OER+links

links:
Texts housed at NEKLS These representative electronic textbooks have been uploaded to NEKLS google docs to give NEKLS staff a quick access to evaluate the material. The texts here are from CK12 (below) and all are math— but thereis much more available at CK12.

CK12This website is the repository of materials that first attracted my attention. Texts available appear to be of the highest quality, are fully editable, are being constantly up-dated. Currently they include **math** and **sciences** at many levels, **technology**, and **engineering**. The option also exists for educators to create their own Open Source materials here for others to use. From their site: "CK-12 Foundation is a non-profit organization with a mission to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the U.S. and worldwide. Using an open-content, web-based collaborative model termed the “FlexBook,” CK-12 intends to pioneer the generation and distribution of high quality educational content that will serve both as core text as well as provide an adaptive environment for learning."

Jim's links: Jim Burke, a retired teacher in Maine, first introduced me to these materials and their possibilities. This is a list of links he compiled. Some duplicate the ones I have chosen here.

Khan Academy " "What started out as Salman Khan making a few algebra videos for his cousins has grown to over 2,100 videos and 100 self-paced exercises and assessments covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history." From their About page: "The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere. All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge." Much of the vast materials available here are in video form. They primarily include math at every level, science, and finances. There are some excellent lessons here for financial literacy. There are also some materials here on aspects of American and other history that are not commonly presented to students in public school. Some samples:
 * 1) [|Korean War Overview]
 * 2) [|Bay of Pigs Invasion]
 * 3) [|Cuban MissileCrisis]
 * 4) [|Vietnam War]
 * 5) [|Pattern of US ColdWar Interventions]
 * 6) [|Allende andPinochet in Chile]
 * 7) [|When Capitalism is Great andNot-so-great]
 * 8) [|20th CenturyCapitalism and Regulation in the United]

@http://cnx.org/ "Connexions is a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute: **authors** create and collaborate; **instructors** rapidly build and share custom collections; **learners** find and explore content." This website is comparable to CK12, above, but more international. The web interface is less accessible and user-freindly than CK12. Also, based on my quick survey, the text material itself is dryer and more old-style in its presentation. On the other hand, there are materials here I haven't yet found elsewhere— including K-12 level books on Art and Culture.

@http://ocwconsortium.org/ **Open Courseware Consortium:** "The OpenCourseWareConsortium is a worldwide community of hundreds of universities and associated organizations committed to advancing OpenCourseWare and its impact on global education. We serve as a resource for starting and sustaining OCW projects, as a coordinating body for the movement on a global scale, and as a forum for exchange of ideas and future planning. "An OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a free and open digital publication of high quality university‐level educational materials. These materials are organized as courses, and often include course planning materials and evaluation tools as well as thematic content. OpenCourseWare are free and openly licensed, accessible to anyone, anytime via the Internet." There are a vast aray of course available here, but most are higher education. I counted 91 English speaking courses from colleges and universities. Of particular interest was a very extensive cataslog of courses from MIT. I spent considerable time exploring these resources. Most are advanced couses, but some might be of interest to our higher level HSCP students. Of particular note for these students, see [|Commonwealth of Learning] (based in Vancouver) which has courses like "Small Engine Maintenance,"Working With Concrete," and "Basics of Ecology."

@http://www.open.ac.uk/ Appears to be an online university at the UK. It is NOT Open Source and its materials are probably too advanced for most of the students we serve—but it does offer the posibility of advanced education at low cost to staff who might be interested.