Before diving into the details of Open Space, let's first consider why open education and supplemental materials are important in education. View this video called Why Open Education Matters:

Wikieducator.org states that, "the aim of [open education] is to improve access to learning opportunities by sharing knowledge and learning resources. By joining this international community of educators you can save time, cut costs and contribute to improving the quality of learning in your own classroom and around the world. The [open education] movement seeks to stimulate, facilitate and catalyze growth of the pool of learning resources on the Internet which circumvent barriers to access and lift restrictions on usage, thus improving education as a social good."

In the video below, educators describe how open educational resources benefit their classrooms.

Benefits of Open Education

At times the rigidity of a given curriculum can feel restrictive. The absence of an established curriculum for a course can be overwhelming. Imagine being able to access a wide array of teacher-created resources, crafted to complement and expand your existing curriculum. Openly licensed, freely available content provides this possibility. Educators can enhance their classes with supplemental videos, graphics, lessons, activities, modules, textbooks, or even whole courses.

They can invest the time they would spend creating their own lessons and plans working with individual students or making needed refinements to classroom activities.

In the book A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources (OER), the authors offer three possibilities:

• Increased availability of high quality, relevant learning materials can contribute to more productive students and educators. Because open resources removes copying restrictions, it can reduce the cost of educational materials and time spent finding and vetting new resources.
• Open, flexible licenses encourage adaptation. They also promote students' active involvement in learning and produce more effective learning environments.
• Open resources can build instructional capacity by providing institutions and educators more access to materials and the means to produce and share new works. Instead of duplicating efforts to create a curriculum, open resources can build on the intellectual capital and work of other educators.

The following video describes additional benefits of open content for educators. These include taking ownership of teaching materials to make stronger connections with students, customizing resources for individual learner needs, and transforming teaching.

One can view the importance of open education through three lenses: global or system level, district or local level, and individual level. See Table 2 for a list of benefits offered by open, freely acessible content at each level.

Interested in hearing other educators’ perspective on open educational resources (OER) in the classroom? Listen to these podcast episodes:

• The Teachers’ Classroom - Open Education Resources with Kristina Ishmael (33:31)
• Revise, Remix, Redesign - Episode 1: District Leader Dan McDowell Talks Benefits of PreK-12 OER (23:05)