Most educators produce material which can be distributed and even reused. Numerous resources exist (online or off) to facilitate learning and teaching. This lab revolves around the large set of activities which surround the creation, distribution, reuse, integration, and discovery of those resources.
Given important trends towards Open Education, emphasis is put on those resources which are openly accessible and even “tweakable”. This type of material may carry a relatively permissive licence or even enter the public domain. Known as Open Educational Resources (OERs), these videos, syllabi, digital textbooks and assignments have received strong support from UNESCO, leading to the adoption of the Paris OER Declaration in 2012. Such lofty goals as enhancing and broadening access to knowledge relate quite directly to VTE’s mission.
Despite this focus on openness, we fully realise that many of the issues at stake in creating, promoting, or finding copyrighted material have increasing relevance in our context. As such, we welcome experts and other participants with a broad interest in educational resources, open or not.
In the spirit of open collaboration and informal exchange, we plan to enable action by assembling likeminded practitioners instead of holding prescheduled activities (which could be disrupted by time and other pressures). We are setting up a group to allow free-flowing conversations about educational resources, ranging from their usage to their production.
Those interested in finding, creating, sharing, or just playing with learning material can join us in that Google Group. Participation in this group is open and voluntary.