Tuesday, December 11, 2012

OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER)

        This time I'm going to touch upon OER (open educational resources) which  are digital teaching materials that can be applied by anyone over the Web freely. It is a society where knowledge and learning are public goods, freely created and shared, not hoarded or withheld in order to extract wealth or influence (Downes, 2007). This  term  was officially identified and adopted by UNESCO in 2002, regarding teaching, learning or research materials that are in the public domainThey are available under creative commons licenses which doesn’t  permit materials published under traditional copyrights. As free digital teaching resources, many schools, districts, colleges, universities, and some states are starting to use and implement them instead of textbooks.
    
 I think that OER can be very beneficial for both teachers and students. OER is a great way for evolving social learning ( Brown & Adler, 2008). Students can use OER in  various ways to enlarge and expand their chances  in education. They can freely use valuable materials that they might have no access to, because of access restrictions, copyright, etc. Students and teachers can save time and money. It gives them an opportunity to contribute to quality teaching and learning in a much wider context. It also provides a chance to recognize quality teachers all over the world.









image 1: http://iberry.com/cms/files/oer.png




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