ISKME's OER Fellowship 2012-2013

ISKME’s Open Educational Resources (OER) Fellowship Program mentors educational leaders to champion OER into classrooms, school districts, and communities. The program runs from November until October and includes up to eight fellows.

OER Fellows graduate the program with the ability to:

  • Collaborate, create, and share innovative OER Projects
  • Mentor educators who are new to OER
  • Advocate for the use of OER in their communities
  • Incorporate technology tools (wikis, blogs, Twitter, Flickr, OER Commons) into their teaching practice

Fellows work together to share teaching strategies, innovative ideas, and curricular resources as they forge new pathways in K-20 teaching collaboration. Throughout the program, ISKME facilitates Fellows’ professional development through digital, social, and peer-based learning. ISKME’s approach leverages fellows’ existing practices and adds ISKME’s OER Commons (www.oercommons.org) network as an open teaching and learning resource.

ISKME’s OER Fellowship project, supported by the Hewlett Foundation, has the following goals:

  • Engage in-service and pre-service teachers in trainings focused on collaborative learning strategies and shared online resources and processes
  • Develop and share a training model for others to use and adapt
  • Create a network that supports OER awareness and use in education

Timeline:

  • Fall/Winter 2012 – Online training sessions; content creation; reporting and feedback
  • Spring 2013 – Social networking; co-facilitation and mentoring through training webinars and in-person workshops presentations; documenting teaching resources used; student project creation
  • Summer 2013 – Present and facilitate OER trainings; share and reflect on OER student projects.
  • Fall 2013 - Present and get feedback on OER Projects, create reflection videos and closing interviews.

Completion Requirements:

  • Participate in a minimum of six of  OER training workshops either online or in-person during the 2012-2013 school year.
  • Develop and document an OER curriculum project for a classroom setting that consists of three or more new or adapted open digital resources, such as inquiries, lessons, and hands-on activities. Potential OER project focus areas include arts integration, STEM, Arabic language, accessibility, online learning, and Common Core Standards.
  • Evaluate the quality of OER materials.
  • Incorporate student work and feedback into a project using text, photos, and video.
  • Use project and resources in the classroom setting on at least three occasions. Reflect on experiences in discussion and written formats.
  • Communicate and collaborate with other OER fellows online and in-person in monthly meetings.
  • Contribute to OER online professional development course design and creation, mentoring and facilitation.
  • Introduce colleagues to OER and collaborative processes.
  • Present at virtual and in-person trainings about: learnings and experiences with OER processes, the Fellowship Program, and the potential for the widespread impact of OER.
  • Document and give feedback to ISKME on the impact of the Fellowship Program through a survey, interview and video reflection.

2012-2013 OER Fellows

- Erik Christensen: Natural Science & Physics Professor at South Florida State University in Avon Park, Florida USA
- Jason Rothgeb: Math Teacher at Noble Street College Prep in Chicago, Illinois USA
- Keith Martin: History & Social Studies Teacher at Silver State High School in Carson City, Nevada USA
- Mark Johnstone: English & Arabic Instructor at Alfaisal University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- Purnima Dutta: History Teacher at Doon School in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India
- Sara Layton: English Instructor at Open High School Utah in Santa Clara, Utah USA
- Tim Farquer: Content Specialist at Illinois State Board of Education in Dahinda, Illinois USA
- Vincent Kizza: Science Teacher & Technology Coordinator at Gayaza High School in Kampala, Uganda

January Meeting

Agenda: Introduction to OER Fellowship Program / OER Fellowship project idea share out / Introduction to OER Commons

search and advanced search and group features (2012-2013 OER Fellows Group)

Next steps: Find at least one resource to be used with OER Fellowship project. Be prepared to share out how it will be used.

February Meeting

Agenda: Resource share out and remix discussion / Profile creation & Groups check in / Quality discussion and evaluation criteria

Evaluation Resources

Video of how to use the Evaluate Resource tool

PDF that explains the scoring and seven rubrics 

Video overview of the seven rubrics

Next steps: Evaluate at least three resources on OER Commons & save OER to 2012-2013 OER Fellowship Group.

March Meeting

Evaluate Rubrics Discussion and Introduction to Contribute - Open Author

Example Resources: OER Design Lab and Developing Claims and Counterclaims Fairly

Open Author Help

Next Steps: Create or remix one resource in Open Author and publish it

April Meeting

  1. Discuss creating and remixing in Open Author  
  2. Accessibility features (learner options change the look and feel of whole OER Commons site and tools in Open Author to modify content for visual and hearing needs and preferences - captions and scripts for videos, describing images, and exporting with epub for screen readers)
  3. Save Open Author Resources in Groups

Things to consider while authoring: how to best share downloadable documents (Word, Open Office, PDF, google), making OER interactive with multimedia (embedding images and video), designing for learners of all needs and preferences 

Next Steps: Continue editing resource(s)

Accessibility Resource: Inclusive Design handbook by FLOE

Video sites we like: http://www.sliderocket.com/ http://www.slideshare.net/ http://keepvid.com/

Photo sharing: http://www.flickr.com/

May Meeting

1. Create and remix updates in Open Author - be sure to publish and save in our OER Fellowship Group

2. Documenting and sharing student work - photos of projects, video presentations, scanned homework, pasted writing samples. Examples: ISKME's Teachers as Makers Remix Lab with photos of the lab set up, process, and prototype projects, as well as presentation videos. New York City Department of Education CC Tasks with student work samples that have been assessed.

3. Multi-unit prototype in Open Author - create multi-unit OER (courses, textbooks, etc.) in Open Author. Example: OER Commons Badges

4. Outreach discussion (presentations and trainings) - presentations and trainings in our local communities and beyond. Examples: Illinois' tool to link teachers to CCSS aligned OER: http://html5.seraphdevelopment.com/index.php?category=2&learningProgression=17 and 7th grade math OER: http://www.oercommons.org/authoring/3177-7th-grade-parcc-evidence-tables-isbe-model-math-cu/view

Download: Illinois OER handout


June Meeting

1. Create and remix updates in Open Author - be sure to publish and save in our OER Fellowship Group

2. Outreach updates: Big Ideas Fest December 4-7, 2013


August Meeting

  1. Create and remix updates in Open Author (student work, student data, embedding media, simulations, and quality criteria) 

2. 2013-2014 OER Fellowship, Qatar update

3. Outreach updates (presentations and trainings)

4. Fall deliverables

    • Complete and publish final OER Projects
    • Closing interviews and surveys
    • Reflection videos


September Meeting

  1. OER Project updates from Sara, Vincent, Keith and Tim

2. Big Ideas Fest update December 4-7, 2013 http://www.bigideasfest.org/

3. Reflection video:

Please keep it to 3 minutes or less. Be sure to introduce yourself and respond to these three prompts:

  1. What was your project about, and what did you learn from the experience?
  2. Tell a story about how your advocacy work around OER impacted the people that you shared with.
  3. In simple terms, how did your role or thinking change as a result of your participation in the OER Fellowship Program?

Here are two examples from 2010-2011 OER Fellows: Allison McGree and Katrina Schultz 

Upload reflection video to youtube and email link to megan@iskme.org by October 15, 2013

Reflection Videos: 

Sara Layton

Keith Martin

Erik Christensen

Vincent Kizza

Tim Farquer

Jason Rothgeb



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