http://clipart-library.com/clipart/clip-art-clock-35.htm

As I try to wrap my head around Open Educational Resources (OER), I find myself coming back to the same thing over and over again.  The days of picking up a teacher’s guide and following the script are over for me.  We teachers have been without district-supplied resources like textbooks or workbooks for so long, we have learned (self-taught) to design our own lessons without them. Now when I go online and find something designed by someone else, it is rare that I don’t recreate it to match my own teaching style, use books, materials and equipment I have on hand rather than what is recommended (because we have no money to buy), add local content or themes, and/or adapt it to suit my particular learners.  These are the skills needed by modern teachers.  And it takes a lot of my time – my time!

What I need from OER is my time back.  I need OER that are easily transformable and shareable.  Right now I glean my ideas from educator blogs that I subscribe to, or from sites like Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT).  Inevitably, changes need to be made but these items are not easily edited so I end up recreating them in my own way.  Sometimes they are little nit picky tweaks like I don’t like the font for Kindergarten.  Often it is because I need to Canadianize it, Canadian money, Canadian spellings, Canadian terminology, Canadian geography.  I really don’t want the turkeys to have pilgrim hats on!  The educator blogs and TPT often have resources that cost money so they wouldn’t be classed as OER, even though I only use the free stuff.  I did buy something on TPT once and it was not worth the money in the end. I think I used 2 pages out of the 144 page resource I purchased.

What I need from OER is free images I can use when I create my own resources.  Right now I start my search for images on the internet through Creative Commons because I’m trying to be good…really I am.  After sifting through 100 photos

http://clipart-library.com/clipart/gceEKAzXi.htm

of someone’s company picnic, I turn to search google images with the Usage Rights tool, first “Labeled for reuse with modification”, then “Labeled for reuse”,  then I give in to an unfiltered search and find what I need.  There’s no watermark.  I’m not sharing what I made with anyone but my students, fair dealing.  The intention of Creative Commons is good, but ultimately, it fails me because it takes a long time to scroll through a lot of irrelevant images.  They need a better search function but also better images, and clipart.  Where do I go for free clipart?  If I google free clipart, I can find several sites that offer some decent clipart but not without jumping through the hoops, register, sign in, download, then insert into my work, then add the credit.  There goes my time again.

What I need from OER is resources that are relevant to the kindergarten models of Saanich Schools where I work.  Is it possible to create a sharing space for all Saanich Kindergarten teachers (or Lower Vancouver Island Kindergarten teachers) where we can sort and share and co-create useful resources?  It could still be open to anyone to use but at least users would know that they may have to adapt it for their own region.  A locally curated collection would be far better than a global one, wouldn’t it?  I am sure it is so why haven’t we done it yet?  There are those pesky copyright laws.  No one is really sure how they work.  If I download some free thing that says use is restricted to the one teacher that downloaded it, I can’t very well put it into a shared collection.  If I recreate it with my own twists, how different does it need to be before I can post it?  Did I use open licence images when I made this 20 years ago?  Suppose my colleagues and I have a collection of files that are ready to upload, who is going to manage our collection, make sure everything is properly filed.  It must fall to a dedicated volunteer because it’s highly unlikely the district will pay anyone to do it.  There goes my time again.

What I need from OER is resources that are transformable, shareable, free, and relevant to my region.  What I need are colleagues trained in creating or sharing properly licensed resources, and uploading to a local collection.  What I need is a collection where I can download something tried and true and use it right away.  What I need is a forum where I can co-create or suggest edits for resources.  What I need is an education system that recognizes that this is how it is done, someone needs to be paid to curate the local collection, make sure it is searchable, make sure the links don’t stagnate, make sure everything stay up to date.  What I don’t need from OER is so many resources that I need to sift for hours to find something close to what I need, and then spend hours of my time fixing it so it fits.  I need my time.