Maine Open Educational Resources (OER)
The Maine Department of Education awarded Syntiro four OER grants in the following content areas: Health Education and Physical Education, Mathematics, World Languages, and Career and Education Development. These exciting projects have brought together teams of educators to identify high quality OER in each of the content areas. Each team identified criteria for quality and alignment to State standards. They then reviewed and tagged the OER they felt met the criteria for high quality. These OER have been posted on www.delicious.com. Additionally, the teams have identified areas in which quality OER were lacking and need to be developed. These resources will be posted on Delicious and other websites, for easy access as they are developed. In December 2010 an extension of the original grant was awarded to identify, assess, recommend, tag and post additional OER. The teams are continuing to provide on-going feedback to the MDOE regarding the development of a Maine OER Repository, and providing professional sharing about OER in their schools, districts, regions, and statewide professional organizations as well as conferences. www.syntiro.org/oer
Contact: Pam Flood – This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Professional Development in OER
Syntiro is conducting a project with funds from Title IID Enhancing Education through Technology - American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to support a professional development collaboration between Syntiro and the Maine Alliance for Arts Education. This project is supporting six teams of educators to develop units aligned to the Maine Learning Results that integrate two content areas, one of which is the visual and performing arts, and to provide professional development for educators. Using technology is a requirement of this project. This project provides a co-teaching model that can be replicated in other regions of the state. It also provided a statewide conference that showcased this work in January 2011. www.syntiro.org/oer
Contact: Therese Burns –
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FLAME's Annual Conference
The Foreign Language Association of Maine (FLAME) sponsors an annual March Conference. Workshop sessions address current topics and issues in world language education, including ESL. Maine OER World Language Team Members Amity Beane, Sarah Bolanos, Silvana Cuello, Dennis Gallagher, Mary Kaubris, and Brett Trefethen attended and presented Responding to Teacher Needs: A Wishlist for World Language Education. They have shared photos from the conference.
Winter Retreat 2011
The Winter Retreat, supported by Title II D funding and organized in collaboration with The Maine Arts Alliance, Arts Educator Argy Nestor, and Syntiro was held on January 28th and 29th at Point Lookout in Northport, Maine. It was a wonderful opportunity for arts educators and classroom teachers to gather and expand their knowledge about the arts, technology, co-teaching integration and OER. In the spirit of art and technology, the conference was engaging, dynamic, and energizing for educators across Maine.