I'm happy to announce that  Dr Björn Haßler, Helen Neo, and Janet Blair, who will working with Leicester City Council's DigiLit Leicester project to create guidance for secondary school staff, designed to introduce and promote the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) across city schools.

OER describes teaching, learning, and research resources that are shared by people in the public domain, or released under an open licence which allows others to use and remix them.

There are millions of free to use resources that have been shared globally as Open Education Resources. These resources have been created and openly licenced by and for educators to use – for example  lesson plans, courses, classroom activities, and revision materials.  If school staff don’t know what Open Licences are or how to find OER, they are going to miss out on the benefits of making use of existing, high quality resources. Staff and students in our schools create amazing resources all the time – if they openly licence these they could share them nationally and globally – helping out other educators and learning communities.

The OER project is part of the Council’s DigiLit Leicester initiative, designed to support schools in making the most of the city’s current investment in technology, as part of Leicester’s £340 million pound Building Schools for the Future Programme. The project has identified a gap in support and information for teachers relating to the use and creation of Open Educational Resources. An understanding of OER and open licencing will support schools and staff in sharing and accessing resources, and in developing staff and learner digital literacy skills and knowledge.

The team have previously worked on several initiatives which support the creation and use of use of Open Education Resources by schools across Europe and internationally, including the ORBIT project and the OER4Schools programme, at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.

Cross-posted from LCC SchoolTech