March 1-5, 2021 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 OLRC’s and COERLL’s FL OER Conference
The Open Language Resource Center (OLRC) at the University of Kansas and COERLL will be hosting the first annual Foreign Language OER Conference on Saturday, March 6, 2021. Language instructors will showcase large-scale foreign language OER and exchange information on topics related to OER production and adoption. We hope this will be a space for sharing lessons learned and building a community of practice!
There is no cost to attend the conference. It will be conducted entirely through Zoom and composed of 15 minute lightning talks and 30 minute presentations.
Read NEW OER from COERLL
- Her Şey Bir Merhaba ile Başlar! (Everything Begins with a Hello!), a multimedia textbook with supplementary materials for intermediate Turkish language learners, developed by Jeannette Okur and licensed under a CC BY-SA license.
- Open Education and Second Language Learning and Teaching: The Rise of a New Knowledge Ecology, a compilation of case studies about open projects and practices in the language classroom and beyond the classroom, edited by Carl Blyth and Joshua Thoms and licensed under a CC BY-ND license.
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! 117 faculty, teachers, librarians, graduate and undergraduate students are already listed there.
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:
- Presentation Engaging Students as OER Contributors – March 1, 2021 at 10am CST
- Webinar Equity and Open Education Faculty Panel – March 1, 2021 at 12pm CST
- Webinar Implementación de un curso en México y Chile para la producción de REA – March 2, 2021 at 3pm CST
- Workshop Create interactive H5P elements for your course! – March 3, 2021 at 1pm CST
- Session Open-inspired Midday Yoga – March 4, 2021 at 1pm CST
And check out these resources:
- 10 minute challenges to learn more about OER from BCcampus
- Creative Commons license training content from Creative Commons
- #OEWeek hashtag on Twitter
- Faculty Spotlight of Dr. Jocelly Meiners, Texas Coalition for Heritage Spanish Project co-director, from University of Texas at Austin Libraries
Learn more about OER for language learning in our introductory guide
Two years ago, 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 your resource and remember to give you credit. Here’s how…
- 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).
- Add an image of the license if you have it.
- 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.