During this pandemic, I found myself attending more Board of Education meetings for my school district than ever before. All of the parents of my children's friends now had opinions on online learning and the ed tech platforms being used by the district. Other parents told me they were now emailing the superintendent on a weekly basis. After listening to discussions of the budget that my district was spending on PPE because of the pandemic and the discussion of Black Lives Matter and diversifying the curriculum, OER seemed like the answer in terms of cost and curriculum. These community conversations made me consider my role as a parent and community member and how my expertise in open education could benefit my local schools.
I did some research on K-12 OER and saw that the 2020 Bayview Analytics survey found that OER awareness among K-12 teachers and administrators was low, with only 17% responding that they were very aware or aware of OER. Those who are aware of OER are often fuzzy on the details, particularly around Creative Commons licensing. As a parent and community member, I developed a letter to the superintendent for my local school district about OER. If OER advocates at OpenEd reused, revised, or remixed this letter, we could easily raise awareness of OER in K-12.
Learning Outcomes: Participants will consider their roles as OER advocates as community members and parents in their local school districts. Participants will be able to retain, reuse, revise, remix, or redistribute a letter for their local school district about the benefits of OER in K-12.
