OER

Open Educational Resources
From reading this aricle, I learned that OER could greatly benefit the nature of schooling in the future. So what is OER? It is an online program to give students and instructors access to information and tools used to help facilitate learning. Spending money on college books and materials is costly (generally between $800-100 according to Fin Aid.org), OER could help cutting the costs of extra materials.

A few resources OER has to offer...

Free online course materials and information by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that I could use someday as a Teacher. It gives information on how to teach courses, what materials will be used, what material will be covered etc. I think it's great to have access to another school's specific courses, I believe it can really help facilitate in learning and to keep an overall objective secure all across the country.

I remember back in Elementary school doing different activities on the 100th day of school. This OER gives teachers of younger students ideas about which activities to do on the 100th day of school. I think it's very convenient to have; some teachers may not be as creative as others. Teachers can even incorporate math in the 100th day of school. On this website, it gives instructions on how to challenge younger students mathematically, give them a sheet of paper and tell them to come up with 100 ways to add up to 100 (ex: 1 + 99, 50+50 etc)

In this OER, it is a case study on abortion. Abortion is a controversial topic that is brought up a lot in today's society. I'm sure as my years in college progress I will have to write papers on the matter, as I have in high school. This resource gives multiple sources of information about abortion, the criteria of the case study, and a small play for the class. It can be very useful in middle school/high school classes which is exactly the age group I will be teaching.

Here's a little more information on OER by Emerging Ed Tech...

So, why promote Online Educational Resources? I think the better question is why not? It gives us students easy access to information as well as us as future teachers. I think it's a great way to promote learning, and it gives us a great variety of material. Check it out before you knock it, it can really be beneficial. For even more information, check out this website- it goes in depth of the benefits of OER.