New Zealand Science Teacher

Spreading the light of learning: OER Sprints

17/05/2016

Open Education resource creators from around New Zealand are encouraging learning that’s not limited by geography.

Kiwis from different backgrounds across the country came together in an ‘OER Sprint’ event on the weekend of 30 April this year to add to the growing cloud of resources created by people motivated to share learning.

Open Education Resources (OER) are free and available for download by anyone. This means that students and teachers, no matter where they’re doing their learning, have access to resources that are up to date. This is obviously very important for science learning.

Anyone can update the knowledge contained in these crowd-sourced learning materials, and the materials are peer reviewed by those who are passionate about a particular topic.

Some of the most prestigious learning institutions in the world – including universities such as Yale – are enthusiastically behind the idea, so quality isn’t a problem.

One of the organisations helping to coordinate the OER Sprint events is Creative Commons Aotearoa. Elizabeth Heritage, communications lead at Creative Commons, says that Open Education Resources are a real growth area. She believes that the movement represents a watershed change in education.

“It comes down to how the internet has changed the way we share knowledge and the way we learn. If you’re a teacher in rural New Zealand, you have the power to be in touch with your peers all over the world. Chances are, someone before you has taught the programme you’re wanting to embark on, and has prepared a lesson plan and all the resources you need.”

This was the first OER Sprint event to take place in New Zealand. People were able to join the effort virtually via a dedicated chat channel provided by the OER Universitas, the institutional parent of Creative Commons.

Besides the actual creation of learning resources, says Elizabeth, part of the point is to create awareness around the Open Education movement and let people know that they can contribute to the free movement of knowledge, including those who may never have thought of themselves as an author of education materials.

“We want people to know that, actually, they do have the expertise to help.”

Melita Farley runs her own business, which focuses on adult education. Melita ran the OER Sprint event in Whanganui and says it was a successful exercise. The message that anyone can contribute is obviously getting through, says Melita, as none of the participants on the day were teachers.

“We had an adult educator, a website developer, and a filmmaker at the Whanganui event, for example.”

The Whanganui event went for the whole weekend. The group initially got together and talked about their ideas, and had a brainstorming session. The idea that emerged, which the group worked on together, which was to develop a resource for older people to help them understand the possibilities inherent in the internet.

The Wellington event focused more on resources that can be used in schools. The group there developed materials around using Creative Commons resources, which included a card game for children to help them understand what Creative Commons is. Another exciting project was a te reo version of the computer game Minecraft.