An International OER/OEP Initiative: How Open is Foreign Language Education in the United States and Europe?

• In Event: Roundtable Session 1

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Summary

The purpose of our talk is to discuss an international initiative co-sponsored by the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (US) and LangOER (Europe) on the scope and impact of OER and OEP on both continents. In particular, we will discuss survey data about OER/OEP adoption.

Abstract

As the open education movement continues to grow, there is a critical need for research that explores (a) how FL educators perceive and make use of open educational resources (OER) in their classrooms, and (b) the nature of and reasons for the rise in open educational language practices (OEP). OER are defined as "any educational resource (including textbooks, videos, multimedia applications, podcasts, and any materials designed for use in teaching and learning) that are openly available for use by educators and students, without an accompanying need to pay royalties or license fees" (Butcher, 2011, p. 5). The purpose of our talk is to discuss an international initiative co-sponsored by the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (US) and LangOER (Europe) that studies the scope and impact of OER and OEP on both continents. The first part of the talk is devoted to an analysis of the results of a recent US survey disseminated to 1,888 FL educators working at all levels of the American educational system—K–12, community colleges, and 4–year colleges. The second part of the talk focuses on European data from country-specific and cross-country European surveys on the same topic. In general, the initiative aims to enhance scientific dialogue surrounding the following questions:

(1) why do FL educators adopt OER/OEP?
(2) how are OER conceptualized in the US and in Europe?
(3) what is the effect of teacher training on OER/OEP adoption?

Strand

• Language and Technology

Presenters

• Carl Blyth, University of Texas at Austin

• Joshua Thoms, Utah State University

• Katerina Zourou