Alien Earth Game |
Our assignment for SEDU 183 today is to explain and “sell”
Open Educational Resources or OER for short.
OER is an awesome concept of having resources, ranging from games, textbooks,
quizzes, and nearly any other material used for educational purposes. “7 Things You Should Know About…OpenEducational Resources” is a great article that explains what OER is, how it
works, who is doing it, why it is significant, the disadvantages, the future of
and implications for teaching and learning.
Open educational resources “generally refers to only digital resources
and such, tends to focus on usage in online or hybrid learning environment…” (7
Things) OER resources are not intended
to replace actual classroom instruction but enhance it. We were given this website to explore
and find three sources from it that relates to us as learners today, or future educators. I am studying to be a high school science
teacher focusing on Earth and Space Science, so I chose sources that relate to
geology. The first source I found was “Essential Science for Teachers Earth and Space Science " and had an eight session
lesson on the dynamics of our planet.
Each session has a video (video is at the bottom of the webpage), course materials, and extras that would
enhance the lesson. There are also games
on OERCommons.org, I searched for games relating to Earth and Space
Science. My search brought me to a game
called Alien Earth, where students search for habitable planets and try to
create the perfect solar system. This would
be fun to enhance a lesson on the formation of our universe and solar
system. As a future science teacher, I
know that my class might be the first interaction some students have with the
study of geology. There is a source that
is an awesome introduction to geology,”An Activity to Introduce the GeosciencesPerspective.”
We were then asked to explore further beyond and finds three
more sources. I found the following:
“OpenEducation Week”
“OpenEducation Week”
Open
Education Week was held in March 2012 to raise awareness to OER movement and
the impact on teaching and learning.
The OER Consortium has over 100
colleges as members whose mission is to “expand access to education by
promoting awareness and adoption of Open Educational Resource (OER).”
The William
and Flora Hewlett Foundation fund this project.
“Its a collection of colleges, governmental agencies, education
non-profits, and other education-related organizations that are focused on the
mission of driving awareness, adoptions, and affordability of open textbooks.”
Overall, I believe that the Open Educational Movement is a
great idea. Materials cost so much for
students and schools, if we could use the advanced technology that we have to
share materials, we would save a lot of money! Because we all know that money does not grow on trees!