Advocacy

From K12 Open Ed Wiki

[edit] K-12 Open Education Advocacy Project

[edit] Goals

• To increase the awareness of the open content movement in K-12 education
• To mobilize a community of educators and educational experts to develop new open content resources and to repurpose/relicense existing resources for K-12 teachers and students
• To accumulate a large amount of content for the key subject areas of language arts, math, science, and social studies in grades K-12 that correlates to various national curriculum frameworks
• To provide a system of curration and review for this content

[edit] Overview

The open educational resources movement offers an opportunity to increase educational equity and access for learners around the world. Massive collaboration efforts, such as those that are creating Open Source software and Wikipedia, have demonstrated the efficacy of large, geographically dispersed communities in developing valuable and significant works of intellectual property.

In the education space, a number of tools and organizations exist to develop and host open content. They include Wikibooks, Curriki, OER Commons, and others. The K-12 content currently housed in these sites is minimal. However, there is a huge community of creative teachers who have already developed millions of hours/pages/pounds of educational content that most would happily share. (In the US alone, there are over 500,000 teachers.)

What is missing, however, is a linkage of these resources. Educators need to be made aware of the open content benefits and given the tools and support to digitize their content under open licenses.

If teachers are mobilized into a community effectively, the resources that are developed as a result could truly change the face of education worldwide.

[edit] Strategies

The following is a preliminary list of strategies that could be employed to achieve the goals of this project.

Presentations and hands-on workshops at educational conferences

A fast way to mobilize educators is by presenting sessions and hands on workshops at educational conferences. These could include curriculum conferences (NCTE, NCTM, NSTA, NSCC), educational technology conferences (NECC, FETC, TCEA, NSBA T&L), leadership conferences, and international education conferences.

Workshops at intermediate units and school districts

For key intermediate units and districts that are interested in participating, hands on on-site workshops could provide professional development for developing resources, using open content tools and repositories, understanding licensing options, and encouraging further local advocacy and community building.

Print and online publicity

There are many educational publications, both in traditional print and online formats, that offer a free way to get the word out about the benefits of open educational resources.

Advocacy of key influencers

The education community is heavily swayed by trends advocated by key influencers. These people should be briefed on the open education movement, toward the end of making them evangelists for it. In addition, state and federal department of education staff members should be briefed on these efforts so that they don't become detractors.

Conversion of existing educational resources to open licenses

There are a number of existing resources that are not currently licensed under open agreements, but that would likely consider it if prompted. One significant source of content like this could come from intermediate units, including county offices of education and regional service centers. These include some commercially published materials, online repositories such as public television, TeacherTube, various podcasts, and others.

Support for the digitization

The number one issue of educators today is lack of time. In order for this project to be successful, it is critical that content be accepted in any and all forms (including hand-written materials).

Curration and review

After the curriculum materials are secured, it is important that there be a credible system of quality review. The education community is skeptical of technology, user-generated content, and social networks (as evidenced by the widespread banning of wikis, blogs, and open content repositories). For this effort to be successful, likely objections need to be answered in advance.

Note: It is envisioned that the strategies of this project would be applied to all current open content tools and repositories, without a bias for one system over another.