Connexions
A place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute.
*** I suppose a potentially useful resource, but I didn’t find the search engine very useful nor was I able to find any high school french resources. May require further exploration, but I would only give it 2.5 out of 5.
OER Commons
The network that brings together 44,5519 OER, tools for sharing curriculum with the world, and news and training on the brave new world of open education.
*** I found this resource much easier to navigate than Connexions. The search engine was more refined and after searching for french resources, I was immediately directed to an excellent list, some of which I was already familiar with and I knew to be excellent such as Tex’s French Grammar. Also the description of the resources was excellent. I would give it 4.5 out 5.
Archive.org (and Archive.org Education)
The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, the print disabled, and the general public.
*** An interesting website. The “Wayback Machine”, a tool to look at past websites was something I didn’t know existed, however I’m not sure how I would use it in my present role. I will have to think of an assignment to employ this unique tool. There was definitely a wide range of fascinating materials on this site and the search engine was simple and effective, however for my purposes I’m not sure I would recommend it. 3 out of 5.
Jorum
Through Jorum, you can find and share learning and teaching resources, shared by the UK Further and Higher Education community.
*** I really like Jorum it was clean and easy to use. A search of French language resulted in an extensive list of articles, however the site is geared to post-secondary education. An excellent resource, but maybe not for a k-12 teacher. Rating 3.5 out of 5.
Top Online Courses (a searchable directory)
List of Free Lectures OnlineWhether your goal is to earn a promotion, graduate at the top of your class, or just accelerate your life. Lectures can help get you there. Our archives of lectures cover a huge range of topics and have all been handpicked and carefully designed by experienced instructors throughout the world who are dedicated to helping you take the next step toward meeting your career goals. With OnlineCourses.com's engaging collection of lectures, your free time will turn into self-improvement time.
*** I loved the look and simplicity of this site. Creating a central location to list and link free University lectures and content is an excellent idea. I was disappointed when I was not able to access any french courses in the language section, lucky for me they offered a course in Creole. For my purposes 3.5 out of 5.
MERLOT
Putting Educational Innovations Into Practice. Find peer reviewed online teaching and learning materials. Share advice and expertise about education with expert colleagues. Be recognized for your contributions to quality education.
*** Overall I thought this was a fairly strong resources for my purposes. It had a vast catalogue of resources geared for education. Specifically for French my search produced a modest list of resources. I found the appearance of the site to be cluttered and overly complex, but it was ultimately useful. Rating 4 out 5.
Open Courseware Consortium
The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a collaboration of higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model.
*** While geared for Post Secondary, I did find some interesting French materials that could be used at the K-12 level. The University of Nottingham offered an interesting beginner french course that focused mainly on grammar.. Such resources could be integrated into a secondary French language course to support learning of sentence structure. I have incorporated similar online courses in my classes, but I have yet to find one that is comprehensive. Overall I would rate this resource as 4 out of 5.
CK12 Foundation
The CK-12 Foundation is a California-based non-profit organization striving to reduce the cost of, and increase access to, K-12 education in the United States and worldwide. A leading provider of open educational resources, CK-12 provides free and fully customizable K-12 educational materials aligned to state curriculum standards and tailored to meet student and teacher needs. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CK-12_Foundation)
*** This American resource is focused on K-12 learning specifically. Initially I was excited at discovering this resource. It was clean, simple to navigate, although it does not currently have any resources for French. I decided to explore deeper as it seemed to have an emphasis on numeracy and I was impressed by the layout and content for K-12 math teachers and students. I would definitely explore this resource further if I was teaching math. For my purposes 2 out of 5, but 4.5 out of 5 if I was teaching Math.
Curriki
Curriki is an open community of educators, parents, and students who share curriculum.
*** Curriki is another resource that focuces on K-12 education. It derives it content from peer-reviewed community contributions. I did manage to find some helpful French resources, such as preparation activities for DELF exams, however I did find the search features a bit awkward, and it took a little while to find what I was looking for. Rating 4 out 5.
Khan Academy
The Khan Academy is a non-profit educational website created in 2006 by educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School. The stated mission is "providing a high quality education for anyone, anywhere".
The website supplies a free online collection of more than 4,000 micro lectures via video tutorials stored on YouTube teaching mathematics, history, healthcare, medicine, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics, cosmology, organic chemistry, American civics, art history, macroeconomics, microeconomics, and computer science. Khan Academy has delivered over 240 million lessons.
*** I’ve had some experience using Khan’s academy in the past, as I worked with a math teacher in our school to develop a pre-math 8 course. Most of the students in the class enjoyed the format, but it was far from an all encompassing learning program, more of a tool to support learning. I was pleasantly surprised to see Khan’s academy had expanded its curriculum. Although no french courses are offered yet, I spent some time looking at the “World History” lessons. Overall I found them interesting, but content focused and I concluded that I would probably use other sources over Khan’s for this topic. My rating 3.5 out of 5.
Lab Space
The OpenLearn website gives free access to learning materials from higher education courses. OpenLearn’s LabSpace makes many different open educational resources (OER) available to you from a wider OER community associated with The Open University.
*** I liked this resource. Although it is listed as under construction, I was pleasantly surprised to find a language section. Although it was fairly limited I found a few resources that I might use. Specifically a unit on the importance of language and using French: En Ville (In the city) looked like units I could use in my senior courses. Overall not a comprehensive source, but always nice to find something useful for my program. Rating 4 out 5.
UNU OpenCoureware
The United Nations University formally joined the OpenCourseWare (OCW) Consortium on 24 May 2006 and became a member of the Japan OCW Consortium on 26 March 2008.
The UN University is committed to the development of this OCW website that showcases the training and educational programmes implemented by the University in a wide range of areas relevant to the work of the United Nations.
*** An interesting concept, but the range of courses that were offered were very specific and limited. While I applaud the access to specific information relevant to the focus of the UN, there was nothing offered for my focus. Rating 1 out of 5.
Open Learn
OpenLearn aims to break the barriers to education by reaching millions of learners around the world, providing free educational resources and inviting all to sample courses that our registered students take – for free!
*** OpenLearn is an excellent site and it offered a designated language sections which offered dozens of resources, from video clips to Mooc on learning French. This is an amazing source, that I will return to mine for content for my courses. Rating 5 out of 5.
TED Ed
TED-Ed’s commitment to creating lessons worth sharing is an extension of TED’s mission of spreading great ideas. Within the growing TED-Ed video library, you will find carefully curated educational videos, many of which represent collaborations between talented educators and animators nominated through the TED-Ed platform.
*** I’m a big fan of everything TED. I liked this site, although I found it to be lacking in content. I assume it is a work in progress. Although I found a language section, there was very little content posted yet, and none specific to speaking French. I do assume that the content that is present is all very fascinating and inspiring and perhaps valuable for other K-12 content areas. Rating 2.5 out of 5 stars.
Wiki Educator
The WikiEducator is an evolving community intended for the collaborative:
- planning of education projects linked with the development of free content.
- development of free content on Wikieducator for e-learning
- work on building open education resources (OERs) on how to create OERs.
- networking on funding proposals developed as free content.
*** Wiki Educator’s motto is, “Just try it! Our community will support you.”, and I believe this resource was intended more for supporting the development e-learning content, than accessing e-learning content. For my purposes, it wasn’t very helpful. Rating 1 out of 5.
P2PU
The Peer 2 Peer University is a grassroots open education project that organizes learning outside of institutional walls and gives learners recognition for their achievements. P2PU creates a model for lifelong learning alongside traditional formal higher education. Leveraging the internet and educational materials openly available online, P2PU enables high-quality low-cost education opportunities.
*** I really liked the Web page and the concept, but I found P2PU a bit lacking in refinement. After exploring a few of the different schools offered, I used the search engine to find any French courses. I found a link to a P2PU Beginning French Course, which looked promising, but is still under construction. It appears that P2PU places a significant emphasis on language, so this could be a useful site for me in the future. Rating 3.5 out of 5.