Four forward-thinking Massachusetts public school districts are leading the transition from printed textbooks to free, open educational resources (OER) — and sharing best practices along the way. Andover, Burlington, Pentucket, and Wilmington public school districts have formed a collaborative to accelerate their implementation of 1:1 digital teaching and learning, and share customized multimedia courses using a free, web-based solution called Net Texts.
While Andover, Pentucket, and Wilmington have recently begun using Net Texts, Burlington Public Schools implemented the free content management system in 2012, in conjunction with a 1:1 iPad initiative for middle and high school students. With Net Texts, teachers in grades 6-12 can access a library of OER and content, which they can combine with their own resources to create and publish lessons directly to students’ iPads, Android tablets, Chromebooks, or computers.
The four districts will hold their first collaborative meeting Nov. 21 in Burlington, where educators from each district will discuss best practices to maximize their use of OER and 1:1 technologies. Participants will explore strategies for finding high quality OER, creating a “flipped classroom” model, and creating a personalized, blended learning environment. The districts will also discuss how they can work together to create and share OER courses and customized multimedia courses using Net Texts.
“Pentucket Regional School District has aligned to five strategic objectives leading to a world class future. The implementation of Net Texts supports the district’s first strategic objective: Develop a powerful curriculum by integrating challenging standards, adaptive leadership skills, and high levels of personal meaning,” said Dr. Jeff Mulqueen, superintendent. “With Net Texts, teachers will be able to ‘power up’ the district’s curriculum with contemporary, digital resources and create learning experiences that increase students’ capacity to solve real-world problems.”
