Finding OER Materials You Can Start Using Now 2
From OER Commons Wiki
If you completed the module “Why OER?,” you should now have an OER Commons account. Perhaps you also posted and read discussions in the forum How and Why of OER.
The objective of this module is to show the many ways you can quickly and easily find materials in OER Commons. One of the early challenges in locating high-quality teaching and learning materials was the time it took to search a variety of sites. OER Commons solved that problem by providing a single point of access through which educators, students, and all learners can search, browse, evaluate, download, and discuss OER that are freely available online.
This module, “Finding OER Materials You Can Start Using Now,” is activity-based. Let’s jump into the collection of materials and find something you can start using in your teaching and learning.
Contents |
Finding Materials
If you haven’t logged in already, login to OER Commons. The advantage to logging in is that you can save your search for future use and re-use.
To locate materials in OER Commons you can search or browse. There are several ways to search and a number of ways to browse.
Searching
Simple Search
You can do a simple keyword search using the search box located in the upper right corner of every page on OER Commons.
Beyond Simple Searching
For a little more control over your searching, you can use the search area in the center of the OER Commons home page. You can use this for a quick simple search, or you can limit the search by subject area (Arts, Business, Humanities, etc), grade level (primary, secondary, post-secondary), or "condition of use." Condition of use refers to the restrictions placed on the resources–whether and how they may be re-used, shared, and adapted, according to their creators' intent. For more information about these conditions and how OER Commons has greatly simplified this complex field, see the page here GGGGG.
Using Advanced Search
The third way to search is to use the advanced search, which provides a wide variety of options for refining your search. In the “Search by Keyword” box, search for an item using a keyword and refine your search using any combination of over 70 filtering criteria.
You can also limit your advanced search by subject area, type of material (search games or textbooks or lesson plans etc.), media format (audio, text, mobile, etc.), kind of collection, and much more.
Once you have built a search that returns good results--useful resources--you can save the search to be able to access it in the future. Saved searches, which will be placed in your portfolio, spare you the need to remember how you found things before. To save your search, click on the “Save This Search” button located on the top of every search results page. We will be talking more about your OER Portfolio in another module. GGGGG
Too many results? If you want to narrow the number of items listed on your search results page, you can use the tools on the left-hand sidebar to start a new search with fewer categories checked. Or you simply begin again with a new advanced search.
Browsing
OER Commons makes it easy to browse through the content in a number of ways. If you are looking for inspiration and don't know where to start, browsing using one of these methods may be a good strategy.
Browsing Top Content
Top Viewed Today: located in the middle of the OER Commons homepage. Using these links, you can see which resources in K-12 and Higher Education are currently getting the most attention from the OER Commons community.
Browsing by Category
- Browsing by Subject Area and Grade Level: On the top left side of the homepage you can see links to browse by a specific grade level or subject area.
- Browsing in All Categories: If you want to browse through all the categories of OER Commons, choose the "Browse All Materials" button on the top left of the screen.
This will take you to the Browse OER Materials page. Here you can browse by:
- subject area
- grade level
- material type (games, lesson plans, textbooks, etc)
- course related materials, and
- libraries and collections (including teaching strategies and primary sources)
Under the heading “Course-Related Materials,” there are three categories:
- Full Course—to see all or part of a course
- Learning Modules—to see a portion of a course
- OpenCourseWare—to see all materials in the OpenCourseWare Consortium.
At a glance, you can see how many items are in each category. The number in parentheses shows the quantity of OER items for that category. If, for example, you don’t have time to browse hundreds or thousands of OER items, filter your results after you click on the category.
Browsing by Content Provider
You can browse each individual content provider’s collection for either the Course-Related Materials or the Libraries and Collections. Follow the link from the categories page.
Browsing by Tags
Tags are keywords you associate with an OER item. Tags are a way for you to personalize/categorize OER items. OER Commons provides pre-set categories; tags are the way for you to create your own categories. Read more on tags in the tutorial on Tagging, Rating, and Reviewing .
Top 30 Tags: located on the right side of the OER Commons homepage. The results page lists other tags related to the one you chose.
TagCloud: located on the bottom of the OER Commons homepage. The “TagCloud” page lists all the tags in OER Commons.
The size of a word indicates its popularity.
Activity: Find Materials
Using one or more of the searching or browsing methods, locate materials you can begin using in your teaching or learning. After finding an item you can use, save it by clicking the “Save Item” link located under the title. (See Figure 3.)
When you save this item, it goes into your portfolio. We’ll be talking more about your OER Portfolio in another module.
In the OER Commons discussion “How and Why of OER,” post your stories, suggestions, and questions with using OER in your teaching and learning. Here are some questions to consider in your post:
- What was a surprising find as you searched for materials?
- What frustrations have you encountered while searching for materials?
- What are your top three or four wishes in how an OER site should be designed?
For More Information
The following resource has been selected to provide more information on concepts we covered in this module: Help with searching OER Commons: http://www.oercommons.org/help/help-with-searching
Other modules in this course include …
- Why OER?
- Tagging, Rating, and Reviewing OER Materials
- My OER Portfolio
- Submitting Materials to OER Commons
- OER Licensing and Conditions of Use
- What is Localization?
- Students and OER
- What are Open Textbooks?
- Glossary
This module showed how quickly you can find OER materials. The next module, “Tagging, Rating, and Reviewing OER Materials,” will show how you can start contributing to OER Commons by tagging, rating, and reviewing the materials you have used.
OER Commons Links
For more information about OER Commons, send an email to info@oercommons.org.
Use this feedback form to send OER Commons general feedback, a feature request, or information about a bug/problem you had using the site.
To see the ever-growing list of the new content providers and contributors to OER Commons, visit the Content Providers page often. You can be one too!
“Quotable Quote”
When information is identified as meaningful, it is a force for change.
Wheatley, M. J., (1999). Leadership and the New Science. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
About This Module
The "How Tos" of OER Commons is a set of learning modules evolving out of the development of OER Commons, a teaching and learning network for free-to-use educational materials from around the world, created and licensed by the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME).
Course contributors are Lisa Petrides, Amee Godwin, and Cynthia Jimes, and online learning consultant, Patricia Delich.
For more information, visit http://www.iskme.org and http://elearningnetworks.com.
