Colorado's PK-12 OER Teaching & Learning Community: OERColorado

Explore. Collaborate. Create. Inspire.

About OERColorado

OERColorado’s hub platform coordinates efforts to support Colorado educators, administrators, curriculum experts, and other educational stakeholders across K-12 to adopt Open Educational Resources (OER) materials, share ideas and create affordable, high quality learning resources with the eventual migration to a larger more robust microsite in the works. 

OER is a term used to describe teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits repurposing by others. OERColorado supports access, collaboration, and training to promote the creation and use of free or low-cost OER teaching and learning resources in preK-12 classrooms throughout Colorado. These resources can be created and shared by institutional providers or locally by an individual teacher, a district or even You!  

OERColorado is a Colorado Empowered Learning (CEL) initiative administered by the Colorado River Board of Cooperative Educational Services (CR BOCES) that provides digital collections of openly licensed resources for PK-12 educators. Pursuant to Colorado Revised Statute (C.R.S. § 22-5-119), the CR BOCES was designated to administer the statewide supplemental and blended learning program and ensure public access to a digital repository of content and resources for Colorado educators.

Within this platform:

  • You can Explore curated OER Collections. Browse virtual libraries of free materials, lessons, and tools to save and use in your classroom and school. 
  • Visit this Collection to learn more about curated open educational resources, copyright, Creative Commons, and contributing to Colorado collections.
  • Engage in forums and Collaborate with others in groups to focus on educational topics organized around OERColorado. Groups let participants share and evaluate resources. 
  • Reference our Getting Started section to learn how to create a profile, create an institutional page or form a working group, and use Open Author to create OER.
  • Learn how to create, evaluate and connect with other state agencies with OERTools.
  • Join the OERColorado hub by requesting membership in the Welcome to OERColorado group.

Note that not all resources in the OERColorado Collections align with Colorado state standards, state guidelines, or local guidelines. We advise all OERColorado users to consult with their district and/or school Curriculum Specialist if there are any questions or concerns about use of these resources.

We invite you to contribute to this education community by using these resources, providing feedback, or joining in creating resources for use throughout Colorado!

Student Opportunity

Educators consider having your middle school or high school students compete in the NPR Student Podcast Challenge. 

Professional Learning Opportunity Spring 2023

Join the Colorado Creative Commons Certificate Cohort

CDHE is sponsoring a cohort of Colorado librarians, educators, instructional designers, and students to complete the Creative Commons Certificate training. The Certificate program offers in-depth courses about CC licenses, open practices, and the ethos of the Commons. The course is ideal for anyone who is looking to gain deeper knowledge of copyright, wanting to work on open education or open access initiatives, or develop capacity in opening access to cultural heritage.

The next 10-week online course runs January 30 - April 9 with support for cohorts of 25 learners per facilitator. Submit an application to join the next Colorado CC Certificate cohort!

OER Commons

Access OER Commons Digital Libraries

Search by:

  • Subject Area

  • Keyword

  • Material Type

  • Provider

  • Collection

Review the slideshow carousel for instructions and links on how to access and search OER Commons collections.

 

 

A Brief Tour of OER Commons Resources

OERColorado is a satellite hub on the main OER Commons digital library. From the grey OER Commons toolbar at the top of the page, you can navigate to the full library and explore other institution’s hubs and groups. To access the complete OER Commons digital library collections, or to search by subject, materials type, or provider, start by selecting the drop down menu under Discover. When browsing content on the OER Commons site, the main menu remains accessible at the top of the page. OER Commons provides a wealth of Open Educational Resources (OER) and tools to enrich your classroom and professional practice. The OER Commons infrastructure facilitates access to learning materials and fosters an environment of collaboration and teamwork. (The link above opens in a new window/tab).

Search OER Commons by Subject Area

Select Discover from the OER Commons horizontal menu. From the dropdown menu, select Resources to search by Subject Area. OER Commons subject areas may not match Colorado state standard subject areas exactly, but many terms are similar. If your subject area is not represented, try a keyword search on the main OER Commons page. You can also search by subject from within a collection or your search results in the description of a given resource. (The link above opens in a new window/tab).

Search OER Commons by Material Type

Select Discover from the OER Commons horizontal menu. From the dropdown menu, select Resources to search by Material Type. OER Commons resources provide many different material types. With luck, you’ll find just the resource you are looking for! The variety of material formats fit different instructional approaches and lesson types. Be sure to explore the full course offerings as you browse. You can also search by material type from within a collection or your search results in the description of a given resource. (The link above opens in a new window/tab).

Search OER Commons Curated Collections

Select Discover from the OER Commons horizontal menu. From the dropdown menu, select Collections to search a digital library of specially curated OER Commons Collections. In the complete collections there is a wealth of resources for teaching Common Core, exploring the Folger Shakespeare Library, or Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute among many other exciting and informative collections. Set aside time to enjoy exploring all that the OER Commons collections have to offer. (The link above opens in a new window/tab).

Search OER Commons by Provider

Select Discover from the OER Commons horizontal menu. From the dropdown menu, select Providers to search by a specific OER Provider. You can also search by provider from within a collection or your search results in the description of a given resource. You’ll find many familiar names of quality educational providers like TED, Khan Academy, Code.org all available in one location, in addition to Institutional providers like: NASA, The Smithsonian Institution, and PBS. Many colleges and universities also contribute resources to the collections, like MIT and UC Boulder right here in Colorado. (The link above opens in a new window/tab).

Search OER Commons by Keyword

From the OER Commons home page, you can search by Keyword. Additional filters let you refine your search by subject, education level and standard. More advanced search options are accesible from this home page. (The link above opens in a new window/tab).

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Getting Started

Welcome to the OER Community

Open Author helps you build and publish Open Educational Resources for you and for the benefit of educators and learners everywhere.

OER Training Webinars

OER Commons hosts free training webinars to help educators get up and running with using OER in their practice. Webinars cover a variety of topics. Some are listed below. (The link above opens into a new window/tab).

  • Utilizing OER for Remote Learning
  • OER Curation
  • OER Authoring & Remixing
  • STEM Literacy & OER Commons
  • A Rubric for Guiding Open Educational Practice
  • OER Remix
  • OER Adoption Storytelling Series from State Leaders

How to Create a Profile on OER Commons

Learn about creating a profile and making the most of open curriculum on ISKME's OER Commons teaching and learning network and tools. You can access materials without creating a profile, but to save, create or collaborate in groups, you will need to an OER Commons Profile.

 

How to Search OER Commons

Learn more about search options to locate Open Educational Resources on ISKME's OER Commons teaching and learning network and tools. The search tools allow you to filter resources by keyword, subject, education level, standard, and media type, among others. Advanced search options are also available. The search tools allow you to easily locate useful resources from more than 30,000 OER items cataloged on OER Commons.

Note that not all resources in the OER Commons and OERColorado Collections align with Colorado state standards, state guidelines, or local guidelines. We advise all OERColorado users to consult with their district and/or school Curriculum Specialist if there are any questions or concerns about use of these resources.

How to Use Groups on OER Commons

Learn more about using groups to collaborate and organize open curriculum on ISKME's OER Commons teaching and learning network and tools. The video walks you through using groups on the main OER Commons site.

OERColorado has it's own working groups. If you are actively using OER resources in Colorado and want to start a group, first navigate to the OERColorado hub, once there, ask to join the Welcome to OERColorado group. From there you can reach out to the group admin to discuss setting up a group on the OERColorado hub.

Supporting Organizations

 

 

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