Presentation by Rachael Gilg at "The Power of Openness: Improving Foreign Language Learning Through Open Education", held at the University of Texas at Austin and online on August 9-10, 2012.

1. Finding Open Educational Resources
(OER) for Language Learning
Rachael Gilg
Projects Manager, COERLL

2. Today’s Mission
Define
What are these OER we are
looking for?
Discover
How and where can we find OER?
Explore
Repositories, collections, and
communities as sources for
language learning OER.
Work found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NASA_Mars_Rover.jpg / http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

3. Types of OER
• Open Textbooks (Digital / Print-on-Demand)
• Open Courseware (PowerPoints, Audio or Video
Lectures, Lecture Notes, Syllabi)
• Classroom activities, lesson plans, assessments
• Homework and practice exercises
• Authentic content in the L2 (texts, video, audio,
images, realia)

4. Open Content / Open Licenses
File:Tyler.stefanich_Creative_Commons_Swag_Contest_2007_2_(by).jpg found at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki / BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)

5. Benefits of Open Licenses
You are allowed to:
 Copy and distribute without having to
ask permission from the copyright
holder.
 Legally download and publish the
material in a stable location so you
don’t have to rely on just linking.
 (In some cases) adapt and customize
the materials for your learners.

6. Recognizing a CC Licensed Work
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Recognizing_licensed_work

7. http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Recognizing_licensed_work

8. CC Search
http://search.creativecommons.org

9. 4 million openly-licensed videos!
http://www.dailydot.com/news/youtube-creative-commons-record

10. 13 million free media files (photos, videos, sounds)
http://commons.wikimedia.org
67 million free, shareable photos. (CC-NC-SA)
http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
40,000 public domain books (65 languages)
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/

11. Attributing a CC Licensed Work
• Credit the creator
• Provide the title of the work
• Provide the URL where the work is hosted
• Indicate the type of license it is available
under and provide a link to the license
• Keep intact any copyright notice associated
with the work.

12. Open Attribute
http://openattribute.com/

14. Narrowing the Search:
Sources for Language Learning OER
Repositories, Collections & Communities

15. Evaluation Criteria
Match with learner needs
Alignment with curriculum standards
Ease of use and accessibility (open formats, ability to
download source files)
License restrictions (degree of openness)
Reputation of author / peer review
Community support

16. Sources: OER Repositories

17. MERLOT
http://www.merlot.org
Large collection of
language materials
Ability to Browse by
language
Curation, peer review, and
comments help best
resources rise to the top
Materials are not
necessarily OER

20. OER Commons
http://www.oercommons.org/
Focused around OER
Includes both “big” OER
and “little” OER
Language material
collection is small but
growing. Can’t browse by
languages.
New authoring features
make it easy to contribute
and remix materials

23. Connexions
http://cnx.org
• Create and share
small knowledge
chunks called
“Modules”
• Platform for
assembling Modules
into courses,
textbooks, etc.

24. Sources: Language Centers and
Institutional Archives

25. http://coerll.utexas.edu/coerll/materials

26. Language Resource Centers (LRCs)
http://nflrc.msu.edu/login/scripts/materials_search.php

27. Language Open Resources Online (LORO)
http://loro.open.ac.uk/

31. http://capl.washjeff.edu/

32. Source: Social Media & Individual Curation

33. #langchat on Twitter

34. Français interactif Facebook Community

35. http://www.delicious.com/syntiromsn

36. Sources: Content Re-Mixing Platforms

37. http://www.youtube.com/editor

38. http://www.youtube.com/editor

39. http://ed.ted.com

40. http://ed.ted.com

41. VidéoTech by
Carleton University
is licensed under a
Creative Commons
Attribution-
NonCommercial-
ShareAlike 3.0
Unported License.
https://video-tech.ca/

42. http://www.oerglue.com/

43. “We haven’t come close to tapping the full
potential of OER. We need to help more
people understand that these materials are not
just free, they can also create communities of
teachers and learners who collaborate on their
continuous improvement, and that’s the real
magic – in the actual reuse and remix.”
Cathy Casserly, CEO of Creative Commons

44. Q&A Period
What questions do you have about
finding OER for language learning
or any of the sites & tools shown?

45. Thank you
Symposium website:
http://sites.la.utexas.edu/power-of-openness/
Contact me: rgilg@austin.utexas.edu