Description provided by COERLL:

COERLL hosted an online “OER hangout” on September 25th on the subject of creating open educational resources (OER) with students. With 26 people attending, five language instructors shared their experiences of working with their students to create openly licensed resources for teaching and learning:

Amber Hoye and Kelly Arispe lead the Boise State University Department of World Languages’ Pathways OER Language Teaching Repository of openly licensed proficiency based activities, created by students and teachers.

Kathryn Murphy-Judy, Ngoc-My Guidarelli, and Laura Middlebrooks are part of a team of faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University who have developed an open, connected platform for students to share authentic resources.

At Boise State, upper-level undergraduate students, with the mentorship of staff and faculty, create activities to be used in the weekly language lab component of introductory language courses. These activities can also be used in the classroom and K-12 teachers in Idaho have been involved in creating and teaching with them. At Virginia Commonwealth University, undergraduate students in the 202 class, who are either majors on their way to upper level courses or students finishing their language requirement, curate authentic resources and discuss them with native speakers. Then, upper level students turn those curations into instructional modules, which are being integrated into online open textbooks.

You can learn more about the logistics of these projects by viewing the webinar video, reading about the projects, and perusing the materials. Here, we’ll mention a few of the important themes that came up during the discussion.

One important element of students being involved in materials creation is that they understand what other students will be interested in and can choose topics and texts they know their peers will enjoy. Involving students ensures that a more diverse array of voices and perspectives are represented in the materials, and gives students more of a choice in their own education. Students also gain skills beyond language and culture when they work on these projects: digital citizenship, open license knowledge, technical skills, an understanding of language proficiency, and knowledge of state and national standards.

Each of these projects has a broad community of people with various skills who can support each other and contribute in different ways. At Boise State, the language resource center director, language students and students from other departments, faculty mentors, SLA & CALL researchers, K-12 teachers, state partners, and librarians have all contributed to the OER. At VCU, students, faculty, and librarians contribute to the materials and partnerships are developing with K-12 teachers who use the materials in their courses.

Each of these projects follows an iterative process of development. The work doesn’t start and finish in the span of a semester, it grows and changes. Students develop materials, native speakers proofread them, teachers teach with them, and the team refines them. The Pathways Project carries a disclaimer that “The activities on the Pathways Project OER Repository were created by upper-division students at Boise State University and serve as a foundation that our community of practice can build upon and refine. While they are polished, we welcome and encourage collaboration from language instructors to help modify grammar, syntax, and content where needed.” The cycle of the projects is such that lower-level students can get involved in the project as learners, but go on to take a more active role in the project as they progress.

The panelists recommend to anyone interested in creating OER with their students that they start small, and reach out to available communities (institution-wide, or online professional networks) for support and sharing. On that note, COERLL’s next OER hangout is on the topic of joining a teacher community. Join us on November 13th!

View the webinar video, links to the repositories, slides from the presenters, and more on the event page of COERLL’s website.

This video is the result of a collaboration between Blue Ridge PBS and the Virginia Department of Education. It's designed to help educators take the next step from just using the resources of Go Open Virginia to becoming contributors of resources including videos, lesson plans, and utilization plans for ALL teachers.

#GoOpenVA is a collaborative initiative that enables educational entities throughout Virginia to create, share, and access openly-licensed educational resources (OER, also known as open education resources). OER are free digital materials that can be used or modified to adjust to student needs; they are openly-licensed unhampered by many traditional copyright limitations.

#GoOpenVA encourages all Virginia educators and learners to create, share, and use digital resources with the end goals of providing equitable access to great learning materials throughout the state, and supporting new approaches to learning and teaching for all Virginians.

This section includes recorded and archived webinars on the topics of digital citizenship, internet safety, parenting around technology and other related topics. For new free webinars and additional recordings see Digital Respons-Ability's website.

In this episode we chat with instructional technologists at the 2023 VSTE conference and visit Ware Elementary in Staunton City, Virginia to meet a prospective teacher who started his career as a school custodian before being encouraged to become a teacher by his principal.

This video was created to help new and existing users understand how to get the most out of their #GoOPenVA experience.

#GoOpenVA is a collaborative initiative that enables educational entities throughout Virginia to create, share, and access openly licensed educational resources (OER, also known as open education resources). OER are free digital materials that can be used or modified to adjust to student needs; they are openly licensed and unhampered by many traditional copyright limitations.

#GoOpenVA encourages all Virginia educators and learners to create, share, and use digital resources with the end goal of providing equitable access to great learning materials throughout the state and supporting new approaches to learning and teaching for all Virginians.

This is a professional learning resource prepared for VBCPS and intended to be modified by other divisions as needed. The Schoology course was built based on the #GoOpenVA Workshop in a Box and enables asynchronous, remote professional learning.

This video, produced collaboratively by Blue Ridge PBS and the Virginia Department of Education, is designed to help users of #GoOpenVA go from just using the resources of the site to collaborating with others to share knowledge, resources, and lesson plans.

#GoOpenVA is a collaborative initiative that enables educational entities throughout Virginia to create, share, and access openly-licensed educational resources (OER, also known as open education resources). OER are free digital materials that can be used or modified to adjust to student needs; they are openly-licensed unhampered by many traditional copyright limitations.

#GoOpenVA encourages all Virginia educators and learners to create, share, and use digital resources with the end goals of providing equitable access to great learning materials throughout the state, and supporting new approaches to learning and teaching for all Virginians.

Explore African theatre techniques and learn how to apply critical thinking and communication skills to your classroom through a lesson of African Theatre history and activities.

Kadencia will provide a workshop on Afro-Puerto Rican music history, instrumentation and Bomba and Plena in its traditional percussive form.

In this webinar we will discuss the Creative Process strand in the Music standards and share ideas on implementation in the elementary general music room. We will explore adapting current best practices in order to make conscious the inherent elements of the creative process. We will examine new methods of adding elements of the creative process into the classroom, through virtual, blended, and in-person instruction practices.

The intersection of our musical being and creativity can provide a new, refreshing, and confident outlook on the way forward. In fact, this “great reset” can usher in a revitalized, newly inspired approach to music making. Let the possibilities begin!

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In this webinar, we will explore ways that teachers and students can use digital tools in the secondary music classroom for creation and investigation. Topics addressed will include project ideas, integration of audio creation tools into the class structure and environment, and practical issues to consider when choosing hardware and software for these projects.

This webinar and presentation is a previously recorded session, Digital Learning with eMediaVA presented by Lindsey Horner.Webinar Description: This webinar presents information about media and educational resources from WHRO Public Media for fine arts educators. Lyndsay Horner, Manager of eMediaVA will led the one-hour session in July 2020. The session includes how to access eMediaVA and how to find resources to support student learning in fine arts areas of dance, music, theatre, and visual arts.

This session will cover ideas and strategies using available technology to enhance the study of theatre in the classroom or through online learning.

This webinar will explore the digital resources of the Library of the Congress for fine arts instruction. Engagement with primary source images, objects and documents can spark critical thinking, deeper learning and interdisciplinary connections for students. Join Sherry Levitt and Cynthia Szwajkowski from Teaching with Primary Sources, Virginia (TPSVA) for a lively, interactive exploration of the Library's rich, digital collections for in-person and virtual instruction. As a demonstration, special guest Carolyn Bennett, former Library of Congress Teacher-in-Residence, will model an activity using WPA Posters.

Educational resources provided by Virginia's history and cultural museums offer educators the opportunity to form deep classroom connections to Virginia history and culture.

This webinar introduces ways to help students identify the elements of dance (body, energy, action, space, and time) and use them to explore and create. The presentation includes a discussion of how, from elementary through secondary grade levels, students can build dance skills and techniques by integrating elements of dance into their performances and by evaluating the use of dance elements.

Games impact high-level thinking in children by aiding the development of problem-solving, analysis, perseverance, and literacy. This session will present teaching strategies and resources for art educators interested in teaching game design, encouraging the development of both traditional and digital art-making skills. Practical suggestions include curricular examples, logistical considerations, and guidance for classroom implementation for multiple age levels.