Open Education 2016

Tracy Pitzer, Director of Instructional Leadership at Puyallup School District will be co-presenting this session.

In the K-12 space, there is a push to increase discoverability of open resources and develop repositories of OER. While important, this is not the endgame. It's critical to recognize that there is a range of OER interest from K-12 districts and their needs go beyond just finding discrete resources.

Each of the stages along the scale from using open materials to promoting open practice, has its own set of questions. For some districts, the initial foray into using OER may be as far as they go, but for others it can be the beginning of a journey to iterative curriculum development and student involvement in the creation of open resources.

It's important to recognize where educators are entering this OER continuum and provide them with the appropriate supports and guidance to help in their effective implementation. In this session, we'll share some stories from the field in Washington State:

- Fife School District is just starting to explore OER. They need to understand how OER fit into the instructional materials landscape, ascertain whether there are appropriate resources for adoption consideration, and communicate to their stakeholders the value of open beyond "free stuff on the internet".

- Spokane Public Schools needed comprehensive, standards-aligned mathematics materials and adopted an open resource as an alternative to expensive purchased or leased instructional materials. Now, they need collaboration on developing implementation resources, strategies for dealing with print to ensure equity of access, and professional development options.

- Puyallup School District, dissatisfied with current instructional materials choices, set out on their own to pull together resources to develop their own Civics curriculum. As a district starting to curate and create, they need help understanding licensing, clarity on copyright ownership, proper attribution examples, remixing tutorials, and a firm grasp that free is not open. 

For each case, we'll discuss the vital supports for their stage along the spectrum and brainstorm how to best provide assistance to sustain their efforts.

OSPI Interactive Copyright and Licensing Guide: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/2689472/CopyrightLicensingGuide
Generic version of Interactive Copyright and Licensing Guide and Quick Start Guide to Openly Licensed Images:
http://digitallearning.k12.wa.us/oer/licensing.php