VSTE has been an active part of the #GoOpenVA initiative in Virginia. This collaborative initiative led by VDOE enables educators and others throughout Virginia to create, share, and access openly-licensed educational resources (OER, also known as open education resources). OER are free digital materials that can be used or modified to adjust to student needs; they are openly-licensed unhampered by many traditional copyright limitations.
We asked Jean and others to periodically curate a few of the resources to give a sense of what is available. Start with these but stay for so much more!
This week, Barbara Huth, a non-profit educator and education content and professional development manager for Common Sense Education, curates three resources related to learning in different environments.
There are so many incredible resources on the #GoOpenVA website from educators across the state. Whether you are looking for student lessons or professional development ideas, there is a growing number of resources available. As someone that supports educators, I am often looking for new strategies for creating engaging and collaborative spaces whether we are remote, in-person, or hybrid. Below are three of my current favorite resources from the #GoOpenVA website, and each is filled with ideas for designing learning experiences for a variety of learning environments.
Rocking Resources: An Introduction to OER and the #GoOpenVA Website by Jessica Carpenter is an adaptation of the #GoOpenVA Foundations Workshop in a Box. This professional development is a great introduction to what an open educational resource is and how to use the #GoOpenVA site. I love the use of digital tools like Peardeck (an example shown below), and breakout rooms to engage participants in the content remotely. This presentation could work in an in-person or concurrent setting as well and is a great example of how you can take something from the #GoOpenVA website and make it your own!
The Classroom Culture Playbook by Bridget Mariano, Jennifer Leary, and Meri Riddick, has an abundance of curated tips and tricks for teaching in concurrent, hybrid, remote, or in-person. In this resource there are strategies for facilitating discussions, tips on how to organize learning stations, suggested tools for making lessons more interactive, and so much more. I found the slide templates for setting up breakout rooms extremely helpful and appreciated that they were centered around student choice.
The Choice Boards and Hyperdocs resource by Adam Seipel with the Virginia School Consortium for Learning, includes a presentation deck and a recording of the presentation. This resource introduces a variety of student choice board styles and gives examples of how to build community with collaboration tools like Padlet and Flipgrid. One of my favorite resources he shares is a five-step planning document for designing blended learning experiences. Adam reminds us in this resource that our lesson design doesn't need to be complicated, for it to be engaging and meaningful!
