WHAT ARE O.E.R.’s?

By Matai Tagicaki, 2015

UNESCO defines O.E.R.  as “Open Educational Resources (OERs) are any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open license. The nature of these open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them. OERs range from textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video and animation.” (“What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?”, 2015)

The word ‘OPEN’ strongly emphasizes the Concept behind O.E.R., that there are little or no barriers. I interpret this as a passionate approach to share knowledge, where there is knowledge abundance in the world, with societies or communities that live in educational information deficit. Fiji, a third world country, O.E.R. offers an opportunity that empowers teachers, students, parents and other stakeholders in Education with real time information and open access. In my opinion, this is a globally evolved interactive approach in educational resources sharing, one can argue that it is not a new approach, but I will say that it is global and impacting Countries new to the concept of Open and Free Sharing of information, an opportunity to stay informed with global education developments.

The opportunities that O.E.R.’s has provided for educational resources deficient countries are extensive, judging from what is available online and the technology that compliments the concept. An environment that encourages teachers to bring the curriculum to life with video’s and empowers lesson plans with resources provided by Khans Academy. A mental picture I normally use is teaching Volcanism, in Geography, on the Island schools, where the teacher can motivate learning by using an actual video simulation downloaded from YouTube. These are opportunities created by accessing O.E.R...

In my opinion, interpreting the curriculum is task students are challenged with in any learning environment where the teacher must be an active guide, this is what teaching ultimately hopes to achieve, a student centered or student oriented learning environment. Learning environments, where teachers have the ability to get students generate intimate relationship with the curriculum, where students are motivated with a passion to learn. As such, we need a learning environment where teachers have access to extensive reach and real time Educational Resources. Open Educational Resources creates this opportunity, and encourages developmental thinking through the process of continued development.

Well, this is my opinion, as a practicing teacher from a third world Pacific Island Country, about What OER’s can mean to us and for our students.

Ref: “What are Open Educational Resources.2015.UNESCO, Open Educational Resources, 2015.http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/access-to-knowledge/open-educational-resources/what-are-open-educational-resources-oers/”