OPEN UP RESOURCES RELEASES ITS FIRST FREE OER CURRICULUM

MENLO PARK, CA [August 24, 2017] — Open Up Resources, the nonprofit provider of openly licensed curriculum for K–12 schools, has released its first openly licensed core program, the Illustrative Mathematics 6–8 Math curriculum. Developed by Illustrative Mathematics, the nonprofit founded by standards author Bill McCallum to improve mathematics instruction in U.S. schools, the curriculum is now available for free to school districts.

Illustrative Mathematics 6–8 Math is a problem-based curriculum that fosters discussion-filled classrooms and encourages students to show their mathematical thinking in multiple ways. The curriculum, which has been published as an Open Educational Resource under Creative Commons license CC BY, is available in both digital and print formats at im.openupresources.org.

It is the first curriculum made openly available by Open Up Resources, which was founded to develop new high-quality alternatives to curricula offered by traditional publishers, and to increase equity in education by distributing these materials freely, as OER.…Read More

Improving online accessibility for students a major issue for schools

As schools make recorded lessons available to students online, they may not be making them accessible

accessibility-ccIn February, advocates for the deaf filed federal lawsuits against Harvard and M.I.T., stating that both universities violated antidiscrimination laws by failing to provide closed captioning in their online lectures, courses, podcasts, and other educational materials. In Harvard and M.I.T. Are Sued Over Lack of Closed Captions, the New York Times highlighted portions of the complaint and zeroed in on the fact that, “Much of Harvard’s online content is either not captioned or is inaccurately or unintelligibly captioned, making it inaccessible for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing.”

Applying ADA to Online Education

This new case highlights a particularly controversial subject in an era where more colleges and K-12 schools are making lectures available online and developing related content that may not always be accessible to students with disabilities. Sheryl Burgstahler, founder and director of University of Washington’s DO-IT Center and UW Access Technology Center (ATC) in Seattle, says part of the issue lies in confusion over exactly how the American Disabilities Act applies to the world of online education.…Read More