WHAT are OERs?

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Open Educational Resources, commonly referred to as OERs, are teaching, learning, and research resources that are free of cost and reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Generally, this permission is granted by use of an open license which allows anyone to freely use, adapt and share the resource—anytime, anywhere. 
​    Sources: The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation & SPARC 

WHAT does that mean to teachers?

OERs take MANY forms... syllabi, lesson plans, videos, software, tests, teaching techniques, group activities, writing prompts, textbooks, learning modules, experiments, simulations, and course designs. “Open” permissions are typically defined in terms of the “5R’s”: users are free to Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix and Redistribute these educational materials. This means...we can use it freely with our students and adjust it to meet our needs and purposes!

HOW does one find OERs?

WHAT makes a good OER?

In some cases, OERs are may be a lesson plan that we use, but when we are referring to the content, activities, experiments, simulations, etc. that we plan to use extensively with our students, there are definitely certain things to look for. There are 4 questions to start with...
  1. Does this OER cover the content you'd like your students to learn in this course or module?
  2. How accessible is this content for your students? 
  3. How can you use the content? 
  4. What would you like to do with it?​​ 
  5. Can you collect or save them in a central location? 
Did the OER pass these questions easily? Dig a little deeper with a simple evaluation tool! 
It really depends on what you needs are, and there are always the quite common CK-12 or Khan Academy OER options that are so popular. Below, you will find an extensive OER list to explore! If you need guidance, feel free to contact our in-district resources: Karla Barkman, Melissa Linton, or Amanda Adams.