Leading the Charge: TLs & OER
Your guide to Openly-Licensed Educational Resources
What is OER?
In the 2016 National Education Technology Plan, the Department defines openly licensed educational resources as teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under a license that permits their free use, reuse, modification, and sharing with others. Digital openly licensed resources can include complete online courses, modular digital textbooks as well as more granular resources such as images, videos, and assessment items.
(“Open Education.” Office of Educational Technology, tech.ed.gov/open/.)
Teacher Librarians & OER
Teacher Librarians are uniquely situated to support OER. Not only do they have specified training that supports exploration, curation, and ethical use, but they are also natural leaders.
The articles below are excellent resources for Teacher Librarians working to support OER.
Where to start?
There are several places to begin your search for Openly-Licensed Educational Resources. Below is a Padlet with some OER repositories, collections of OER materials.
Digging Deeper
Curious to explore more? Below are links to annotated lists of OER repositories to deepen your understanding of available resources.
Creative Commons Licenses
Additional Support
Still have questions? Have a district or group who would benefit from learning about OER? Please contact:
Lynn Kleinmeyer
Lynn Kleinmeyer is a Grant Wood AEA Digital Learning consultant. Lynn has a strong background in literacy. Prior to joining the Digital Learning Team, Lynn worked for 3 years as a Teacher Librarian for 2nd-5th graders and prior to that taught 7th grade Reading for 13 years. Lynn is dedicated to supporting the integration of technology and information literacy skills in every classroom.
Email: lkleinmeyer@gwaea.org
Twitter: @THLibrariZen
About the Digital Learning Team
The Grant Wood Digital Learning Team works with AEA 10 schools to help them integrate technology in the classroom. We work with teachers and administrators on-site, and at Grant Wood facilities. Each school district is assigned a Technology Consultant from the Digital Learning Team to help facilitate the ways in which we can help schools improve teaching and learning with technology.
Email: digitallearning@gwaea.org
Website: http://www.dlgwaea.org/
Location: Grant Wood Area Education, 6th Street Southwest, Cedar Rapids, IA, USA
Phone: 3193996700
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dlgwaea
Twitter: @DLGWAEA