Open Educational Resources

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This past weekend, I was faced with a perplexing dilemma.  One of the blades on my riding mower had to be replaced.  I had never done this particular procedure before, so I did what anyone living in 2013 is likely to do:  I Googled it.  I found diagrams and photographs, and even downloaded the manual for my particular model of lawn tractor.  I also found numerous videos on Youtube that showed in precise detail how blades are changed on that mower.  Years ago, I would have had to rely on the expertise of someone else to accomplish this task.  I would have had to take my tractor to someone who knew how to do it, or I would have to find a friend with the required free time to come and wrench on it in my yard.  In short, I would have been stuck.  I was able to affect the repairs myself, because of all the materials freely available online.  I didn't have to pay for a book or a manual, I didn't have to pay for a mechanic to fix it, and I certainly didn't have to pay for someone to teach me how to do it myself.

The incident with my tractor pretty fairly sums up the topic of this discussion: Open Educational Resources.  The idea is that educational resources don’t have to be expensive.  In fact, some of the best materials can cost nothing at all.  Schools and classrooms across the country are moving towards open source software to support education.  Instead of paying thousands of dollars for licenses for Microsoft Office, they are using Open Office, which does most of the same things, but for the low low cost of nothing.  Word processing, spreadsheets, presentations… it’s all there.  Instead of paying for Photoshop, people are downloading and using GIMP, which has most of the functionality but is, again, without cost.  This paradigm is transferring to educational resources as well, including textbooks and instructional videos and interactive simulations.  When my daughter needs help in a few years with Algebra, I will show her what I can.  Later on, when she needs help with more advanced topics like trigonometry or calculus, she very well might turn to Khan Academy or some similar source of Open Educational Resources. 

There is, and always will be, money to be made in educational materials.  Many people will say “you get what you pay for.”  This is true to an extent, but it is interesting to note that MIT has been posting course materials online, including texts and lecture videos, since 2007.  Anyone can study thermodynamics from MIT now.  However, you have to pay tuition in order to get a diploma from them.  As school divisions and teachers struggle to pull together the ends of the educational funding rope, it is good to know that there are resources available to them that can supplement, if not supplant, the materials they are already using.

When you are ready to explore the options out there, here are a few more places to start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_educational_resources

http://www.oercommons.org/

http://kihd.gmu.edu/aim/policies/