Main sources of educational resources

The term “resources” is generally defined materials and any other assets that could be transformed to become a source of benefits. In the world of imparting knowledge and skills, educational resources are very essential. These resources expedite the learning process in schools, and they facilitate the flow of knowledge and skills from one to another. Thus, providing ample educational resources for schools should of the utmost importance to educators and other education stakeholders.

There are many ways that educational resources for schools could be provided. The most common way is through the local and national governments. Most national governments allot a large chunk of their national budgets for education. These governments are usually mandated by their constitution to guarantee the rights of the every person to gain equal access to quality education. Thus, a huge amount of money is spent by national governments to enforce this legal guarantee. A large part of the education budget is often spent on teachers’ salaries, construction and maintenance of school building and purchase of educational equipment as well as on other academic activities. However, only public schools get a large part of the national education budget, with some private schools getting a small chunk of the money pie.

Educational resources for schools could also be provided by the private sector. There are many places in which help from private sectors or even capitalists are need in order to expedite the education process in the location. The national government may have enough funding only to maintain a few public schools, but not enough to cover all students. As a result, private schools have been proliferating around the world. These schools could offer and provide better equipment and facilities better than public schools. But their high rates are sometimes too high for poor people to afford.

Two Important Elements for Quality Education in Schools

Providing quality education for persons who want to acquire certain knowledge and skills is the main purpose of schools. For a school to be more effective in providing quality education, two things are primarily needed – manpower and resources. Finding the right manpower and educational resources for schools should be the main focus of education administrators. Without the right manpower and educational resources for schools, the chances that their main purpose would be defeated is very high.

Manpower could also refer to human resources, which is composed of individuals qualified to perform a certain job. The manpower of a school includes teachers, administrators and other academic personnel. Given the primary role to educate to students are the teachers, which also refer to instructors, professors and lecturers. They are in the frontline of the academic manpower, in charge of imparting knowledge, wisdom or skills. Teachers are usually chosen based on their specialty. Seldom are teachers who specialize in a variety of subjects. Although most teachers, given their training, could teach other subjects with the right materials and tools, they are more effective if they focus on teaching what they know best. An English teacher should focus teaching English while a History professor should only concentrate imparting historical knowledge. 

For primary and secondary education, teachers are often required to get a license to teach. This would ensure that these teachers know what to do and what to teach. For college and graduate schools, a person’s educational background should be enough to determine whether he is qualified to teach.

Educational resources are as much as important as the manpower. Without these educational resources, it would be difficult for teachers to impart their knowledge, wisdom and skills. Educational resources for schools include but not limited to books, classroom and teaching supplies and other educational equipment.

Available Educational Resources for Schools in The Elementary Levels

         In the United States, there are many educational resources for schools in the primary or elementary levels that are available for the teachers who would like to use educational resources from within and outside their respective elementary schools. An elementary school teacher who is new in his teaching job should be reminded that there are various available educational resources in the school that he could use for educating and teaching his students. The teacher should optimise and maximise the use of the school's available educational resources for educating and teaching his students because he would be able to find out if the intended purpose and goals for the use of those resources would be met or fulfilled.

         However, the elementary school teacher should be reminded that he should not only wholly depend on the educational resources for schools in the elementary levels that are recommended by the local or state education authorities or agencies. There are various Internet websites that provide online educational resources that are available for free downloading so that the teacher could use and apply them in educating and teaching his students. Some of the websites that provide free educational resources are funded and operated by non-profit organisations or private foundations, and the other websites are supported by local, state or federal government agencies. The websites that provide free educational resources cover academic areas of study in arts and music, mathematics, sciences, language arts, and world studies and history.

         The elementary school teacher should also remember that he should not make a choice in choosing between the educational resources for schools in the elementary levels that are recommended by education authorities, or the online educational resources that could be obtained for free from the Internet. The teacher could use the educational resources from his school and from the online sources so that he could teach his student in the best possible way.

Educational Resources for Schools Operating in an Open Learning Environment

        Open education refers to a setup where through the use of technology, teachers and learners alike have free access to high-quality educational resources for schools regardless of their location. This can be brought about and made possible by technology. In addition, these resources are produced in collaboration with other individuals not necessarily belonging to the same educational institution or being in the same location. This would be of immense benefit to students because the production and usage of educational resources for schools will be localized and will be able to adapt to an individual learner's specific needs. This system will radically change the methods in which knowledge is created and passed on between educators and learners.

        The term “resource” is recognised as a supply of materials or assets that can repeatedly be drawn upon as a source until the time it runs out. In this context, renewable resources can be defined as something which can be drawn upon without its stock being diminished, while non-renewable resources are stocks that eventually decrease when they are used. Knowledge, therefore can be categorised as a renewable resource because it cannot be diminished, only modified and added upon.

        When we talk of open educational resources for schools, one thing that would come to mind would be digital resources such as computer drives, CDs, flash drives and digital devices that can also store and modify data such as PDAs, smartphones, netbooks and tablets. From a state policymaker or school administrator's point of view, open educational resources for schools may also include school facilities such as buildings, libraries and computer facilities in addition to public libraries that students can freely access for educational purposes. In an open educational setup which is largely computer-based, a resource can refer to learning content stored in a digital repository as a text, audio or video file in its broadest classification.

Online Educational Resources for Schools

        Modern technology has now made it easier for educational institutions, educators and students alike to share information even when they are physically separated from each other. The Internet in particular has made it possible for governments and organizations to provide educational resources for schools. This can be a big help in sharing information and research across higher learning institutions such as universities and polytechnics. There are also online educational resources for schools which are targeted towards helping younger students to grasp or deepen their understanding of an important lesson or concept being taught at school. Below are some of the examples of educational resources for schools that are found online and the subject they are connected with:

Learning languages 

        

        These materials are designed to introduce children to vocabulary and rules of usage for different languages. These can be printed and are available also in Powerpoint and Microsoft Word formats. The actual learning tools include coloring pages, flashcards, test papers, games, certificates and many others.

Educational resources for schools catering to young children 

       These include activity boards and printable sheets that will help preschoolers distinguish between and learn the different colors and shapes, learn how to write and count numbers, how to write and say the alphabet, tell time, and distinguish between sizes and their significance.

Classroom educational resources for schools

        These include printable certificates and awards to motivate students, colorful bookmarks, writing paper, story paper, planning sheets and many other tools that they can use for everyday classroom activities.

Mathematics educational resources 

        These help children with time tables, how to recognise and count numbers, learn about money, and perform the basic mathematical operations such as addition, division, subtraction and multiplication. There are also mathematical games available that the teacher can use to further reinforce the learning of their students.

The Significance of Open Educational Resources for Schools

        Creating open educational resources for schools is a dream for many educators, government policy makers and educational institutions. Creating open educational resources for schools offer the following advantages:

• Giving free access to high-quality educational resources to teachers and learners, regardless of their physical location
• Having high-quality educational resources that are collaborative produced, localized and adjusted to fit the individual learner's specific needs and context
• The cost of producing these high-quality educational resources is distributed across a large number of institutions and countries
• The maintenance of these high-quality educational resources would be declining rapidly and may even be considered negligible if the trend were to continue

        As of today these conditions of open educational resources for schools only exists in laboratory models. However, in the course of the next several years, it will become possible in ways that will radically affect how educators create and pass on knowledge and how learners absorb them.

        One element that will make this a reality is to provide an open access to educational resources wherein a concept of meta-university will emerge. In this setup, a transcendent, accessible, empowering, dynamic and communally constructed framework of open materials and platforms will be created which will influence the construction or enhancement of higher education worldwide. Computers and the Internet will play a significant role since they will provide the communication infrastructure. Meanwhile, the calls for open access to educational resources for schools and its derivatives will also influence the creation of much of the knowledge and information infrastructure for open education.

        When we talk about initiatives to provide open educational resources for schools, its impact will be significant for learners, educators and educational institutions over the next number of years. These educational resources will have to be widely accessible for users all across the world at little or no cost to the learner.

Exploring Open Educational Resources for Schools

Open educational resources for schools refer to teaching and learning materials that are available through the Internet for everyone to use. There are open educational resources for schools that can be used by an instructors and students for an educational institution or even a self-learner. The examples of Open Educational Resources for schools are full courses, course modules, syllabi, lectures, coursework assignments, quizzes, laboratory and classroom activities, pedagogical materials, games, simulations, and many other resources that can be stored via digital media from sources all over the world.

Although informational content in its pure form covers a significant effect to learning and teaching, it will be helpful to consider open educational resources for schools depending on their levels of granularity and focus on the degree through which information content is embedded within a learning activity. This classification is as follows:

• Digital Assets. This normally consists of a single file such as an image, video or audio clip. This is sometimes called a 'raw media asset'.
• Information Objects. It is a structured aggregation of digital assets that is designed for the sole purpose of presenting information.
• Learning Objects. This is an aggregation of one or more digital assets that represents an educationally meaningful stand-alone unit.
• Learning Activities. These are tasks involving interactions with information that will help achieve a specific learning goal or objective.
• Learning Design. These are structured sequences of information and activities that aim to promote learning.

Open Educational Resources for schools has the aim of providing open access to education resources of high quality to anyone anywhere in the world. Based on the growing popularity of the Internet and the recognition by governments and academic institutions to the role of online and virtual environments in the advancement of learning, the number of programmes and projects associated with Open Educational Resources for schools will be expected to grow quickly over the years.