I have been receiving feedback from my professor, Dr. Irwin DeVries, who has an extensive background in OER. He has given me some helpful resources and tips to guide me in my journey, including shedding some light in particular with OER textbooks in K-12.
Although I was not planning on going into depth with open textbooks, it may be a side journey that is beneficial to pursue. Currently in my practice, the available Social Studies texts are from 1999; these resources are considerably out of date, especially in regard to the new, updated curriculum that has been recently implemented in British Columbia (Government of B.C, 2020). Budgets have always been a concern in education, and it would require substantial funds to replace over 100 outdated textbooks (BC Teachers Federation, 2022). Here is where open textbooks could make a difference.
From an initial search into this topic, I discovered that open textbooks, particularly open/adapted texts, were shown to be higher quality than published textbooks (Kimmons, 2015). In a student survey of grade 6-9 students using open science textbooks, an overwhelming majority stated they were more engaged than with traditional textbooks, and over half the participants listed benefits such as being able to highlight the text and more understandable explanations (Morales & Baker, 2018). A brief search for “open textbooks B.C” revealed a site called BC Open Campus and BC Open Collection, a subsidiary of BC Open Campus. The latter of these sites has materials that educators are able to adapt and remix, although most of these materials seem to be geared towards post-secondary education (BC Open Collection, n.d.).
This seems to be the case when I am conducting research; there are a plethora of helpful OER, but the ones I have found are tailored for post-secondary education.
For my next update, I will mention some of the barriers I have found with OER and grade school education.
References
BC Open Collection. (n.d.). https://collection.bccampus.ca/
Government of B.C. (2020). How we changed B.C’s curriculum. https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum/changing-curriculum
BC Teachers Federation. (2022). BCTF education funding brief 2023: Funding inclusive and flourishing schools. https://www.bctf.ca/docs/default-source/briefs-and-submissions/education-funding-briefs/bctf-education-funding-brief-2023.pdf?sfvrsn=c8cf71d2_2.
intheacademia. (2012, June 6). The OERs – Open Educational Resources [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xGRztrWv-k
Kimmons, R. (2015). Oer quality and adaptation in k-12: Comparing teacher evaluations of copyright-restricted, open, and open/adapted textbooks. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 16(5). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v16i5.2341
Liao, Y-C. J. (n.d.). Open educational resources. The K-12 Educational technology handbook. Retrieved May 11, 2023, from https://edtechbooks.org/k12handbook/oer
Morales, R., & Baker, A. (2018). Secondary students’ perceptions of open science textbooks. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2018(1). https://doi.org/10.5334/jime.455