I had not heard the term OER, or Open Educational Resources, but realize I've been finding them and vetting them for my own purposes since beginning as a teacher.
I stand staunchly behind the idea of "open source," where a publishing company is not holding strict rights to educational resources and becoming an even more powerful political force in the educational system.
As an art teacher, our district has no adopted curriculum, and so I have always been on my own to find resources to teach. The upside of this is that I can customize curriculum for my students, connect with curriculum they are exploring in their classrooms, and find precisely the right materials to bring in front of them for the very limited time I see them.
I don't believe that familiarizing oneself with an OER as opposed to an adopted published curriculum takes any more time as a teacher. In our district, they have made technology a priority, so with a relatively small investment (Chromebooks) many teachers are better able to use and learn about OERs. There is simply good momentum at this point.
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