16 March, 2012

FINDING FREE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

Open educational resources (OER) are digital materials in the public domain or licensed under Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/ ), meaning the creator permits free use with certain restrictions (for example, requiring that the materials be attributed to the original author). The Creative Commons website allows people to license their own materials, as well as search for Creative Commons–licensed works. The Creative Commons site is not limited to educational materials, but many other websites focus only on education, such as Merlot ( http://www.merlot.org/ ), Connexions ( http://www.cnx.org/ ) and OER Commons ( http://www.oercommons.org/ ).
All U.S. federal government materials are in the public domain. The Department of Education provides a guide to free materials at Federal Resources for Educational Excellence ( http://free.ed.gov/ ).
Another resource for teachers is open courseware (OCW) — course materials created by colleges and universities around the world and shared freely online. One of the first to offer open courseware was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm ) in 2001. Open courseware can include course syllabi, reading lists, PowerPoint presentations, problem sets, lecture notes, exams and videotaped lectures. There is now a worldwide consortium ( http://www.ocwconsortium.org/ ) of more than 250 organizations and institutions of higher education committed to open courseware.
Culatta, a former teacher of Spanish, created a Wikipedia page called Recursos educativos abiertos ( http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursos_educativos_abiertos ) that lists sites offering free educational materials in Spanish. Among these are Universia ( http://ocw.universia.net/es/ ) and MIT en español ( http://mit.ocw.universia.net/all-courses.htm ).
Classroom-aid.com ( http://www.classroom-aid.com/technology-resources/ ) lists recommended digital resources for the classroom (K–12), including resources in Chinese ( http://www.classroom-aid.com/chinese/ ). MIT’s Translated Courses ( http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/translated-courses/ ) webpage links to materials in Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, Persian and Turkish. Connexions allows people to browse for materials in numerous languages ( http://cnx.org/content/browse_content/language).
The Department of Education’s National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition ( http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/ ) and Doing What Works ( http://dww.ed.gov/ ) have resources for English-language teachers. There are resources at the State Department’s Materials for Teaching and Learning English ( http://exchanges.state.gov/englishteaching/resforteach/pubcat.html ) and American English Online ( http://exchanges.state.gov/americanenglishonline/index.html ) websites, and the Voice of America offers special broadcasts and materials for learners of English ( http://www.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/ ).
A new initiative called the Learning Registry ( http://www.learningregistry.org/ ) is working to make free educational resources easier to find. The registry facilitates the sharing and searching of educational content located on federal agency and commercial publisher websites, as well as reviews and ratings of that content. It was launched by the U.S. departments of Education and Defense, and the private sector and any other interested parties can participate.
Source: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/iipdigital-en/index.html)

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for sharing free teaching resources links. It can help lot of teachers and students to get some tips and ideas on teachings and activities. Keep on posting!

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