Icommons.org

One of the most exciting developments in the Commons is that of open education. In a world where access to knowledge is unequally distributed, the potential for free repositories of knowledge and open education resources to redress the imbalance is enormous.

The phrase ‘open education resources’ was first coined in 2002 at UNESCO’s Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries. It encompasses several different types of resources, including learning content (courses, lesson plans and learning objects), tools (software that supports the development, management and re-use of content) and implementation resources (the intellectual property licences that promote open licensing and other principles of best practice).

Sounds simple, right? Easy to find 10 of the best of these. Well, no. It’s a bit more complicated than that. The open education resources available online are of varied quantity and quality ‘ some are small communities of teachers who share actual lessons. Others are huge repositories of university courseware and classes, ranging from lecture notes to audio and video presentations. A myriad of wikis exist where educators can share and work on resources, and offer content and links to content on other sites. Some of these repositories licence their work using CC, others don’t. Some call themselves ‘open’ when you actually have to pay to subscribe to materials. Some are arranged to make searching easy, others are a hodgepodge of different materials. At the moment (and yes, we are aware that this is a very young, and growing area of the commons) most of the Open Education Resources on the internet are produced in the USA, a fact which does seem to be in contrast to the potential of open education to address major socio-economic challenges in the developing world.

What this list does show, however, is that there is no shortage of people who have the knowledge and the skills (as well as the passion) to make OER material more accessible. Perhaps 2007 will be the year where passion and inspiration translate into lesson plans and textbooks for use around the world.

OER Resources for Teachers
OpenLearn
OpenLearn is a space where teachers or learners can access the free educational resources from the Open University in Britain. The Open University, founded in 1969, is one of the best-known open learning institutions in the world. At OpenLearn, university-level course-ware in subjects like Mathematics, Health, Education, IT, Science and Arts is available for download. OpenLearn’s partner site, LabSpace allows users to remix, re-use and modify the material they’ve found on LabSpace. All the content is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 licence.

South African History Online
SAHO is a non-partisan people’s history project, established in 1999 as a non-profit organisation with the aims to promote research, popularise South African history and address the biased way that history and cultural heritage of Black South Africans had, until then, been represented in South African educational and heritage institutions. A massive repository of local knowledge and resources, the site includes lesson plans, curricula, a collection of thesis, speeches, letters and interviews with the people who helped to shape South African society. Copyright of the original works lies with the photographers/writers, and while the site does not use a CC licence, any publicly funded institution, student or newspaper if free to use the material, as long as the site is attributed.

Free High School Science Texts
A project based at the University of Cape Town which aims to create free, open access science texts that can be freely used anywhere in the world. A collaborative effort, the project relies on volunteers, who undertake tasks like writing, editing and reviewing books, as well as recruiting other volunteers and fundraising for the project. At the time of writing, there are four unfinished texts on the site, one for Mathematics, one for Physics, one for Chemistry and one is an FHSST Study Guide. All the content on the site is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Teaching Ideas
A repository of lesson plans contributed by teachers from all over the United Kingdom. Aimed primarily at primary (elementary) teachers, pretty much every subject is covered, including Maths, Science, Geography, History ‘ there are even plans for physical education classes. The site is licensed with a CC BY-NC-SA 2.5 licence, and teachers are encouraged to re-use and remix the resources.

For University and Tertiary-Level Teachers
MIT Open Courseware
MIT was one of the very first institutions to use a CC licence to make their course work and material available online, free of charge. Launched in 1999, today, MIT OCW contains material from over 1,550 courses, across 34 different academic departments in all five of MIT’s schools of study. Syllabi, lecture notes, reading lists and video lectures are just some of the material available to self-learners, teachers and students all over the world. By 2008, MIT OCW aims to include all the schools’ material in the repository. All material is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 2.5 licence.

Wiki Resources & Tools
Curriki
Curriki’s name is a hybrid of ‘curriculum’ and ‘wiki’, which is exactly what this user-generated, open-source, global education and learning community site is. It contains lessons, resources, guides, and articles, all submitted by community members, and all focused on making it easier for teachers to teach well. Divided into categories by subject, Curriki features resources for subjects as diverse as foreign languages, vocational education and educational technology, as well as the three Rs. All the content on the site is licensed under a CC BY 2.5 licence.

WikiTeach
WikiTeach calls itself a place to share lessons plans, and that’s exactly what it is. No bells and whistles here, just straightforward lesson plans, from preschool to graduate level, provided and edited by the members of the WikiTeach community. Lessons are categorised by level and subject. Not all plans are original ‘ some are links to lesson plans on other sites like National Geographic, but all original content is licensed using copyleft, although no cc licence could be found on the site.

OER Commons
A teaching and learning network full of free-to-use-and-modify resources, OER Commons has material for primary, secondary and post-secondary classes. Contributors use tags, reviews and summaries to help categorise and filter the content on this wiki. Materials include video, audio and course-related content in traditional areas such as math, social sciences and the humanities, but with up-to-date focus, including current issues like climate change and terrorism. All original content is licensed with a CC BY-NC-SA 2.5 licence.

Special Mention
AAA Labs at Stanford
A research unit that studies understanding, and how technology can facilitate the process of understanding in a classroom, AAA Labs is an amazing resource for any teacher who wants to better understand how students learn. Since AAA focuses on the interface between education, computer science and cognitive science, the material available varies from complex academic articles to worksheets, systems of evaluation and downloadable teaching agents.

OER Grapevine
This is the wiki where all members of the Open Education community come and hang out. It’s a place for teachers, administrators, and developers to share ideas, discuss projects and contribute to the growing discussions around OER resources. The wiki boasts one of the most comprehensive lists of links to OER resources on the web, and also offers a good explanation of why copyleft is a better alternative for lesson plans than traditional all rights reserved licences. They also provide links to UNESCO Open Education discussions and policy papers. Users can also sign up to a mailing list which provides regular updates and a space for discussions.
Photo: Detail of Anschool II by Thomas Hirschhorn. Pic by identitychris is (wtb) CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2007 at 8:51 08 and is filed under iCommons, Open Education, 10 of the Best. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.