2. Free Learning
First of all, OER can reduce education cost
substantially. Districts can save textbook cost to
purchase technologies.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/56155476@N08/6660098369/
3. Productivity
Increased availability of high quality learning materials can
contribute to more productive students and educators. No
need to duplicate similar efforts.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/3596406125/
4. Contextualized /
Personalized Learning
As education is a contextualized practice, and learners are
all different, it is important to make it easy to adapt and
customize learning materials and instructional design.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oceanflynn/309589221/
5. Constructionism
The principle of allowing adaptation of materials provides
constructing roles for students as active participants in
learning processes, who learn best by doing and creating,
not by passively reading and absorbing.
OERs provides building blocks (texts, clip arts, photos,
videos) for constructing knowledge, and licenses for
learners to publish online to an authentic audience.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soft/2340756122/
6. Professional Development
OER provides institutions and educators access, at no cost,
to the means of production to develop their competence in
producing educational materials and instructional design.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mathplourde/
7. Higher Quality
All things being equal, collaboration or community effort will
get higher quality in outcomes. OERs can be modified,
users often tailor and combine them to create "best-of -
breed" assemblages. Teachers, districts and states are
increasingly creating digital curricula by combining OERs
from multiple sources.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/raphaelle_ridarch/5314917023/
8. User-Generated Resources
Many user-generated resources are available for use and
reuse at no cost. Modifications are already happening
globally as people are taking OERs and programs from one
nation and adapting them for the norms and needs of
another.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mathieustruck/392925625/
9. Long Tail, Diverse, Specialized
Network-based OER can provide access to “long tail”
distributions of very specialized and diverse
content.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jev55/6227289678/
10. Open Participatory
Learning Infrastructure (OPLI)
An OPLI can leverage diversity of use, radical repurposing of
content, and critical reflection. This perspective is consistent
with collaboratories in science and humanities communities
and the social software and the Web 2.0 movement more
generally.
Such an infrastructure supports diverse ecosystems of
people and learning resources that could have profound
implications for preparing people for a rapidly evolving
knowledge-based world, one demanding creativity,
innovation, and entrepreneurialism from us all.
-- The OER report published in February 2007 by Atkins, Brown and Hammond
