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October 2013

ABOUT US

HARNESSING TECHNOLOGY TO MAKE EDUCATION FREE

The Saylor Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established by Michael J. Saylor, founder and CEO of business intelligence firm MicroStrategy, Inc.

Mr. Saylor created the Foundation because he had a very simple, very earnest, and very bold idea: Education should be free.

MISSION: FREE EDUCATION

As part of our mission is to make quality education freely available to all, we employ experienced faculty to design K-12, university, and career level courses from the wealth of material available on the Web.

Today, the Foundation’s free education initiative at Saylor.org provides over 300 standard and college credit-aligned courses to anyone with an Internet connection.

Areas of Study (AOS) Saylor.org features over 20 educational disciplines in University, Professional Development and K12.

BY THE NUMBERS: BEHIND THE SCENES

200+Academic Consultants

230+Content Partners

200+Peer Reviewers

BY THE NUMBERS: USERS & STUDENTS

150KVisits p/month

40KePortfolio Users

50KiTunesU Subscribers

WHAT PROBLEMS ARE YOU LOOKING TO SOLVE?

• Outdated content?

• Budget issues?

• Digital solutions?

• Learning outcomes?

• Personalized learning?

OER PROBLEM-SOLVING

We all know OER can solve a lot of problems in K-12 and higher ed :

• Common Core

• Going Digital

• Flipped Classroom

• Support for variety of learners

COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS

Huge NEED for OER

Huge OPPORTUNITY for OER

BRIDGING THE GAP: K12 & COMMON COREK12 Beta launched in April 2013. Currently, there are 12 courses in ELA and Math for grades 6-12.

EDITING

WHAT IS CHALLENGING FOR EDUCATORS?

Finding content

Distinguishing if content is open

Time commitment to vet content

Modern fiction

Fair use v. open

Interactive content

YouTube

Tricky providers – edu sources that are copyright, YouTube.edu, etc

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT?

FIND VET FRAME USE OER

HOW TO:

HOW DO WE FIND RESOURCES?

Simple search = Google topic + Creative Commons

OER Resource Guides

Creative Commons Search

OER Commons

The Orange Grove

Connexions

Other OER Repositori

es

YOUTUBE CREATIVE COMMONS

VIMEO CREATIVE COMMONS SEARCH

MAJOR SOURCES FOR CONTENT

Math

cK-12

Khan Academy

Wallace Math

James Sousa

Open Textbook Catalog

Illustrative Mathematics

ELA

Project Gutenberg

Librivox

Sophia.org

BetterLesson.com

EDSITEment

Great Writers Inspire

PROJECT GUTENBERG

HOW DO WE VET RESOURCES?

• Use your judgment – • Does this fit the learning objectives? • Is it accurate? • Does this fit my needs?

• Text complexity guidelines and rubrics

• Common Core standards - What standard would this meet? Is this really fostering critical thinking and analysis?

• Where does it come from? Is this a reliable source?

HOW DO WE FRAME RESOURCES?

• Context is important

• Variety is a strength and a weakness

• You create the narrative

FRAMING

• How does this fit in with our unit and our course?

• Why are we looking at this resource?

• What are the goals for this?

• What do I do when I get to this website?

• What should I look for while going through this resource?

• What should I get from this? How can I tell if I met that goal?

• Be specific! GeoGebra applets are great but they need directions

• Ask questions

EXAMPLES OF INSTRUCTIONSK12ELA10

EXAMPLES OF INSTRUCTIONS

K12MATHPRECALC

EXAMPLES OF INSTRUCTIONS

K12MATHSTATS Instructions:

WEB MEDIA ACTIVITYK12ELA8

HOW DO WE USE OER?

OER lets you do on a larger scale what you have always done

in the classroom – pick the best content and tailor it to your

students’ needs.

•Get rid of the chapters you don’t like in your textbook.

•Merge two different books together.

•Add videos to your course

•Provide supplementary materials without having to create

them yourself or pay for them.

OUR APPROACH TO MAKING OER MORE USEFUL

Organizing OER into the outline of a traditional course

makes it easier for educators and students to identify

resources in the framework of what they are learning and

teaching.

Educators and students can more easily match OER to meet

their needs.

Adding in framing gives users ideas for how something

could work.

REAL WORLD OER: APPLY YOURSELF

Students & Users• Access to variety of

subjects and levels• Exploring advanced

levels• Remedial assistance• College prep or

credit• Pursue new subject

matter• Professional

development• Entertainment and

leisure

Educators• Organized digital

resources• Flipping the classroom• Reinforce concepts • Provide review

materials• Guided remediation• Accelerated programs• New activities and

assignments• Materials for multiple

learning styles

Parents• Homework help• Extra practice• Acceleration• Homeschool

curriculum• AP-prep (Calculus

and Statistics)• Fill in perceived

gaps• Tutoring materials• Encouraging college

credit/exploration• Summer academics

SAYLOR’S OPEN COURSE RESOURCE CENTER

SAYLOR’S OPEN COURSE RESOURCE CENTER

• Navigating OER Repositories

• Revising and Remixing Saylor.org Courses

• Saylor Bookshelf

DOWN TO ZERO: CREDIT PARTNERSHIPSThe Saylor Foundation does offer a number of courses which can prepare a student to earn tangible, transferrable, college credit.

Courses provided on saylor.org are aligned to exams that have either been created by The Saylor Foundation, and recommended for college credit by The National College Credit Recommendation Service (NCCRS); or credit bearing exams that have been developed and are administered by third-party institutions.

Our course materials themselves are free, and students may incur certain fees to attempt one of the associated exams. These fees range from $25 - $100. Successful transfer of credit will depend on the institution and degree program that a student enrolls in.

THANK YOU!Contact Information:

The Saylor Foundation

1000 Wisconsin Ave, NW

Washington DC, 20007

contact@saylor.org

@saylordotorg

facebook.com/SaylorFoundation

saylor.org/blog