Open Educational Resources

Open educational resources (OER) are freely accessible, openly licensed text/media. They can contain digital assets that are useful for teaching, learning and assessment, they are be called courses or MOOCs which stands for Massive Open Online Courses. The use of OERs are becoming a real trend in distance education to support formal learning or provide opportunities for informal learning.

I think OERs can provide an opportunity to supplement studies or they can be a place to discover more about all kinds of amazing topics. They are a place to learn new skills, brush up on an old ones or expand and deepen learning. Leisure learning, learning for fun who would have thought it has such appeal!

There are several different platforms out there to explore, just think of all that available learning on demand….

The Open University has a platform called OpenLearn they offer free short and longer courses. They also offer courses called BOCs (Badged Open Courses) to get a badge you go through course related assessment once you have passed you have a badge and certificate to prove your learning, great for CPD purposes. There is a real wide range of courses available a mix of free and other options.

Saylor Academy is offering free, online, self-paced courses some of which carry credit. They have a wide range of choices of courses and a weekend assignment, to find out more check out their blog.

The platform iversity is an ‘online platform for higher education and professional development courses.’ They have many courses across a range of languages there a several that from a quick glance I would love to do.

Here is FutureLearn a platform that has MOOCs, many universities place their content on this site. The range of MOOCs are quite varied, with the opportunity to buy certificates on completion of a course. This platform is also starting to offer credit bearing courses like many other platforms, it is an interesting time in the world of OERs and their impact on education.

Coursera a platform that is starting to offer degrees as well as shorter courses, the emphasis for users is on the professional and developmental side however you can see from the top rated courses the types of subjects explored to no doubt boost skills in the workplace.

Udacity is a platform exploring mainly professional skills they say part of their mission is to ‘bring accessible, affordable, effective education to the world’ I like their point ‘Education is no longer a onetime event but a lifelong experience’ and it is through platforms like this one, many people can explore education that suits both personal and professional areas of interest.

I think the range of learning available on these platforms is so exciting. As an educator I would say that, however I think the possibilities to support and expand education using these platforms is really exciting- so I challenge you, take a look, explore and learning something for fun, an opportunity to learn, is never wasted.

This post was previously posted on another blog platform