OER 101 registration now open for Fall 2024!

Pre-Workshop

Estimated time to complete three activities: 60 minutes

Activity 1 - Introduction

We will start with an ice-breaker in Google+. The intention of the ice-breaker is to foster sharing and openness with the hope that this will lead to interacting and bonding with your fellow participants. This is an important part of the overall workshop experience because we will be learning with and from each other.

1. Activate Google@UH Consumer Apps

As a UHCC instructor using Google@UH, you are already using Google@UH Core Apps which include Gmail, Drive, Sites, etc. In addition, you can activate Consumer Apps which include additional tools such as Google+, YouTube, Google Groups and more:

Please activate your Google Consumer Apps (if you have not done so previously) by going to this page. Instructions to turn on the Consumer Apps are at http://www.hawaii.edu/askus/1649

You may need to logout of your Google account and log back in before seeing the Google+ icon. Then you can proceed to the next step.

2. Introduction Posting

You should have been invited by Leanne Riseley to participate in the Google+ OER Community. Please be sure you accept the invitation.

If you did not receive an invitation by email (Google+ invitations are a little glitchy), then search for the community by typing "Go Open, Go Free Using OER" in the search box at the top of the window.

Click on the icon.

For access to Google+, go to the Google Apps Waffle in the upper right corner of your Gmail or Google Drive window.

On your Google+ screen, click on Communities along the left menu bar. Click on the "Go Open, Go Free Using OER" Community.

Start your Introductory post or click Introduction in the left menu.

Please include the following in your post:

Post a meaningful photograph of yourself. It can be a favorite vacation photo or a family photo then write a little about yourself. You can share why the photo is meaningful.
Share what you currently know about Open Educational Resources. If you know nothing about OER, that's fine, share that. We are starting right where you are.
Share what your motivation is for taking this workshop.

Next - this is an important step, click Post, the following selection will come up. Click Introduction.

Categories will help us organize our discussion/assignments for this workshop. Your post has been added to the Introduction Category.

Activity 2

How Much Money Am I Saving My Students?

Fill out the form that calculates how much money your students save by your adoption of no-cost resources to your course. Prior to Tuesdays in-class session, you will receive an email which uses the information you entered in the form and calculates how much money your students save by your adoption of no-cost resources.

Videos and Articles

While Open Educational Resources have been around for over ten years, awareness of its existence and importance has started to surface more and more as a topic of discussion in the education community and specifically at Leeward CC.

One of the fundamental ideas presented by OER Pioneer, Dr. David Wiley in the below "Education is Sharing" video, is that education is sharing and if an instructor is not sharing what he/she knows with students, there is no education occurring.

*Note: This interactive video has stop points which encourage you to respond to the content. Look for blue/purple icons to engage with the content.

The video above has interaction points which show up as colored dots on the timeline. Respond to the prompts within the video. The video "TEDxNYED - David Wiley - 03/06/10" by David Wiley is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Education is a matter of sharing, and the open educational resources approach is designed specifically to enable extremely efficient and affordable sharing.

“Open Textbooks: The Billion Dollar Solution” by Student PIRGs is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Open Textbooks: The Billion-Dollar Solution

According to the College Board, the average undergraduate student should budget between $1,200 and $1,300 for textbooks and supplies each year. That’s as much as 40% of tuition at a two-year community college and 13% at a four-year public institution.

For many students and families already struggling to afford a college degree, that is simply too much – meaning more debt, working longer hours, or making choices that undermine academic success.

Unfortunately, even the proliferation of cost-saving options like used books, textbook rental programs, and e-textbooks is not enough to solve the problem. Publishers undermine these markets by releasing new editions, bundling in single-use pass codes, or including use restrictions. Even more problematic, the price of these textbook options is still determined by the ever-increasing price of a new, printed textbook.

In order to reduce costs for students now, and in the future, we must break free from the traditional textbook market and deliver educational materials through an alternative model. - Open Textbooks: The Billion-Dollar Solution

Read Executive Summary and Introduction (pages 1 - 9), and Conclusion (pages 16 - 17) in "Open Textbooks: The Billion-Dollar Solution".

Covering the Costs” by Student PIRGs is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Executive Summary in Covering the Cost

Read Executive Summary (pages 5-6) in "Covering the Cost" where one of the key findings shows that textbook prices disproportionately impact community college students where 50% of community college students using financial aid for books.

Finally, as a follow-on the the above reading about why the price of textbooks is continuing to rise, Dr. James Koch gives an economic analysis and summary of the textbook market in this video.

This video “Symposium on the Future of the Textbook 2014: Notable Excerpts” by GALLIEOSupport is posted with permission.

Activity 3

Response to Reading

Select one of the questions below and post your response to the Slack PRLS #2-reading-response channel:

What is your response to the statement "Education is sharing and the more open we are, the better education will be"?
What are the reasons that the price of textbooks have been allowed to increase three times the rate of inflation?