For over a decade, as an educator you could proclaim that there was “a ton of free content online” for use in the classroom. This is no different today, but the sheer volume of content doesn’t make using any of it, any easier! Teachers need high-quality content, and there is finally some new efforts and corralling high-quality content together.
Disclaimer: It would be impossible for me to list all the free content out there. This is a start at looking at freely-available classroom resources for use by students.
- CK-12 Foundation – middle and high school textbooks available in a variety of formats for computers and tablets
- Curriki – Free Learning Resources in the arts, CTE, health, foreign language, and core subject areas
- MIT Open Courseware – likely of interest to upper-level HS instructors; open courses from MIT. Check out their high school section
- CreativeCommons Open Textbook Summit – initiatives to create open textbooks
- Connexions – open learning modules in arts, business, humanities, math and stats, science and technology, and social sciences
- Merlot.org – open learning materials starting in K and up; includes activities, presentations, and written content
- Flatworld Knowledge – new service for inexpensive textbooks (college) that can be customized
- iTunes U – free tools from Apple for publishing courses, podcasts, and more. Through iTunes, you can access thousands of free and paid content – including digital textbooks
- Boundless Textbooks – access open, free educational resources – secondary and college-level subjects
- edX – “the future” of online education – open, anytime courses from MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, McGill, and other international universities. Some of this content could be used in high school, but it also is a great model of what could be done for K-12.
- Gooru Learning – a search engine for learning materials, 6-12.
- Annenberg Learner Video resources for learning (K-16)
- YouTube Education – a collection of YouTube videos that can be used in business, university, K-12, etc., organized in a number of different ways
If you’re a Goochland educator and want to add to this list, leave a comment!
