VSTE

Virginia Society for Technology in Education

OER

Featured Resources from #GoOpenVA, October 26, 2020

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logo for go open vaJean Weller, VSTE Board Member and VDOE Technology Integration Specialist, leads the #GoOpenVA initiative in Virginia. This collaborative initiative 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.

The database is growing. Jean recently created a collection for resources specifically related to professional learning. Technology coaches from across the state have contributed and you can learn more here.

We asked her 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! And be sure to follow Jean on Twitter.

Investigating Force: This student-facing lesson from Jane Brown of Hanover, young students think about forces and design an investigation. A PhET simulation is used to encourage the students to delve deeper.

https://goopenva.org/courseware/lesson/1637/overview

Three Takes on One Resource--All Spanish Tenses Chart Classroom Uses:  Three different World Language teachers looked at this simple tool from Spanish411 and determined how they would want to use it with their own students.

What Do You Notice? Tina Fuller of Buchanan wrote an inquiry lesson on proper fractions, improper fractions, whole numbers, and mixed numbers. This could be adapted into an online activity, using break-out rooms for student collaboration.

https://goopenva.org/courseware/lesson/1462/overview

Featured Resources from #GoOpenVA, August 24, 2020

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SSwirl with word Go Open VAince its debut in January 2020, #GoOpenVA has been building its collections with the help of Virginia educators. This collaborative initiative 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.

Jean Weller, VSTE Board Member and VDOE Technology Integration Specialist, leads this effort. We asked her 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! And be sure to follow Jean on Twitter.

 

Featured Resources:

C3 Teachers: Immigration Inquiry Remix: Amy Gaulton from Hanover County created this remixed lesson, providing an inquiry lesson in a student-facing format, about immigration to New York City in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

https://goopenva.org/courseware/lesson/1520

Science Inquiry from Home: Series: Anne Petersen of the VDOE has added a series of ideas for exploring science while students are at home.  The series currently features grades K-5.

https://goopenva.org/search?f.search=science+inquiry+from+home&f.general_subject=&f.sublevel=&f.alignment_standard=

Cell Phone Electrons: Sarah McGlothlin of Giles County has created a lesson to use all those old unwanted cell phones by having students take them apart to find out how they work, integrating engineering into science.

https://goopenva.org/courseware/lesson/1738

#GoOpenVA Professional Development Resources

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Go Open VA headerThe Virginia Society for Technology in Education has been working closely with the Department of Education to support the #GoOpenVA initiative, a collaborative initiative that enables educational entities throughout Virginia to create, share, and access openly-licensed educational resources (OER, also known as open education resources).

As part of the opening of the #GoOpenVA platform, where educators across the Commonwealth can create, share and remix openly licensed resources, VSTE has begun development of a Workshop In a Box to help technology coaches and other trainers introduce the platform to their faculty. The first module, which provides an overview of the platform, is available now. Subsequent modu les focusing on more detailed use of the platform are in development and will be available this spring.

While the Workshop is designed to be used directly by divisions, VSTE may be able to provide support for face to face and online trainings. Please contact Karen Richardson (karen_richardson@vste.org) with requests or questions.

#GoOpenVA Development of Resources Initiative

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In October 2015, the US Department of Education launched #GoOpen, a campaign to encourage states, school districts and educators to use openly licensed educational materials. Open licensed educational material is more commonly known as Open Education Resources (OER).

In August 2016, a group of interested parties from across the Commonwealth of VA met informally at the VDOE offices in Richmond, VA to form a task force for the purpose of exploring the OER landscape in Virginia and identifying existing practitioners and models. The task force eventually included leaders from Virginia school divisions, Virginia CommSwirl with word Go Open VAunity College System, Virginia Department of Education,, WHRO’s eMediaVA, and Amazon Education. #GoOpenVA came into existence as the result of actions taken by this task force. Find more information on the #GoOpenVA vision, mission and goals at the #GoOpenVA website.

On April 20, 2017, VDOE held a Kickoff Meeting for #GoOpenVA’s OER development goal at the Monroe Building in Richmond, VA. In attendance were 18 teachers from across the Commonwealth and 22 other educational professionals who are active in the OER community of users. The purpose of the meeting was to educate and inform the participants on Open Education Resources (OER) and to give guidance on how to curate and identify education resources that are truly “Open”.  The following link is a video from the #GoOpenVA Development Educational Resources KickOff Meeting:

As the summer progresses the teachers at this workshop will work on curating open education resources with a focus on three content areas: Algebra I, World History I, and Virginia Social Studies. This is an exciting opportunity for learning and collaborating. These teachers and their supporting staff are working to define the processes for curating Open Education Resources that align to the Virginia Standards of Learning. The goal is to identify open resources that are validated to be of high quality, that support personalized learning, that promote critical and creative thinking for teachers and students and are effective at accelerating learning.

Below are comments from two of the teachers who are engaged in the #GoOpenVA Development of Resources initiative: 

Daina Campbell, Henry County Schools, VA Studies

 

Catherine Pace, M.ED, Chesapeake Schools Social Studies Teacher

 

Author: Elsie Dawson, Lead Project Manager, Virginia Department of Education

Contributors: Daina Campell, Henry County Schools, VA Studies; Catherine Pace, M.ED, Chesapeake Schools, Social Studies Teacher; Jean Weller, VDOE Education Technology Specialist; Dr. Deri Drapper, Director Integrated Learning, Old Dominion University