“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela
Education is a fundamental human right and as important as the primary basic needs. It improves one’s knowledge, gives one a broader view of the world around us and how things work, reduces the social and economic disparity, thus propagating equality and also raises one’s self esteem.
But the world’s overall educational statistics aren’t up to the mark, only 22% of the world’s children finish high school and only 55% finish sixth grade. Noticing these drawbacks, many educators, administrators and startups have started creating awareness on education. Introduction of technology into the educational field creates a revolution in student learning. Unlike olden days, people nowadays have numerous sources to get quality education at low costs or even free of cost. Tutorials of high qualified professors, materials from well-established universities and courses on numerous topics from around the world are available on Web. The above mentioned things come under Open Educational Resources (OER).
OER (Open Educational Resources) are freely accessible, usually openly licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, educational assessment and research purposes i.e. they include learning content (course materials), tools (software to create and manage open learning content) and licenses. There are many open educational resources available on the Web with which one can access quality content just with a supporting device and an internet connection. Here are the best sources for OER suggested by expert educators.
ECAR Student Survey 2013 indicates that 71% of undergraduates use Open Educational Resources, 54% say they are very or extremely important.
Math Open Reference:
“Math Open Reference is a site with hundreds of interactive applets designed for students to experiment and teachers to use in the classroom”, said JDP Saratoga, a Math educator.
Using interactive tools and compelling animations, Math Open Reference provides an engaging way to learn and explore the subject. Teachers will have new ways to teach and the students, a new way to learn that is fun and engaging. You can see Math topics well sorted according to grade as well as concepts.
Khan Academy:
“Wish I would have had Khan Academy growing up.”- Caroline Vander Ark , Passionate Educator and COO at GettingSmart.
Khan Academy is an absolutely amazing learning site with a caption Watch. Practice. Learn, almost anything for free. It provides students with a huge collection of over 2,600 videos covering everything from Arithmetic to Physics, Finance and History and 268 practice exercises. Their mission is to help you learn what you want, when you want, at your own pace.
BBC Language Learning Section:
Most of the educators suggest BBC site for language learning. It’s language learning section includes Courses and phrases, audio and videos, vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, activities and tests for over 40 languages. It’s probably the best language learning site in the world.
CK12.org:
“CK-12 makes it easy for teachers to assemble their own textbooks or find content for many subjects at CK12 Student section” , USD383, a community of educators, Manhattan, KS.
“42 million+ learning experiences delivered and counting… 5000+ concepts learned through 15,000+ resources. All are free from @CK12Foundation” , Ohio’s Credit Flexibility.
CK12.org introduces Flexbooks (Text Book vs. Flex Book; a Flex Book can supplement or supplant traditional texts) to its users. This online resource allows students, educators, parents and administrators to access free text books. Educators can create high quality content to share their knowledge and expertise and the quality can be verified and assured by CK-12’s community of educational practitioners. It also provides collaborative learning via a community of authors, teachers and students.
NPTEL:
Over 60% of Indian Professors and most of the graduate students recommend NPTEL as a great open education resource.
National Programme on Technology Enhance Learning (NPTEL) is a collaborative educational programme sponsored by the Government of India. This programme aims to enhance the quality of engineering education in India. 7 IITs along with IISC Banglore are taking part in this programme. NPTEL brings over 700 courses online: users can download the tutorials to watch them offline or watch them via IIT channel on YouTube. NPTEL also provides you with printable materials on their website.
“NPTEL trains engineering faculty”, shared Dr. B. R. K. REDDY
“NPTEL e-learning is an excellent online source of engineering lectures”, shared Tom James, a graduate engineer.
We hope this information is useful for you to know about a few recommendations from educators on Open Educational Resources. We’d like to have more suggested OERs from you. Please share with us a few more Open Educational Resources which you find great. The comment box awaits you.
You may read our following articles to know more about Open Education Resources:
OER Search Engines for Best Educational Content
