Open Educational Resources

Image of an open laptop with dark screen on a wooden desk facing large windows showing a bright sunny day and trees in the background.

As some of you may have noticed I published an Open Science Resources guide last month, that guide is a work in progress but is targeted toward those working and studying science at UNL. There are a lot of great Open Access resources out there for educators that don’t fit with the way I chose to design my guide.

Educational materials always seem to increase in price, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

In the spirit of promoting Open Access I present to you a multidisciplinary selection of Open Educational Resources that I reviewed but did not include in the Teaching Resources section of my guide to Open Science.

Textbooks, Reference, and Primary Source Materials

CK-12 Flexbooks
http://www.ck12.org/flexbook/

Bartleby’s
http://bartleby.com/subjects/

100 Extensive University Libraries Around the World That Anyone Can Access
http://maryandmacdesign.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/100-extensive-university-libraries-from-around-the-world-that-anyone-can-access/

Interactive Resources:

Dynamic Periodic Table
http://www.ptable.com/

How to Write an Effective Essay Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWqMQ26Gqi4&feature=player_embedded

EngVid.com
English Lessons via Video
http://www.engvid.com

Field Trip Earth
(Removed link, this no longer exists.)

NBC Learn K-12
http://www.nbclearn.com/portal/site/learn/k-12

PBS Learning Media
http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/

Documentary Heaven
http://documentaryheaven.com/

Teaching Resources

50 Ways to Leave Your Term Paper or Book Report and Tell Your Story
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1868CZhAVeeIxlA6AMV0VwiPYnafVosjl0H9CZJgvCJY/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1

10 Awesome Free Tools for Creating Infographics
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/awesome-free-tools-infographics/

Free Technology For Teachers
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

Please share your favorite Open Education resources in the comments section and I’ll add them to the list!

What’s New & Nifty in Science & Technology

Circle of Chain Metal Links in silver against a black background labeled link roundup.
Link Roundup

Here’s a few items I thought were pretty darn neat most of which went public this year, with one very nifty exception.

The Ada Initiative

I think this new non-profit is really neat, and am all for increasing participation of women in open technology and culture, which includes open source software, Wikipedia and other open data, and open social media.” I am a little curious how things will work out as they go along, traditionally this sphere has been male dominated so it’ll be interesting to see what efforts are most successful in recruiting and retaining women in this field, and if those efforts change the culture of open technology and social media.

“The Ada Initiative is focused on helping women get careers in open technology through recruitment and training programs for women, education for community members who want to help women, and working with corporations and projects to improve their outreach to women.”

Bio Digital Human
*Please note this is still in Beta Testing and they are still double checking images and information. Please note last time I checked it was more IE friendly than Firefox, at least the version of Firefox that I was using, no clue how it works with Chrome.

“The BioDigital Human is comprised of over 1900 scientifically accurate 3D anatomy models. View spatial relationships in unprecedented clarity. Learn medical terms in a visual format.” This one is just fun to play with, especially for people like me who know very little about human anatomy/biology.

JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiment) Basic Protocols
*Okay, so this one isn’t as new, but it’s still very nifty and new to a lot of people. I’d really love to see more publications like this and stop having budget cuts so that I could subscribe to the paid protocols! Basic Protocols are freely available to all, but subject specific protocols require a subscription to view.

JoVE is a “..peer reviewed, PubMed indexed journal devoted to…biological, medical, chemical & physical research in a video format.” As a former working chemist I can’t express how much simpler my life would have been if I could have seen a demonstration of a methodology in addition to reading the instructions. Photos are nice, but actually seeing the motions etc. makes learning a new technique infinitely easier!

“Visualization greatly facilitates the understanding & efficient reproduction of both basic & complex experimental techniques, thereby addressing 2 of the biggest challenges faced by today’s life science research community: i) low transparency & poor reproducibility of biological experiments & ii) time & labor-intensive nature of learning new experimental technique.

Out of Copyright.EU

Copyright Calculators for the European Union, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland.
Determining copyright for non-USA materials has always presented a challenge for American’s, in large part because of the sheer number of countries and regulations that had to be translated and understood to determine what is and is not in the public domain.