Fun and Enjoyable Alternative Educational Resources For Schools

        Educational resources for schools are regulated and standardised. However, regulation and standardisation are not that rigid; teachers can use or apply different teaching resources as long as they fall within the guidelines set by the school and the education agency of the government. Hence, teachers and educators can use alternative instruction materials which are fun and enjoyable because they attract the attention of learners and students and sustain their interest.

• Games and Other Activities – Fun and enjoyable educational resources for schools include games and other activities which provoke the thoughts of the students. These games and activities can be individual or group activities. Most individual games and activities would eventually end up in a group setting as the processing of the learning is done in a group setting and group involvement or sharing makes a game or an activity interesting which is the purpose of alternative teaching methods.

• Screening and Censorship – The alternative teaching and educational resources for schools should be secured with an approval from the school administration, especially if they involve issues in moral teachings and social agendum. Teachers and educators should be sensitive to each of the students' social profile and to morals. For example, in choosing plays or comical skits to be performed by students with the purpose of giving awareness of certain principles taught, the teacher should see to it that they do not contain portions which may be offensive to some students especially with regards to their social profile.

• Other Examples – Examples of the educational resources include, but are not limited to, the mentioned plays and comical skits, magic tricks, games with paraphernalia and photos or images from the internet. There are free and paid educational resources in the internet and traditional sources like educational materials suppliers.

Teachers and educators should use alternative educational resources that make learning fun and enjoyable for students and non-formal learners.

The Nature of Open Educational Resources for Schools

Open educational resources for schools are best distinguished from traditional educational resources for schools because of their electronic nature. Open educational resources for schools refer to digital materials that are re-used for academic activities such as teaching, and research. They are available for free by way of open licenses. This will allow the use of materials that are otherwise not permitted under copyright rules alone. It must be noted that open educational resources for schools by itself will not be able to award degrees to students. Neither can they provide academic or administrative support. Nonetheless, open educational resource materials are slowly being integrated into open and distance learning environments. Open education is the kind of education that eliminates many conditions for academic entry such as university or high school admission requirements.

Open educational resources for schools include many different kinds of digital assets. It can be grouped into the following:

1. Learning Content

• courses
• course materials
• content modules
• learning objects
• collections
• journals

2. Tools

• software supporting the creation, delivery, use and improvement of open learning content
• searching and organising content
• content and learning management system
• content development tools
• online learning groups or communities

3. Implementation Resources

• intellectual property licenses governing open publishing of materials
• design principles
• localization of content

4. Materials on Best Practices

• stories
• publication
• techniques
• methods
• processes
• incentives
• distribution

The goals of open educational resources for schools range from specific aims such as reshaping the captive market of textbook publishers to the extremely ambitious goal of creating an environment where each and everyone can access and contribute to the sum of all knowledge that humankind has gathered and discovered. But perhaps a more realistic use of open educational resources for schools is to make a contribution to the development of the economies of less developed countries.

Using Search Engines in Gathering Educational Resources for Schools

         Educational resources for schools can be gathered from the internet. In fact, the internet has become the primary source of educational resource which schools use. The internet is full of these resources and it is up to the teachers to gather them and, in the first place, be resourceful enough to know how to search for them.

        In researching for educational resources for schools, the researchers (specifically the teachers) can use some tips on how to locate them.

1. Search Engines – Teachers, or anyone researching for educational resources for schools, can use the search engine in its simplest way. The search engine will return pages of lists of the educational resources which may include websites who either sell or give the resources for free. The teachers just need to give time and effort in evaluating each website and the contents of each so that they will be able to come up with decisions on which specific resources address which specific needs.
2. Articles in Search Engines – The teachers can also use educational resources in the form of articles from the internet. Anyone who is researching for articles to use as educational resources can go to any search engine and type in the search word slot the name of the search engine and add word descriptions of the resources they want to find. For example, if you want to look for articles which will give information and knowledge about the best student camp destinations, you can go to Yahoo, type “Yahoo” and add “travel” and hit the search button. You will be lead to a page of articles about travel which includes student camp destinations.

         Aside from the simple search engine search and the search engine article search, you can also explore other pages of the search hits you got.