Nice piece by Sharon Noguchi in the San Jose Mercury News on the inroads being made by open educational resources:
“We’re just at the initial stages of a revolution in education,” said Matt Chamberlain, principal of Venture School, an independent study school in the San Ramon Unified School District. Selecting and managing online material is challenging, “but to put resources in kids’ hands is very exciting.”
Added Venture biology teacher Maureen Allison, “There’s so much potential, so much rich stuff out there.”
The effort to collect, edit and spread that material has been quietly incubated by philanthropies like the Menlo Park-based William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, other nonprofits and now a consortia of state governments. It has made headway in school districts like Riverside Unified, where 40 percent of the curriculum comes from open educational resources, and in private and budget-conscious charter schools.
