18 March 2020
Creative Commons (CC) and openly licensed resources (OER)
Openly licensed resources and resources licensed under a Creative Commons licence permit free access, use and sharing by others. This means teachers don’t have to worry about the complex copyright rules and they know right away that they can use the materials without restriction in their classroom.
For more information on OER see Open Education and for more information on CC see Creative Commons.
See below for a list of CC and OER resources:
The Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment have funded a number of CC licensed education resources. Here are links to some of the STEM resources:
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- Digital Technologies Hub: online resources for teachers, students and parents,
- National Digital Technologies Challenges (DT Challenges): free online resources for teachers and Years 3 – 8 students.
- Digital Technologies MOOCs : target audience: foundation to year 10 teachers,
- Primary Connections (target audience: foundation to year 6 teachers): free professional learning and curriculum resources for primary teachers that link the teaching of science with the teaching of literacy, using an inquiry based approach,
- reSolve: Mathematics by Inquiry(target audience: foundation to year 10 teachers and students): free teaching and professional learning resources that support teaching mathematics through inquiry-based methods and help students from Foundation to Year 10 learn mathematics in fun and innovative ways.
- Science by Doing (target audience: Years 7 – 10 teachers and students): provides professional learning modules for secondary science teachers and free online science resources for students in Years 7 to 10.
- Supporting Artificial Intelligence and emerging technologies in schools (target audience: foundation to Year 10 school leaders and teachers): the Supporting Artificial Intelligence and emerging technologies in Schools initiative is developing a range of curriculum resources to complement existing resources to engage students and support the professional learning of teachers.
- Humanities and Social Sciences
A couple of platforms for collaboration:
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- Powtoon– which has open source as well as paid platforms which may help teachers to upload content to their virtual classrooms.
- Paddlet – allows for students to collaborate together even if they are at home.
- General advice on Google Classroom
- Distance learning resources offered by Google for schools affected by COVID-19
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Free and openly licensed audiobooks:
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- OpenCulture
- Project Guttenberg
- Librivox: (maintains lists of free audiobooks, most are classic works that are out of copyright or works that have been released by the author for free)
Other websites with CC or OER material that may be useful:
A list of OER resources compiled by the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority can be found here:
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- QCAA OER database
- Scootle
- Open Textbook Initiative
- FUSEeducation
- BBC digital literacy: a resource to ensure students are ready to work online.
- Resources to support the curriculum when students don’t have access to books for reading tasks in primary schools:
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- The following resources may also provide ways for teachers to engage with the curriculum to provide virtual experiences: Excursions (Date Connections)
- ANU Press have over 880 CC and free educational resources that are fully open access.
- Lots of museums and universities produce resources like the following that could be used to teach the curriculum:
To do your own searches for OER and Creative Commons licensed materials:
Other free resources for parents supporting students at home:
See below for a list of resources that are free for parents to use to support students at home. Note however that these resources may attract remuneration and be subject to restrictions in the Copyright Act if teachers use these as part of their classroom teaching (remote/online or in person). For more information see Remote and digital learning – ‘day to day’ teaching and learning.
Education companies offering free subscriptions due to school closings: List-of-education-companies-offering-free-subscriptions/ (Kids Activities Blog)
- Scholastic has also curated a free digital learning hub designed to support virtual learning plans: Learn at Home
- NZ Maths
- ABC Education
- PBS Learning
- Mathispower4U
- My Open Math
- Australia Science
- Twinkl (you’ll need to note the free code (CVDTWINKLHELPS))
- Audible is offering a free collection of audiobooks for kids to stream (offered while schools are closed)
- Student Wellbeing Hub