Chapter 5 – EdTech Resources and OER

Teachers in every content area are always looking for new ideas and inspiration, class material, and resources for professional development. This chapter contains a collection of websites and blogs providing numerous resources for teachers. As mentioned in an earlier chapter, the Internet has created an abundance of resources for teachers. It is important to find the resources that fit your teaching style and content area. Use caution when signing up for every newsletter that you come across, your inbox will fill up quickly! Hang on for a wild ride as you evaluate the resources listed below. Plan to bookmark the sites and links that will be useful to you as an educator. The possibilities are endless!

Horizon Report by Educause

• 2024 Horizon Report – This is an annual report describing the emerging technologies that are expected to have an impact on education.  Read the report and form an opinion on the impact probability of each of the given technologies discussed.  We will discuss the report in the discussion board this week.  The new version comes out in September of each year, but I never know the exact date.
  • Check out their homepage at – https://www.educause.edu
  • Check out their other reports, toolkits, and information on education –  https://www.educause.edu/research-and-publications

Book Publishers

If you think all your online resources come from some tech related or video company, then you don’t want to forget about the book publishers.  They have moved a lot of their content to online options with all the bells and whistles you would expect from anywhere else.  If you haven’t looked at a recent textbook, it isn’t just the paper version you’re buying, but countless resources and learning options await you and your students online, on their phones, as apps, and much more.

Check out the big publishers to see what is out there and what might be in your classroom next year.

• Pearson – http://www.pearsonschool.com/
• McGraw Hill – http://www.mheducation.com/
• Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – http://www.hmhco.com/
• Scholastic – http://www.scholastic.com/

Raz-Kids ( https://www.raz-kids.com/ ) isn’t a major publishing company, but it still falls under the online resources and books section for K-5 students.  Great resource for taking books on your tablet, phone or computer to keep reading at their fingertips and fun.  It isn’t free, but may be a resource that would fit the bill for aspiring readers on the go.

Resources

• We Are Teachers – 37 Amazing Sources for Free
• SimpleK12 – Award winning webinars from real teachers and expert educational consultants and a community of like-minded educators.
• Edutopia – A trusted source shining a spotlight on what works in education.
• ThoughtCo – Premier reference site with a 20+ year focus on expert-created education content.
• BrainPOP – BrainPOP creates animated, curriculum-based content that supports educators and engages students. BrainPOP Educators features lesson plans, video tutorials, professional development tools, graphic organizers, and best practice for the teacher community. All products are fully compatible with interactive whiteboards, learner response systems, projectors, Macs and PCs.

Blogs

• ShakeupLearning – Kasey Bell. Providing educators with practical solutions using today’s technologies.

• Cult of Pedagogy – An online magazine for anyone who teaches anything – that means high school geometry teachers, elementary school special ed teachers, golf instructors, homeschoolers, corporate trainers, English tutors, preschool teachers, medical school instructors.

• Alice Keeler – Mom of 5. Current High School math teacher. Developer for Schoolytics.io. Google certified Innovator, Microsoft Innovative Educator, and Google Developer Expert. Found of #coffeeEDU.

• George Couros – George is currently an Innovative Teaching, Learning, and Leadership Consultant and speaker. He is the author of “The Innovator’s Mindset” and “Innovative Inside the Box” and has over 20 years of experience as an educator, in a myriad of roles from K-12.

• Catlin Tucker – A bestselling author, international trainer, and keynote speaker. Catlin has written a series of bestselling books on blended learning.

• Richard Byrne – Practical Ed Tech offers practical ways to use technology to enhance lessons, increase student engagement, and make you a better teacher.

• Kathy Schrock – A Guide To Everything, this is a page of resources. This site serves as an entry point to these resources, ideas, tips, and tricks.

Open Educational Resources (OER)

OER – Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. OER include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.

• OER Commons – A dynamic digital library and network. Explore open education resources and join our network of educators dedicated to curriculum improvement.

• Though current OER are primarily developed for higher education, more P-12 OER are being developed. As schools continue to look for ways to save costs while at the same time more and more students have access to some type of mobile computing device in the classroom, OER use in P-12 classrooms will continue to grow. MERLOT, the website below is an example of an OER website.
  • MERLOT – The MERLOT system provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, leaders and researchers.