Pearson Higher Education is trying to make it easier
for educators to locate open educational resources (OER) with the launch of
OpenClass Exchange, a collection of nearly 700,000 digital resources with simple
search processes and built-in social tools.
“It’s iTunes-easy,” Scott Chadwick, vice president and
general manager of OpenClass, told eCampus News.
The Exchange provides an updated search function that
allows teachers and students to quickly access material by topic from sources
such as TED Ed, Kahn Academy, YouTube EDU, and the collection of OER college
courses from Open Course Library. Instructors can preview material that matches
their search and click on a button to add it to their course.
“Educators are saying, ‘We can’t dedicate our lives to
content searches,’” Chadwick said. “We wanted to address that, so we brought
together as many really great learning resources as we could. A lot of them are
video-based, which is intentional, but there’s also great simulations, courses,
and e-book content.”
The social feature to the Exchange includes a “follow”
function that allows students and teachers to create a network of peers outside
the classroom. There is also a notification feature that provides users with
automatic updates of OpenClass activities.
“From here, it’s about finding even more of the best
resources,” Chadwick said. “We’re continuing to partner with organizations and
institutions and anybody who feels like they have the best educational content
and want to make it more easily available.”
