Tuesday, April 17, 2018

#GoOpen Summit

Guest Blog Post by Heather Love-Fleck, Oceanside Unified


The #GoOpen movement has been recently sweeping the education community, as well as the twitterverse! The #GoOpen campaign was conceived by the US Department of Education in 2015. School districts that participate in the #GoOpen movement have committed to providing open educational resources (OERs) and materials for teachers and students to use. The campaign encourages districts to use open licensed educational materials to transform teaching and learning. Learn more about the #GoOpen campaign and the participating districts at the newamerica.org website.

Besides the twitter hashtag #GoOpen, another great way to learn about OER is to attend a summit or conference that focuses on using open educational resources in the classroom. On April 13th, I had the privilege of attending the 2nd annual #GoOpen Summit in Oceanside, CA. The summit was a excellent opportunity to learn more about OERs and the various ways that local districts have been implementing these materials in to their curriculum.

To kick off the #GoOpen Summit a welcome keynote was given by event organizer, Erin English, Sara Trettin from the US Department of EdTech, and Kristina Ishmael, a Tech & Ed Policy Fellow from DC. The message from the welcome keynote was that OER is meant to disrupt how we view and use curriculum and learning materials to encourage equitable, personal learning experiences for all students. Some of the other benefits of #GoOpen is that it increases equity, keeps content relevant and timely, empowers teachers, supports collaboration, and enable reallocation of district funds.
Following the welcome keynote, participants at the #GoOpen Summit were able to attend various breakout sessions. I attended a session that was led by Carlsbad Unified superintendent, Dr. Ben Churchill, and assistant superintendent, Dr. Rob Nye. They shared the Carlsbad Unified journey into using OER, as well as the powerful message that implementing OER is much less about the materials, and much more about what we expect kids to be able to know and do. I also attended a very informative session by representatives from CK-12, a website that focuses on creating a personalized learning experience with customizable flexbooks. The best part about CK-12 is that it is completely free to use!

The closing keynote was given by Dr. Devin Vodicka, chief impact officer of alt school and former superintendent of Vista Unified. Dr. Vodicka focuses on creating a personalized learning experience for all students. He uses the analogy of traditional education being similar to riding a train, with a set destination and one way to get there. Personalized learning, however, is more like driving a car, with many route options and the ability to make turns based on the driver’s needs. His advice for jumping into the #GoOpen movement included: have a clear vision for learning; connect and collaborate; and start small to set the stage for big change.


The #GoOpen movement encourages teachers to create their own content, and seek out free, open-licensed educational materials, rather that relying on a textbook in the classroom. Teachers are the subject matter experts, and have already been seeking out these types of materials to be used in the classroom, whether they realize it or not (think - Google, Pinterest, Newsela, etc). The #GoOPen campaign supports districts in reallocating funds from purchasing textbooks and instead compensates teachers to find and create relevant and engaging content for students. The movement is an excellent strategy to support teachers as grade-level and content experts, rather than relying on outdated, expensive, and often irrelevant textbooks. Find out if your district is part of the #GoOpen movement today! Start searching for OER materials HERE.




Heather Love-Fleck is an EdTech TOSA for Oceanside Unified School District. She provides support in the area of educational technology, helping teachers and students implement tech as a tool to meet learning objectives. Heather has been teaching for 11 years, working with students in grades K-8. She shares her innovative classroom ideas with colleagues by presenting at district-level professional learning opportunities, as well as larger conferences, such as the National CUE and SDCUE Tech Fair. She shares her EdTech ideas and classroom lessons on her blog www.mrsfleck.com/blog and on Twitter @mrslovefleck.



Heather Love-Fleck

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