Open Education

In the youtube video, Opening Learning, Dr. Alec Couros says,

"Open learning is already happening in K-12 environments..."

And it is. Who hasn’t used webpages or online books to do homework or learn more about a certain topic we didn't understand very well in class?

I think Open Educational Resources (OER) are the best way to share, learn and teach. 

Nowadays, we have access to absolutely any kind of information we need. If we don’t know how to do something, we watch tutorials on Youtube. If we don’t know if a book or a movie is good, we check the reviews online. Openness and sharing are simply part of our lives. We can take advantage of this opportunity and make our classes more appealing and more useful to all our students. We have access to so many webpages, online books, videos, apps, etc. and we can use them all to our students’ advantage, when they work in the classroom or at home.

Also, openness in a classroom can include the teaching strategies we use and how flexible we are in our jobs. We know students learn in different ways because they have different interests, needs, hobbies, opinions, and perspectives of the world. We need to provide them with a variety of opportunities so they can participate actively in their learning process.

In my classroom, I want to use different materials and resources to engage all my students and motivate them to learn Spanish. Some of them will like watching videos of native speakers while others will prefer reading stories online. Some of them will learn by roleplaying everyday situations while others will feel more comfortable playing vocabulary games on their iPads. I think technology in general just makes things easier (and more fun!) for both teachers and students.

The great difference with books is that online information is revised and updated all the time, so something shown in a book today might not be accurate tomorrow. Mainly that is the reason why I think integrating OER in our classrooms is a need for 21^st century teachers like us.