Open Educational Resources (OER) has great potential to increase and broaden the openness of education as well as decrease the cost (COL, 2013; Wiley & Green, 2012). Many researchers and educators are big fans of OER and utilize a wide variety of online cost-free resources in their teaching and professional learning, however, more and more researchers have some concerns about the growing OER movement, such as the quality and sustainability of OER (Atkins, Brown & Hammond, 2007; Downes, 2007; Hylen, 2006). I think the hardest part is to maintain the high-quality OER materials for all users. Although the awareness of the quality of OERs or open course materials has been raised and some institutions and OER platforms try to ensure their resources in high quality (Atkins, Brown & Hammond, 2007), there are still tons of free educational resources without quality check accessible to educators and learners, such as resources on Pinterest or from others' blogs. I think OER resources users, especially inservice and preservice teachers, need to have the ability to search for massive online resources through appropriate approaches and channels and to identify what resources can really be adapted as their teaching materials with even higher quality.
Looking at some educational news and trends, it seems like educators in higher education institutions have promoted the concept and the skills of OER adaption in education. In K-12 setting, we can see some teachers have started getting involved in the OER environment by joining some OER communities, such as Curriki Groups and OER Community or searching educational resources on OER platforms for K-12 teachers, such as OER Commons and Creative Commons Search. However, I did not find many studies on K-12 teachers talking about how they adapt OER in their teaching or professional learning and whether they found some barriers or challenges in OER reuse and remix. Previous research studies showed that teachers' technology and content-related knowledge and skills are critical factors on teachers' use of technology to support their teaching in schools (Hew & Brush, 2007; Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010). So for my research topic, I am interested in investigating how often science teachers in elementary schools adapt OER materials in their teaching as well as in what ways they reuse, remix, revise, and redistribute their teaching materials. Moreover, it would be interesting to know whether those teachers encountered any difficulties in OER adaption due to the lack of technology knowledge and skills or other challenges.
Additional information: Five Critiques of the Open Educational Resources Movement
Issues with OER
Atkins, D.E., Brown, J.S., & Hammond, A.L. (2007). Review of the open educational resources (OER) movement : Achievements, challenges, and new opportunities. Menlo Park, CA:William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Retrieved June 20, 2013, from http://www.hewlett.org/uploads/files/ReviewoftheOERMovement.pdf
Downes, S. (2007). Models for sustainable open educational resources. Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects, 3, 29-44.
Ertmer, P. A., & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, A. T. (2010). Teacher technology change: how knowledge, beliefs, and culture intersect. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 42, 255–284.
Hew, K. F., & Brush, T. (2007). Integrating technology into K–12 teaching and learning: Current knowledge gaps and recommendations for future research. Educational Technology Research and Development, 55, 223–252.
Hylén, J. (2006). Open educational resources: Opportunities and challenges. From the 2006 Open Education Conference. Retrieved June 20, 2013, from http://www.knowledgeall.com/files/Additional_Readings-Consolidated.pdf
Wiley, D., & Green, C. (2012). Why openness in education? In D.G.Oblinger (Ed.) Game Changers : Education and Information Technologies, (pp. 81-90). EduCause Books. Retrieved June 20, 2013, from http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/chapter-6-why-openness-education
