The Chancellor’s Office for the California Community Colleges is in the process of researching Open Education Resource (OER) courseware and/or modules for Intermediate Algebra for a special project under development. If you know of any OER courseware/modules that the Chancellor’s Office can review as a part of this research effort it would be greatly appreciated. Please send that information or any links to information on this topic to LeBaron Woodyard, Dean of Academic Affairs at lwoodyar@cccco.edu. LeBaron may also be reached by telephone at (916) 445-1780. Thanking you in advance for your assistance.
Tool to Create OER Activities
December 23, 2010Create, modify and share interactive learning activities using primary-source documents with DocsTeach creation tool. Each activity-creation tool addresses historical thinking skills.
Tools include:
Evergreen College hosted outstanding CCCOER quarterly meeting December 9
December 18, 2010By Monica Sain
The CCCOER December Quarterly Meeting began the way all meetings should – with a hefty dose of bagels, cream cheese, smoked salmon, sliced vegetables and fruit, and beverages (non-alcoholic, of course!) Approximately 15 people attended in person while about 30 attended online. Lively presentations, emphasizing the benefits of open textbooks lent themselves to lively questions and conversation. Presenters from Texas, Washington and California colleges discussed the best practices at their respective institutions.
Leslie Williams, Learning Disabilities Specialist at Evergreen Valley College in San Jose, California, gave the group a very warm welcome, plus discussed the challenges faced when attempting to encourage colleges (especially faculty) to adopt open educational resources. She also reminded the group how important it is to advocate for the adoption of these resources, as they provide a comprehensive education at a low cost for students.
Next, Angela Secrest, Director of Library Support at Houston Community College, discussed various ways to encourage community colleges to adopt open educational resources. For instance, she mentioned the importance of educating faculty about the benefits of using these resources, as well as dispelling the pervasive myths about open educational resources.
Jacqui Cain, an English instructor at Tacoma Community College, gave a preview of the open educational resource for basic skills English students she is currently developing. Sharing her project via CCC Confer, she demonstrated how she makes Victorian English literature (and even grammar!) interesting and accessible to her students (yes, even the non-English majors). Sidebar: This blog’s author will be sure to utilize this resource in future teaching and tutoring endeavors.
Then came an update on the CCCOER 2010 survey, led by Geoff Cain (assisted by Randy Fisher, who came all the way from Canada to take on the duty of master of ceremonies!).
Clare Middleton-Detzner, Research Associate at The Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME), wrapped up the meeting with an overview of her research, which answered questions about what motivates college faculty and students to use open educational resources. Una Daly of Foothill De Anza Community College District showed a video of students who participated in the ISKME research.
Over the remaining comestibles, attendees networked after the event. In other words, not only was the quarterly meeting an opportunity to learn more about best practices in OER, but it also provided a chance for CCCOER staff and attendees to get reacquainted, or to meet for the first time in person. And, for me, it was an opportunity to learn more about telecom for meetings; this experience gave our group a chance to practice our skills with VoIP.
Scitable Free Science Courseware
December 13, 2010Scitable is a “collaborative learning space for science” that focuses on biology and genetics. This valuable resources provides free (but not open) online materials suitable for use by community college educators and students. Faculty can build classrooms for their students as well as collaborate and share. Students can join groups, build networks, and ask experts about science topics.
E-books available at Scitable include:
OER Consortium Dec. Mtg.
December 5, 2010This quarter, our CCCOER meeting was hosted by Evergreen Valley College in San Jose.
AGENDA FOR 12/9/10 Meeting:
11:00 am PST Brunch and Networking for on-site attendees
11:30 am PST Welcome by CCCOER Project Manager and Master of Ceremonies Randy Fisher and Welcome by Leslie Williams, Learning Disabilities Specialist, Evergreen Valley College (start of online meeting)
12:00 pm PST Focus on Faculty: OER at Houston Community College, Angela Secrest, Librarian and CCCOER Interim Treasurer
12:25 pm PST Open Course Library Project: Pre-Composition English, Jacqui Cain, Tacoma Community College
1:00 pm PST CCCOER Member Survey, Geoff Cain, CCCOER Interim VP and Instructional Designer, College of the Redwoods, with assistance from Randy Fisher
1:30 pm PST Break
1:40 pm PST Implications of Open Textbook Use on Teaching, Learning, and Institutional Policy by Clare Middleton-Detzner of the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME) plus a video of student presentations about this research filmed by CCCOER Governing Board Member-at-Large Una Daly in Barbara Illowsky’s De Anza College statistics class
2:30 pm PST Adjourn
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Tutorial on Repurposing OER
December 4, 2010Open University’s Learning Space offers a tutorial on ”In situ editing: Repurposing open educational content.” In addition to learning about institutional OER initiatives, such as MIT’s open courseware, Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative and the Open University’s OpenLearn, you can discover “how different OER initiatives design and present content for their audiences.” This tutorials also provides a hands-on opportunity to remix OER to customize materials for a particular audience.
New Course: Adopting Open Textbooks
September 11, 2010Starting in mid-September, Una Daly, Associate Director of Foothill‘s Community College Open Textbook Collaborative project, will facilitate a free and exciting online course via P2P University titled: Adopting Open Textbooks.
Take a look - http://p2pu.org/general/adopting-open-textbooks
The course is a 3-step process to adopting open textbooks for educators facilitated by the College Open Textbook Collaborative. The 3 major steps are discovering open educational materials and selecting appropriate ones based on the various criteria; secondly following an adoption process where you work with other stakeholders on your campus including students to promote a best-use model, and finally the third step is sharing your knowledge of discovery and adotion of open educational materials with others in your discipline, campus, or learning community. The course can also be useful to self-learners or home schoolers who want to find high-quality open educational resources in their area of interest.
The course will have weekly discussions on the p2pu course forum about important issues in the course. We will also have bi-weekly live video conferences to share new discoveries and answer questions. These conferences wil be archived for those who cannot attend live.
OER Consortium Mtg Sept 15
September 3, 2010Members and supporters of the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources meet periodically to share, collaborate, and plan next steps.
Our Fall, 2010 Quarterly meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, September 15th at 10 am – Noon on the Foothill College campus. You are invited to attend in person or online.
Agenda:
• Clancy Marshall of Dynamic Books will give the keynote presentation with Q&A afterward.
• Nicole Allen, Textbooks Advocate and Director of The Student PIRGs, will provide a brief presentation.
• Liza Loop will introduce the Interim Steering Committee, talk about upcoming elections for Governing Board and give us update about what’s going on with the CCCOER.
• Alice Krueger of Virtual Ability will wrap up the meeting with her presentation, “Accessibility Reviews of Open Textbooks.”
You may RSVP by leaving a comment here. For more information, visit: http://collegeopentextbooks.ning.com/events/community-college-consortium.
Open Access to Ed Key to Gov Reform
August 14, 2010A Seattle representative to the Washington state assembly sees open access to education as a key to government reform. Reuven Carlyle elaborates on the open educational resources movement and shows how college and high school success can make great strides at a fraction of the cost of physical campuses. See http://reuvencarlyle36.com/2010/08/12/want-government-reform-open-access-to-higher-education/
Free Online Business Courses
August 7, 2010Free online business courses are available from the U.S. Small Business Administration Training Network.
Course titles include:
- FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING
- GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING
- BUSINESS PLANNING
- SURVIVING A SLOW ECONOMY
- STARTING A SMALL BUSINESS
- ADVERTISING AND MARKETING
- BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
Also, see these free publications:
