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发帖数: 19398 | 1 More school districts use no-cost online resources to supplement classroom
lessons and textbooks
When Tullahoma City Schools administrators started shopping for new social
studies textbooks in 2013, they were disappointed to find only a few options
aligned to the new Tennessee state standards. Rather than wait for newer
textbooks to be released, the district embarked on the ambitious project of
creating its own.
Two years later, the result is a series of social studies and math textbooks
that students can access from any digital device, and that teachers can
easily personalize for their classroom.
What’s more, the district created the books using all free online
curriculum resources. “One thing we think is a really big selling point is
[the books] can be as minimal as just text or as rich and interactive as we
want to make them,” Superintendent Dan Lawson says.
District leaders have also included simulations and videos so parents can
refresh their knowledge of math and other concepts when helping children
with homework, Lawson says.
Because the books can be updated instantly, teachers can integrate current
events in a way to make content more relevant for students, Lawson says. The
district expects to replace 80 to 85 percent of its textbooks in the next
few years with free digital content created or curated within the school
district.
Free Curriculum Resources
CK12: One of the largest creators of free curriculum resources online,
nonprofit CK12 offers textbooks, flashcards, lessons and storage so
districts can create their own online textbooks.
Discovery Education: Offers digital content, interactive lessons, real-time
assessment, virtual experiences and professional development. It offers a
free math and science game, a science program one day a year and a
historical program about the Holocaust.
EngageNY: Provides free Common Core State Standards curriculum in English
and math.
Khan Academy: Primarily known as a science and math website, but it has
thousands of free online lessons, games and resources in subjects as diverse
as art history and computer programming. Everything on the nonprofit’s
website is free.
Kennedy Center’s ArtsEdge: The website features lessons and material on
using art to teach numerous subjects, including math.
Library of Congress: Offers primary source documents, lesson plans and
activities for social studies and English language arts, sortable by grade
and standard.
National Geographic: National Geographic Learning publishes educational
textbooks that must be purchased, but also offers free activities, lesson
plans and videos in geography, social studies and science.
National Park Service: Offers hundreds of student activities, lesson plans
and supplemental classroom materials in primarily social studies and science
.
OER Commons: A curated digital library of free open educational resources
from more than 400 sources. Content is vetted by curriculum specialists.
PBS Learning Media: Videos, games, lesson plans and curriculum resources
sortable by grade, subject or standard. Also offers free tools for helping
teachers build quizzes and lessons.
SAS Curriculum Pathways: Interactive lessons, documents and resources in
math, English language arts, science, social studies and Spanish aligned to
multiple standards. Online and mobile apps for students include Writing
Reviser.
PD Resources
ASCD: Offers series of free webinars to help teachers and districts with
curriculum, and a blog with tips and strategies.
SAS Curriculum Pathways: Free on-site training and online PD that ranges
from short lessons to semester-length courses on ways to integrate
technology into lessons.
Washington State Department of Public Instruction: Training for how to
evaluate the quality of open education resources.
The amount of free online content—and free tools for developing curriculum
—has skyrocketed in recent years.
Teachers can access quizzes and courses from Khan Academy; include a program
from CK12 to develop, modify, share and store the digital textbooks;
incorporate videos from PBS; and share lesson plans with other educators
across the globe on sites like sharemylesson.com, which is operated by the
American Federation of Teachers.
But for districts seeking free comprehensive curriculum or teachers simply
searching for supplemental lesson material, sorting through all the online
resources can be a challenge.
So it’s important for district leaders to clarify their needs and
expectations before embarking on a free curriculum project or using open
educational resources (also known as OER), says Barbara Soots, OER program
manager in Washington state’s Office of Superintendent of Public
Instruction. Washington offers a range of resources for districts.
PD for teachers is also important, says Lisa Petrides, co-founder of the
Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education, which operates
the site OER Commons. “It’s not just some how-to, but really deep,
meaningful professional development that helps teachers actually see
themselves back in the role of curriculum experts,” Petrides says.
Different kinds of free
Not all free online resources are created equal. Some websites offer content
for free for a limited amount of time, or make some content available but
charge for premium access to quizzes and teacher guides.
This is typically known as “freemium,” a category that open-access
proponents say teachers and districts should avoid, because it limits how
they can use the content.
Other resources are free for online or educational use, but charge for add-
ons. For instance, Shutterfly’s free Photo Story for Classrooms app lets
students create and publish media-rich books. The digital books are free to
create and share online, but print versions cost money.
Other resources are completely free to use, but may have some limitations on
how the content is modified or distributed.
Finally, open educational resources are free resources that districts and
teachers can legally adapt, distribute and modify. Last September, the U.S.
Department of Education hired its first-ever open education advisor,
following a growing national push to improve access to free, quality
curriculum resources.
The OER advisor is a school technology expert who will help the education
department help states and districts move toward using free resources.
For leaders looking for open educational resources simply to save cash,
Lawson and Soots say time and resources must be spent vetting materials,
training teachers and curating content. Lawson says such an investment pays
its own dividends.
“This has been perhaps the best embedded professional development I have
ever provided for my teachers, because they get to intimately know the
standards and connect them to the OER content,” he says.
Content sources
One of the easiest places to start looking for free online resources is OER
Commons, which curates and vets content from more than 400 sources,
including the Khan Academy and CK12—two of the largest and most well-known
free curriculum providers.
The content curated by OER Commons includes hundreds of full-length
textbooks on subjects from the Arabic language to physics, lesson plans,
audio lectures, online courses and games.
Many larger content creators and free content repositories also feature
filters so users can search for content by subject, standard and grade.
Other websites, such as the Library of Congress, offer material in a few
core subjects.
A growing number of states and school districts are also sharing their
curriculum online. New York State, for example, offers a full K12 Common
Core curriculum in English and math.
Supplemental material that enhances curriculum but doesn’t replace
traditional textbooks is still the most common online resource. The National
Park Service offers hundreds of student activities, lesson plans and
supplemental classroom material, mainly in social studies and science. The
Kennedy Center’s ArtsEdge website features lessons and material on using
art to teach numerous subjects. And PBS Learning Media’s digital library
has thousands of free videos, quizzes and games.
Alicia Levi, vice president of PBS Learning Media, says PBS tries to address
what she dubs the “Sunday night problem”—educators trying to plan their
week by searching for safe and trusted material to augment lessons. Time is
a valuable resource for educators, she adds.
Apps and development resources
Many free-content websites offer programs to manage curriculum and track
student learning. After teachers sign up for Khan Academy, for example, they
get a personalized dashboard where they can create pages for individual
classes, set learning goals and track assignments.
Teachers can use a new PBS lesson-builder tool to select resources from a
digital library and then add in additional elements, such as quizzes. PBS
handles assignments the same way that Khan Academy does—teachers give out a
code so students can access online data and quizzes without creating an
account.
Another popular offering from PBS is Storyboard, an online program that
allows teachers to create presentations using content from both PBS and
other resources. Programs like Storyboard can also provide an easy way to
differentiate instruction, says Amanda Haughs, a math teacher at Campbell
Union School District in San Jose, California.
Haughs, who is spending this year as a resource teacher in her district,
used Storyboard to help a fourth-grade science teacher assemble
demonstration videos in Spanish, quizzes and supplemental aids for an
English-language learner who needed extra help.
SAS Curriculum Pathways has been developing free online curricula for a few
years, but its biggest growth has been in mobile apps, says Scott McQuiggan,
company director. The most popular SAS download is called Writing Advisor,
which walks students through the writing-and-revision process for
assignments.
When Tullahoma teachers and administrators created their digital social
studies and math textbooks for use in most grades, Lawson insisted content
be platform- agnostic—meaning it could be accessible on any device and the
district wouldn’t be tied to using one particular technology.
Tullahoma used CK12’s Flexbooks—an online platform for creating highly
adaptable textbooks—because the program was not only free and compatible
with any device, but it allowed the district to search through other
districts’ work and use that as a starting point for its own textbooks.
Tullahoma’s books can now be viewed and searched by others, and Lawson says
districts call and want to talk about the move to OER.
With Flexbooks, Tullahoma can track changes made to the main district-
created textbook, while teachers are free to add and revise individual
classroom versions. “Teachers have often enriched and updated their
curriculum,” Lawson says, “They just haven’t had a structure like this
before.” |
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