Open Up

Conversations on Open Education for Language Learning

Welcome to Open Education Week 2020

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March 2-6, 2020 is Open Education Week, an international event to build awareness of open education and show its impact on teaching and learning. Open education encompasses resources, tools and practices that employ a framework of open sharing to improve educational access and effectiveness.* Read below to learn how to get involved during Open Ed Week.

Attend COERLL’s Open Ed Week OER Hangout Webinar

Celebrate Open Education Week by attending this discussion-based webinar on Wednesday March 4 at 6:00pm CST, where you will have a chance to chat with three instructors who have adopted OER and creatively adapted the content for their language classes.

  • Alexandra Gouirand is a French faculty member at South Puget Sound Community College. She uses Français interactif as the main textbook in her French 1 class, as well as ancillary books and online resources including YouTube videos.
  • Dawn Michael has been teaching French since 1991, and is currently a high school French teacher in Ohio. She uses the open curriculum Français interactif to teach blended French 1 and 2 courses and creates her own supplements to accompany the resources.
  • Valérie Morgan is a French lecturer. She uses the open curriculum Français interactif to teach Levels 1, 2, and 3 French. To supplement the textbook she uses Google Classroom, Google Tools, Flipgrid, and Padlet.

Since Français interactif is the most widely-used OER published by COERLL, it was easier for us to find French teachers to present here, but we hope teachers of all languages will join.

There will be 20 minutes of presentation time, and the rest of the hour will be dedicated to your questions and to conversation between participants and panelists. We want to hear from you!

Be featured on COERLL’s Language OER Network

Have you taught with openly licensed resources, created your own openly licensed resources, or helped others learn about OER? If so, we want to give you a digital badge and feature you on the Language OER Network! 102 faculty, teachers, librarians, graduate and undergraduate students are already listed there.

Visit the LOERN page to join

Find other events and resources for Open Education Week

You can discover other events around the world on the Open Education Week website. Here’s just a sample:

And check out these resources:

Learn more about OER for language learning in our introductory guide

Last year, we launched the Introduction to OER for Language Teachers, a series of modules on topics related to creating and using open educational resources and practices. We have been updating the guide ever since based on our conversations with teachers – it’s OER, so it continues to evolve!

If you are already a user or creator of OER, or are planning on becoming one, please take a look at the guide, and let us know what you think!

Try licensing your work

If you are already sharing activities, lesson plans, or other resources with colleagues, you might want to consider adding a Creative Commons license, so people know how they are allowed to use it and remember to give you credit. Here’s how…

  1. Somewhere in your document, write “This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License” (or whichever other license you choose). This page can help you choose a license (that is, choose how people are allowed to use your resource).
  2. Add an image of the license if you have it.
  3. Don’t forget to include your name as the author!

 

*Definition from the Open Education Consortium’s Open Education Week website, licensed under CC BY.

What Rebus can do for Language Teachers

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The open education movement is full of well-meaning, very smart people who get stuff done. My favourite kind of people! These people care about students, their success, and, most-importantly, their well-being. There are lots of ways to participate in this movement: you can adopt open educational resources (OER) in your classrooms, contribute to a project in a small way, peer review an open textbook, adapt a project, create a textbook from scratch, or become an open ambassador. It’s Rebus Community’s goal to support faculty, librarians, and other open practitioners as they create, adapt, discuss, contribute, and share open textbooks.

Rebus Community is an initiative of the Rebus Foundation, a Canadian registered charity based in Montreal. In 2016, we put out our first call for pilot project teams who wanted to create open textbooks with the Rebus team providing project management support. Since then we’ve collaborated on dozens of open textbook projects in a range of disciplines. Through our experience and in collaboration with a big beautiful community of OER nerds, we developed a publishing model that is based on open principles and can be replicated by anyone with the drive to create impactful, accessible, high-quality textbooks. Today, we advocate for this model of publishing by providing training, software and resources that support OER creators.

Here’s what we offer:

  • The Textbook Success Program combines a twelve-week course and nine months of monthly check-ins. Participants are grouped into a cohort of creators from their campus and from other institutions. The result: hands-on experience with open publishing, the capacity to create more open textbooks, and a network of OER-practitioners that crosses disciplines, institutions, and countries.
  • The Rebus Guide to Publishing Open Textbooks (So Far) is the openly licensed documentation of our collaborative publishing model. It guides readers through the process of creating open textbooks, starting with team building, moving through peer review, and finishing with post-release considerations.
  • Our web-based software lets anyone create a project homepage for their open textbook project. The project homepage is public facing and can be used to amplify your project’s status updates, calls for participation, and eventual release announcement. Users can hold discussions on a wide array of topics, organize important resources, and connect with their team.

To date, we’ve had a number of projects concerned with language learning. I’m particularly excited about the Technology in Language Teaching team. They’re participating in the Textbook Success Program with an open textbook project that provides, “an overview of the theory and practice of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) for classroom and learn ‘anytime anywhere’ environments.”

In a meeting the other day, a colleague who once worked as a writing teacher said of language instructors, “They’re the first to break the rules and want to shift the normal practices of teaching.” As someone who works for an organization that supports alternatives to commercial textbook publishing, I hope what my colleague says is true. As I watch the language learning projects on Rebus Community grow, I am heartened. Let’s break rules!

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Leigh Kinch-Pedrosa does marketing and communications for the Rebus Foundation in Montreal, Canada. Before joining the Rebus team, Leigh produced live storytelling shows and art installations, and developed a series of workshops that encourage entrepreneurs and academics to use personal storytelling to communicate complex ideas.

Congratulations!

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Congratulations to Dr. Gabriela Zapata of the Department of Hispanic Studies at Texas A&M University for receiving the Texas A&M University Libraries and the A&M Student Government Association (SGA) Open Education Champion award for her “compelling and significant positive impact in areas related to OERs or use of Texas A&M’s OAKTrust Institutional Repository”.

Dr. Zapata is currently working with a team of graduate and undergraduate students on Trayectos, a four-volume, open online textbook for beginning and intermediate second language learners of Spanish, with the support of COERLL.

We’d like to acknowledge Dr. Zapata for her generosity in sharing her work with so many people, and also thank Texas A&M Libraries and SGA for giving these awards to bring more visibility to open educational resources. We hope to see awards like this from more institutions in the future.

COERLL is lucky to work with many spectacular faculty, teachers, and students who put in extra hours to create resources and share them with others. We are very grateful for all of these people and their collaboration. You can find a partial list on our Language OER Network page.

Open Resources for Indigenous Languages

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Photo credit: “Nahuala huipil” by Sergio Romero for “Chqe’tamaj le qach’ab’al K’iche’!”, licensed under Creative Commons License

2019 is the International Year of Indigenous Languages, as established by UNESCO. The goal of this year is to increase support for, promotion of, and access to indigenous languages. UNESCO suggests that one approach to this goal is to “develop new and open educational resources to facilitate teaching and learning in indigenous languages”. (You can read the other suggestions on the program website.)

Since we at COERLL focus on open educational resources (OER) for language learning, we are happy to see when OER are suggested as a way to support a movement. Open Creative Commons licenses, an essential aspect of all OER, make it easier for people to access and share important information in their community and with the world, while ensuring authors are always credited for their work. This will not be a solution that suits everyone, but there are many indigenous language teachers and organizations who have chosen to make their resources available under a Creative Commons license. The list below is just a sample. Thank you to the authors of these resources for sharing their valuable knowledge.

Please share other openly-licensed indigenous language materials in the comments!

Fijian

Na vosa vakaviti – A Fijian language children’s activity book of word searches, colouring pages, and stories published by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Licensed under a CC BY-NC license.

Indigenous languages of Canada

Indigenous Storybooks makes the text, images, and audio of stories available in Indigenous languages as well as English, French, and the most widely spoken immigrant and refugee languages of Canada. It’s for children, families, community members, and educators. Inspired by Little Cree Books. Licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA license.

Iñupiat

Iñupiat Language Community site – Lessons, activities, and additional resources for the Iñupiat language developed by Chelsey Zibell at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Licensed under a CC BY license.

Komnzo, Mauwake, Moloko, Palula, Papuan Malay, Pite Saami, Rapa Nui, Yakkha, Yauyos Quechua

Studies in Diversity Linguistics – A book series published by Language Science Press on individual less-widely studied languages (primarily reference grammars). The chief editor is Martin Haspelmath. Licensed under a CC BY license.

K’iche’

Chqe’tamaj le qach’ab’al K’iche’! – A multimedia K’iche’ curriculum in English and Spanish, comprised of 40 lessons developed by Sergio Romero, Ignacio Carvajal, Juan Manuel Tahay Tzaj, Mareike Sattler, et. al. with the support of LLILAS and COERLL at the University of Texas at Austin. Licensed under a CC BY license.

Māori

Te reo Māori pukapuka mahi – A free downloadable Māori language activity book for kids published by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Licensed under a CC BY-NC license.

Nahuatl

Language faculty and graduate students supported by LLILAS and COERLL at the University of Texas at Austin are in the process of planning materials for beginning language learners of Nahuatl. Stay tuned to the blog for updates!

Sāmoan

Gagana Sāmoa Tusi o gāluega fa‘atino – A Sāmoan language activity book of word searches, coloring pages, and stories for kids, published by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Licensed under a CC BY-NC license.

SENĆOŦEN

SENĆOŦEN Classified Word List – A list of over 3300 SENĆOŦEN words and sound files by Dr. Timothy Montler et. al. Licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA license.

General Indigenous Language Studies

Language Learning Assessment Tool – A guide for adult learners of Indigenous languages to self-assess their learning and progress written by Dr. Onowa McIvor and Dr. Peter Jacobs of NEȾOLṈEW̱, the Indigenous Language Research Network. Licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA license.

 

What other openly licensed indigenous language materials do you recommend?

COERLL Supports the #GoOpen Initiative

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COERLL recently became a supporting organization of #GoOpen, an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology which supports states, districts and educators using openly licensed educational materials to transform teaching and learning.

The #GoOpen network consists of 96 launch districts and 23 ambassador districts, spread across 33 states. Launch districts identify a district open educational resources (OER) strategy team, commit to replace at least one textbook with openly-licensed educational materials in the next year, and document and share their implementation process. Ambassador districts mentor launch districts as they design and implement their OER strategy, and share the openly licensed materials they’ve created.

Supporting organizations (COERLL, Council of Chief State School Officers, Creative Commons USA, Digital Promise, Library of Congress, New America, and The Learning Accelerator) attend regular calls, contribute updates on new activities or resources relevant to #GoOpen states and districts to the monthly #GoOpen Newsletter, and spread awareness about the #GoOpen initiative to schools and districts.

If your school district is considering adopting or creating OER, we recommend you read the clear list of steps laid out in the #GoOpen district launch packet. And, consider committing to being a #GoOpen district. You’ll have lots of support from many others who have gone through the same process.

For our part, COERLL has pledged to…

  • Advise school districts whose language departments are interested in creating, adapting, adopting, or sharing OER
  • Advocate for more OER adoption and #GoOpen participation in Texas
  • Award digital badges to validate and promote the stories of language departments in #GoOpen districts who have used OER, through COERLL’s Language OER Network and other communication channels
  • Develop and share an FAQ guide for language departments interested in going open (which we will publish soon!)

Megan Schacht from Parkway Schools, a #GoOpen district, presented in one of our webinars about the Modern and Classical Languages department’s work with OER, and we are looking forward to seeing what other collaborations will be possible from being part of #GoOpen.

 

A network to showcase OER for language learning

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Editors note: This post was originally published on the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources blog

The Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL) just launched the Language OER Network (LOERN), a page on our website to list language educators who are creating, using, or promoting open educational resources (OER). Every person featured on the page receives an open digital badge from COERLL. In this effort to acknowledge, validate, inspire, and connect open practitioners, we have already distributed badges to 41 teachers, librarians, and administrators.

We built the Language OER Network because we realized that more people than ever have started to understand what we do and are interested in getting involved in their own open projects. We are always thankful to hear from K-12 teachers and community college and university faculty who spend the extra time and energy to find the right open materials to support their students’ language proficiency. The Language OER Network exists to acknowledge this work.

Even though the open movement is gaining momentum, a large number of teachers and administrators either don’t know or misunderstand what OER is. Teachers who do advocate for openness often report that they are doing it alone. Badges provide teachers with proof of their accomplishments, to validate to their colleagues and employers that using and making OER is scholarly, creative work.

Language teachers (plus other staff, administrators, or students involved in OER for languages) can earn as many as six badges on the Language OER Network, for being either an OER Teacher, OER Master Teacher, OER Creator, OER Master Creator, OER Reviewer, or OER Ambassador. From what we’ve seen, this follows the natural progression that many people take, from the basic use of supplementary OER, to the full involvement of sharing the benefits of OER with others. We hope that this set of badges will inspire people to keep opening up, eventually earning all six badges.

We would also love if people embarking on new open projects could look at this page and find others who have similar ideas, to connect with them and potentially collaborate. With the number of people pursuing OER right now, it’s likely that many of them are doing similar projects and could benefit from sharing ideas and resources.

Even though we are publishing the Language OER Network to benefit teachers, it benefits COERLL as well. LOERN will be a tapestry of open language education that will help us demonstrate what this multifaceted movement is all about. Since launching the page in the past month, we are excited to have already learned about new people and projects from across the country. We look forward to hearing from more open educators, and also hope that in the future we can find a way to acknowledge more types of open educational practices, which are just as important as open resources, but harder to quantify.

Read about your colleagues and their open projects, and join the community! https://community.coerll.utexas.edu/

Department of Education proposes OER initiatives to directly impact teachers

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Photo credit: flickr user opensource.com Creative Commons License

We at the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL) could not be happier about two new Department of Education initiatives that not only reinforce the work we do to create and disseminate high quality open instructional materials for language learning but also expand government support for Open Educational Resources (OER) across disciplines.

At the end of October 2015, officials at the Department of Education and in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy welcomed school superintendents, educators, technology representatives, and non-profit leaders to an Open Education Symposium in Washington DC. At that meeting, the Department of Education announced the launch of a new #GoOpen Challenge campaign aimed at encouraging the use of openly licensed educational materials and also proposed a new policy regulation that would require all copyrighted intellectual property created with the support of Department of Education grant funds to carry an open license. In a distinct move away from traditional textbooks, the Department of Education asserted the need for all students to have access to high quality open learning resources.

Added to the recent appointment of the first Open Education Advisor, Andrew Marcinek, the new Department of Education pledge demonstrates that the government is serious about raising OER awareness. This aligns with COERLL’s mission to offer open materials for language learning at low-to-no cost. Unlike traditional course materials, OER may be adjusted and improved to meet the needs of students of all backgrounds in all districts, even the most underfunded ones.

Not surprisingly, some are wondering what the impact of #GoOpen and its support of next generation materials will be for classroom teachers. Importantly, participating districts will save money by adopting low cost OER in place of expensive traditional textbooks. Additionally, teachers will no longer have to worry that they might be breaking the law by inadvertently using copyrighted educational resources in the wrong way. Certainly, as more educators participate in OER creation and dissemination, the sharing of innovative materials and ideas will increase. Teachers will also learn more about best practices and, as they contribute their own materials, gain greater visibility and professional recognition.

If you would like to express your views on the new Department of Education OER policy proposals, you can do so here until December 18. We’d also be curious to hear your thoughts in the comments below.