Open Educational Resources in the K-12 Classroom

Open educational resources are free digital materials you can use with your students. These articles will help you understand the definitions of OERs and the nuances of OER licensing.

Resources that are openly licensed benefit teachers and students in a number of ways, including increasing equity, keeping content relevant and high quality, empowering teachers, and saving districts money. Learn how to leverage these resources in the classroom with these links.

There are many different OER repositories. These links provide access to some of the best on the web.

Open educational resources may be free, but are they good? Use these resources to help you evaluate the content and pedagogical quality of the OERs you'd like to use in the classroom.

The U.S. Department of Education’s #GoOpen initiative supports states and districts choosing to transition to the use of openly licensed educational resources to transform teaching and learning. Learn more about the movement with these resources.

In this document, the International Association for K-12 Online Learning provides actionable resources for educational leaders when considering moving to an OER / collaborative content model. The purpose of this report is to provide state educational leaders with a guide describing the benefits of OER, how they might approach OER policies in their states, options for content acquisition, and strategies for successful collaborative content development across state and other political boundaries. The report also includes an appendix with more details on OER licensing, a link to a useful guide for finding, vetting and using OER, and an example Memorandum of Understanding for sharing.

There's a plethora of sites you can use to find OERs for your classroom. Here are some that have been recommended by the Boston College Library.

This presentation was given by Sandy Waters and Julia Huprich at Georgia State University for their CREST-ED program on June 7, 2018.