K-12 OER Awareness (in the U.S.?)

 The [OER-Comms] Weekly News Roundup - 8/4/23 mentioned that Michael K. Barbour had made a post on his blog entitled "OER Awareness in K-12 and Higher Education is on the rise." That post was about a report that will be released sometime this summer by Bayview Analytics that says “There was an increase in awareness (of OER) amongst K-12 teachers, reversing a small decline we saw during the pandemic.” Bayview Analytics had made a presentation at a conference in July about this report. Here’s a link to the slides of that presentation. Download presentation slides

Slide 24 includes this chart: 

  https://www.bayviewanalytics.com/reports/presentations/usdla_oer_20230719.pdf

I’m going to assume that this survey was of only U.S. K-12 teachers. Bayview explained that they determined that if teachers said they were aware of OER and also said they knew what Creative Commons licensing was, Bayview would consider the teachers' awareness as ‘Strict.’ The ‘Strict’ qualification isn’t necessary.  If a teacher doesn't know what Creative Commons licensing is, they are NOT really aware of OER. 

Only 3% of upper elementary teachers surveyed said they are very aware of OER and how they can be used in the classroom. We don't know, though, what part of that 3% has actually used OER. Saying you are aware of and know how OER can be used in the classroom is not saying that you've actually used OER in the classroom

We need more information, a lot of it. What type of OER are we talking about? OER include many different types of educational materials.

1. The most common use of OER by K-12 teachers currently is going to a website and downloading a page or multiple pages that the teacher then prints and makes copies of for all of their students, or just makes copies for themselves that they use as a lesson guide for example.

2. A type of OER that’s similar to the one in #1 is a website that includes docs or PDFs that can be read online or downloaded and copied to a student’s device.

3.. Another common use of OER by K-12 teachers is to provide students a link to a website that includes some widgets that students can manipulate. Students can respond to prompts on the screen and then are able to save to a Google Classroom folder. for example.

4. And there’s the type of OER that is a website that has some videos for students to watch and also includes the ability to download PDFs of the student activity directions and/or copy them to Google Classroom. for example.

5. A complete LMS course that includes assessments and opportunities for students to collaborate and communicate with each other is a less commonly used type of OER. Here’s an example that includes an LMS course shell for teachers to complete with their own activities for students in conjunction with links to GeoGebra’s digital online interactive version of an OER curriculum. The course shells here can be used with any of the LMSs in use by K-12 schools.

Differences in how the above types are used in classrooms result in big differences in benefits to teachers, students, schools, and parents. Each type requires different levels of awareness and skill by teachers in order to create effective learning activities.

The next survey Bayview Analytics does needs to go deeper. We need to know what types of OER teachers are aware of, what types of OER have teachers used in their classroom (being aware of and actually using it in your classroom are very different), what types of OER have teachers edited, what types of OER have teachers created, what types of OER have teachers redistributed and how did they redistribute the OER. In what subjects was OER used?

Getting more detail about how teachers currently use OER and the particular types of OER are the first steps in increasing the percentage of teachers that are aware (at any level) of OER. But, that’s just the first step; there’s a lot more that needs to be done. Awareness of OER isn't our goal - teachers and students actually using, editing, revising, and redistributing OER is what we want to measure. It's easier and more meaningful to measure teacher actions than it is to measure teacher awareness.

OER is Being Productized

The headline on this Linkedin article got my attention - It's time to start paying attention to OER in K-12

 I can't share it via Twitter which is apparently blocking links to Linkedin posts, so I'm pasting the link here.  Click this link 

From the article "The first-generation category of OER encompassed lightweight materials from sources like OER Commons or peer-generated materials from websites."

This article is, with a few exceptions, a very good history of K-12 OER in the U.S.

Something that needs to be pointed out is that when OER is 'productized' it ceases being OER. The affordances of OER to enable revision to meet the specific needs of students and to be able share it again with the whole world is gone. Also, when OER is printed out it becomes difficult at best to revise, retain, and share with others. It's still OER when it's printed out; it's just not as versatile as digital OER

For the most part, this article only applies to U.S. use cases. Digital platforms exist in Europe and the highly developed areas of Asia but often need to be translated. Often, the governments outside of the U.S. aren't keen on paying money to U.S. corporations. In large swaths of the Global South, digital platforms of the kind that are used in 'productization' are not viable.

Something else being overlooked in this move to 'productization' is teacher professional development. It seems that U.S. school districts would rather write checks to businesses that are usually for-profit than invest in building the skills of their teachers. That can't be sustainable for the long term.