people tell the story of how the term “OER-enabled pedagogy” came to be they should absolutely include Maha in it.

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OER Technology Exercises Online Learning 113

Iterating Toward Openness

APRIL 29, 2024

It is absolutely critical that everyone who cares about technology-mediated learning understand this point. There is a seismic shift in perspective necessary from pre-generative AI technologies to generative AI technologies. They’re effectively the same type of technology, just at a different scale.

Technology 186

Technology OER Learning Mobility 186

Edsurge

OCTOBER 30, 2018

In response, open educational materials, or OER, have emerged as an alternative to expensive textbooks that disproportionately affect low-income students. But despite the excitement, there are obstacles to using OER. McGuire: The kinds of things that are being discussed [around using OER] are hard for many of institutions to access.

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OER Policies Accessibility Outcomes 143

Iterating Toward Openness

OCTOBER 9, 2018

Recently I’ve been doing both more thinking and more roll-up-your-sleeves working on continuous improvement of OER. And this process of making OER more effective every semester – also known as “continuous improvement” – is where we see some of the most exciting opportunities to collaborate with faculty.

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OER Outcomes Analysis Assessment 122

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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OER Course Outcomes Report 142

Edsurge

NOVEMBER 19, 2017

As momentum for digital learning builds, some districts—80 percent according to the 2017 Consortium for School Networking’s (CoSN) K12 IT Leadership Survey Report —are using open educational resources (OER), which the U.S. But while many benefits of OER are visible on the surface, we must notice the fine print.

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OER CMS Guidelines Digital Learning 123

Edsurge

MARCH 3, 2020

So says the new Educause Horizon report , which identifies technologies and trends that are changing higher education. OER was one of six “emerging technologies and practices” the panelists highlighted as most likely to significantly influence postsecondary teaching and learning in the future. “It In the U.S.,

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OER Resources Education Report 213

Doug Levin

JANUARY 15, 2016

The Layers of ESSA: Educational Technology in Title IV – 21st Century Schools, Part A. While most people surely love a good layer cake, the layers of provisions governing the new educational technology program in Title IV, Part A of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) are nothing if not overly complicated.

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Policies Technology Education OER 258

Edsurge

JUNE 16, 2020

Lumen Learning, a company that sells low-cost OER textbooks and courseware, plans to start offering professional development services for faculty that can be bundled with its titles. In other words, some of its textbooks are now sold with coaching on how to teach with OER more effectively.

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OER Company Learning Course 129

Edsurge

JUNE 9, 2017

With course materials averaging around $1,200 per year , many colleges over the past decade have adopted open educational resources (OER) to cut costs for students. One review offers evidence that students using OER as their primary course material sometimes perform better.) This isn’t uncommon.

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OER Data Outcomes Study 117

Iterating Toward Openness

AUGUST 13, 2019

Sadly, as Audrey Watters has frequently noted, it might be impossible to find a field of endeavor outside educational technology where more of the participants are so utterly ignorant of its history. (I Or (insert whatever comes next)… To my mind, the internet is an absolutely transformative technology (for better and for worse).

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OER System Exercises Course 129

Edsurge

JUNE 18, 2020

But OER advocates think open access course materials hold another kind of promise for students, too. They can with OER materials. That means OER courseware is the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of learning engineering, Wiley argues. Every course should be better every time it’s taught,” he says.

Course 212

Course OER Resources Education 212

Edsurge

OCTOBER 24, 2018

Communications librarian Kristen Hoffman oversees much of the OER work at Seattle Pacific University, a Christian university in Washington. Is there anything out there that faith-based institutions can have a place in this OER ecosystem to contribute to those kinds of resources?”

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OER Libraries Course Study 116

Edsurge

MARCH 28, 2018

Today, Anagnoson’s online course is embedded into a Water Systems Technology zero-cost textbook degree program, or Z-degree. 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. But small kinks have cropped up.

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OER Industry Course Guidelines 117

Edsurge

JANUARY 12, 2018

Can open educational resources, or OER, truly create more equity and access? That was the question at the heart of our #DLNchat on January 9, which centered around OER in Higher Education. To me OER is also about the democratization of access to education, and the pursuit and sharing of knowledge.

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OER Resources Education Digital Learning 104

The CoolCatTeacher

JUNE 26, 2023

Tara: AI Teaching Assistant in Computer Science with OER curriculum to support students in those subjects. We want to understand their needs, how they are using this technology, and how we can improve. “AI is Talk of the Town,” and we need to discuss how we will integrate things and how it can help us.

Microsoft 414

Microsoft OER Data Adaptive Learning 414

Doug Levin

MAY 16, 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. The Pro-OER Elephant Test.

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OER Software Company Twitter 170

Edsurge

FEBRUARY 20, 2020

Students who took multiple community college courses that used only free or low-cost OER materials earned more credits over time than their peers who took classes that used traditional course materials such as textbooks, according to a new study. Free Isn’t Free For students, OER texts are typically free, or nearly free.

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OER Resources Course Education 191

Edsurge

AUGUST 24, 2020

As countless educators around the world have scrambled to figure out how to deliver lessons remotely with whisker-thin budgets, many turned to open education resources (OER). CK-12 is at the forefront of OER by doing adaptive and personalized learning. And the technology. More people should be doing it the way they are.”

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OER EdTech Exercises Resources 213

More Verbs

FEBRUARY 22, 2016

The Learning Through Technology Team at the Maine Department of Education is looking for a high energy, entrepreneurial-thinking, collaborative educator who would like to work with us. Our strategic efforts include: Maine Learning Technology Initiative – The first, and only, statewide 1to1. Applications accepted until March 18.

Technology 150

Technology Digital Badges OER Learning 150

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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OER Instructional Materials Course Resources 84

Edsurge

JULY 8, 2020

It considered all adoption types, from traditional publishers, to local curriculum creation, to open educational resources (OER). The survey respondents who use one of the big three publishers, versus a smaller publisher, OER or a home-grown curriculum all reported similar levels of satisfaction and effectiveness.

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Survey OER Training Pearson 178

Iterating Toward Openness

FEBRUARY 4, 2019

We have a similar problem in the open educational resources (OER) space. Many people are in the habit of referring to OER as a commons. OER are not like the shared resources at the center of traditional commons. However, OER are not CPRs. This principle fails to apply to OER in multiple ways. We could go on.

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OER Resources Groups Accessibility 103