Finding, Creating and Sharing OER for language teaching and learning

Finding, Creating and Sharing Open
Educational Resources for
Language Teaching and Learning.

Tita Beaven & Anna Comas-Quinn,
Department of Languages, The Open University, UK
Chris Brown & Evan Rubin,
Language Acquisition Resource Centre, San Diego

CALICO 2012, University of Notre Dame, Indiana

Outline of the session

• Introduction: OER & OEP
• Finding OER
• Creating OER: licenses & images
• Reuse, feedback and quality
• An introduction to LORO
• Discussion: sharing content, sharing
learning designs

The Open Educational Resources
Movement
“…the world’s knowledge is a public good…”
Smith & Casserly, 2006

• Inspired by the Open Source software
movement
• 2001-2 MIT starts its OpenCourseWare
initiative
• 2002 Term OER coined by UNESCO
• 2006 OpenLearn - The Open University
• and many others

http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/introducing-conversation-prism/

What are OER?

• Open Educational Resources
• Digital Resources (big and little OER)
• Openly available for reuse and repurposing
• Creator indicates that they are for public use
and reuse through a Creative Commons
license or similar

For more info on Creative Common licenses, see the
video „Wanna work together‟ on YouTube or at
http://creativecommons.org/licenses

Definitions

• Open Educational Resources (OER) are “materials
used to support education that may be freely
accessed, reused, modified and shared by anyone”
(Downes, 2011).
• Open Educational Practices (OEP) “support the
production, use and reuse of high quality OER
through institutional policies, which promote
innovative pedagogical models, and respect and
empower learners as co-producers on their
lifelong learning path.” (ICDE, 2011).

Finding OER

• Merlot http://www.merlot.org
• NDLR http://ndlr.ie/
• Xpert http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xpert/
• Humbox www.humbox.ac.uk
• Language Box www.languagebox.ac.uk
• LORO http://loro.open.ac.uk
• Openlearn http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/
• Foreign Language Resource Centers
http://nflrc.msu.edu
• LARC http://larc.sdsu.edu/resources/

You need to think about…
• Usefulness and discoverability of your
material
• Copyright (images in particular)
• Attribution and ownership
• Licenses
• Quality assurance & peer review

http://unow.nottingham.ac.uk/resources/resource.asp
x?hid=c1eaf7af-c8b8-afa9-6d47-0a7f60e7e8e3#,
from University of Nottingham is a great introduction

• To get over the copyright problem
• Enable the 4Rs:
Reuse – make exact copies
Revise – make adaptations
Redistribute – share copies
Remix – combinations / mashups

(see http://creativecommons.org)

(see full information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/)

More about IPR and licensing at http://www.web2rights.com/SCAIPRModule/rlo2.html

Finding reusable images

– Flickr Commons
http://www.flickr.com/commons
– Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org
– Google Images> advanced search> usage rights >
free to use or share, even commercially, etc.
– Xpert http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xpert/

Slides 14-21 created by Bea de los Arcos

Looking at Quality (pink cards)

Sorting game from Chris Pegler, National Teaching Fellow, The Open University
http://www.slideshare.net/orioleproject/chris-pegler-reusable-card-game

Languages at The Open University
• English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Welsh &
Chinese (beginners to advanced) to 7000+ language
students
• Blended approach: independent study using mixed
media and support inc. face-to-face, synchronous
and asynchronous online teaching
• Course materials produced centrally, teaching
support provided locally
• Course developers and course directors: 50+
academics plus support staff
• Teaching staff: 320+ part-time teachers

What was the problem?

• Storing and managing resources for teaching
(servers, the VLE…)
• Finding out what others are doing
• Avoid reinventing the wheel…(30-40 teachers might
be delivering the same course in parallel)
• Sharing resources produced by all colleagues

Languages Open Resources Online
http://loro.open.ac.uk

LORO is about:
• ...making all teaching materials for all levels
and languages available to all users,
• …making OU tutorial materials available to the
wider languages community,
• …allowing users to share their own materials
with the whole languages community,
• …starting a change in the way we work (OER,
access, transparency, quality).

Languages Open Resources Online
http://loro.open.ac.uk/

Perceived benefits

• Professional development (feedback from
colleagues)
• Time saving
• Student support
• Authorship & showcasing your work

Survey of OU language teachers July 2009 (N = 129)

Perceived challenges

• Quality and usefulness of resources
• System must work (search, browse, structure,
file formats)
• Time consuming
• Lack of remuneration
• Reciprocity
• Recognition and authorship

Survey of OU language teachers July 2009 (N = 129)

Teachers are using LORO…
• To find resources for their teaching
“I often also check what other teachers have done to
teach the same topic or a similar structure”
• To find inspiration and ideas
“even if I don‟t find anything I can use, it starts the ideas
flowing in my head”
• To standardise their practice and ensure
comparability of the student experience
“to make sure the contents covered in my own
tutorial are similar to those used by the rest of the
course team and tutors”

Benefits of using LORO

• Increased confidence in one‟s own practice
“Seeing other work enables you to judge your own, and
reassures you that you are doing the right thing”
• Freedom to develop other aspects of one‟s
teaching practice
“It gives us time and space to create some individual
styles”
“I can concentrate on how I will teach culture or how to
teach through the asynchronous forum”

Benefits of using LORO
• Value of feedback on one‟s work
“gives me an opportunity to gain useful feedback on the
work I do”
• … but there are constraints
“peer comment should be extended, but the restraints
of all our workloads make this a problem”
• Increase quality of teaching materials
“sharing the resources I have created with colleagues
stimulates me to write very good materials, test them
and improve them so that they can be used by
someone else. LORO really pushes me to produce
better materials”

Looking at Motivation (blue cards)

Sorting game from Chris Pegler, National Teaching Fellow, The Open University
http://www.slideshare.net/orioleproject/chris-pegler-reusable-card-game

Hands on
Go into a repository to browse
Select ONE resource that you find useful
Tell us why you selected this particular
resource.

Think about the pedagogy behind your selected resource
and about some of the aspects discussed earlier
(discoverability, usability, adaptability, quality assurance
through peer review,…).

Is content the teaching or
just a part of it?

Sharing pedagogical patterns
Tutorial: Usingsystem orengine
On a a search process
OE Patterns library
Learning Outcome: A clear understanding of the
role of the critical factors in the system
Summary: through preparing their own account
Tutorial: Using a search engine of using a search engine, to demonstrate
the system/process, to demonstrate the
Learning Outcome: A clear understanding of the role of the the critical factors, using
the role of critical factors, using the the
role of the critical factors in the system resources provided; presenting to their
Library guidelines; presenting it it to their
Summary: through preparing their own account group; defending it against questions and
of using a search engine, to demonstrate comments; and revising their account in the
the role of the critical factors, using the light of the tutor’s summary of the
Library guidelines; presenting it to their discussion
group; defending it against questions and
comments; and revising their account in the awater cycleprocess
Tutorial: On system or
The
light of the tutor’s summary of the
discussion
animation of the water cycle, to
of the system/process, to demonstrate the
demonstrate the factors, using the
role of the criticalrole of the critical factors,
using the provided; presenting it to their
resourcesOER cycle; presenting it to their
cycle;
comments; and revising their animation in
OER the light of the tutor’s summary of the
repository discussion

By Diana Laurillard, at http://www.slideshare.net/alanwylie/the-critical-role-of-teachers-in-optimizing-technologies-for-open-learning

Sharing pedagogical patterns
Tutorial: On a system or process
Tutorial: The water cycle
Using a search engine Summary: through preparing their own account
Learning Outcome: A clear understanding of the of the system/process, to demonstrate the
role of the critical factors in the system role of the critical factors, using the
resources provided; presenting it to their
of using a of the engine, to demonstrate
animationsearch water cycle, to
comments; and collaborating to produce a
the role of the critical factors, using the
demonstrate the role of the critical factors,
better animation to post on their website
Library guidelines; presenting it to their
using the OER cycle; presenting it to their
comments; and collaborating to produce a
collaborating to produce a
account to post on their website Tutorial: On awater cycleprocess
The system or
animation of the water cycle, to
of the system/process, to demonstrate the
demonstrate the factors, using the
role of the criticalrole of the critical factors,
using the provided; presenting it to their
resourcesOER cycle; presenting it to their
and collaborating to produce a

OER
better animation to post on their
comments; and revising their account in a
collaborating to produce
the light of the tutor’s summary of the
repository websitediscussion

By Diana Laurillard, at http://www.slideshare.net/alanwylie/the-critical-role-of-teachers-in-optimizing-technologies-for-open-learning

Online communities: types of users

• Passive
• Active
• Creators

• The 90-9-1 rule

• Web 2.0 turns us into „prosumers‟

Jakob Nielsen (2006) “Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute”

Finding, Creating and Sharing OER for language teaching and learning

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