OER Project Purpose & Overview

Statement of Purpose

The mission of the Curriculum & OER development project is to...

      • INVEST in our teachers, because we know they are the best resource we have to maximize our students’ potential

      • GIVE our teachers full ownership of what they teach, as well as a chance to personalize curriculum.

      • PROVIDE our teachers with the Training and Support they need to be up to date and successful

      • REPLACE traditional textbooks with Open Education Resources to support three of our district areas of focus: Student Achievement, Management of Systems, and Fiscal Responsibility.

OER Development Process Overview

The diagram below outlines the steps to be completed throughout the curriculum development process. There are basically three stages:

    1. Detail the learning objectives (Acquisition Skills from UbD2.0) to be covered and design a model of how the resources will be organized.

    2. COLLECT: Gather the existing resources teachers currently use, determine their status related to appropriate use and complete an inventory.

    3. CURATE, vet and CREATE new resources to fill gaps in the inventory and link it all to the learning module.

Links to Sample Curricula Through this OER Process

These links will provide you with links to some of our curricula that have been through our process.  Not every resource is 100% OER (ie - we have a paid subscription to the New Yorker), therefore some of the links will be locked down with Google privacy settings.

2016-2017

2017-2018 

Sample OER Module Flowchart

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Resources & Development

Curating & Creating Valuable OER 

The link below will open a set of commonly used sites when curating learning resources. There are sites tied to each of the four core subject areas so feel free to share with others!

GVSD #GoOpen Resource Repository

Evaluating the Appropriate Use of Resources

Garnet Valley SD Resources:

Use the GVSD Resource Checklist to evaluate the resources you plan to use in your learning modules. The link will prompt you to make a copy of the document. 

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State, Collegiate and National Projects

There are a number of state, collegiate and national projects that are focusing on high level evaluation of instructional programs, materials, and resources.  These are sites and evaluations that we are going to begin to take into consideration as we evaluate our current program, materials and resources, as well as new ones we are considering as we move forward. 

    • EdReports.org - Educator-led, evidence-based reviews of K-12 instructional materials. EdReports.org is an independent nonprofit designed to improve K-12 education. Our free reviews of K-12 instructional materials focus on alignment to college and career-ready standards and other indicators of high quality as recommended by educators.

    • Louisiana Believes - In Louisiana all school systems are able to purchase instructional materials that are best for their local communities. The Louisiana Department of Education led an online review of instructional materials listed on this page to determine the degree of alignment with state content standards to support school systems with these decisions. Each local school system should determine if their use is appropriate to meet the educational needs of their students.

    • University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - This guide provides instructor a basic understanding of Open Educational Resources (OER), including how to find, evaluate, use, and adapt OER materials for their own curriculum.

Support When Looking for Quality OER

The Open Professionals Education Network (OPEN)  is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and offers free services aligned with the DOL’s grant requirements, designed to support your project. Our partners’ long-standing experience in beneficial service areas will help you achieve your project goals while maximizing the use of your resources.

Support areas include:

    • Open Educational Resources (OER) practices & policies

    • Creative Commons (CC) licensing

    • Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Accessibility

    • Evidence-based online technology use

    • Effective course and learning design

    • Help finding existing OER

Copyright-Free Images

GVSD Copyright-Free Image Guide When you're working to create quality resources of your own, you might not know where to start looking for images that are royalty-free or within the public domain. This list of sites are those that should provide you with databases of useable images, across all subjects and grade levels. For a repository of images that span all subjects, try Pixabay or Morguefile for a quick search. The link above will also provide you with a walkthrough of how to find public domain images using a Google Image search, too!

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Measuring Readability 

GVSD Lexile Analyzer Overview For any content development project, it's essential to ensure that resources and new material is appropriate for grade and reading level. For tools that will help you to determine Lexile and readability levels, click on the link above. For resources to help you to ensure that you're using the proper DOK level, click on the link below. 

DOK Level When working on creating SWBATs, activities, and assessments, be sure to keep Webb's Depth of Knowledge in the forefront of your work.  We are looking to ask students to go beyond just recall and summary, to higher levels of analysis, evaluation and synthesis.

Licensing and Tagging Resources 

When you are ready to add the license tag to your learning materials, use the image below to communicate to others that you expect them to attribute the resource to Garnet Valley (BY), they are not allowed to sell the resource (NC) and they cannot change the license terms and must share alike (SA) if they modify the materials.

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If asked to attribute a resource covered under a CC BY license, here is a format that can be used in most cases:

  • This resource [link to resource] was created by [publisher] and covered under a [specific type] license, as shown on this [link to resource] page.

  • Example 1: A Civil Rights resource is being used from the Stanford History Education Group. The site is covered under a CC-BY-NC license, meaning the resource can be used and modified, but not sold, as long as it is attributed correctly. Use the following attribution statement...

This resource was created by the Stanford History Education Group and is covered under a CC-BY-NC license, as shown on this page. 

  • Example: An image was created by NASA and released to the public domain. Use the following attribution statement...

This resource was created by NASA and is not copyrighted for educational use, as detailed on this page