Second Annual Open Education Week Highlights Educational Opportunities for All

March 4, 2013 - PRLog -- The second annual Open Education week will take place March 11-15, 2013.  Open Education Week is a five-day celebration of the global Open Education Movement, featuring online and local events around the world, video showcases of open education projects, and information. Its purpose is to raise awareness of both the movement and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide.

Open Education refers to the growing set of practices that promote the sharing high quality educational resources and support learners to access education anywhere, anytime.  Open Education incorporates educational networks, teaching and learning materials, open textbooks, open data, open scholarship and open source educational tools, collectively referred to as Open Educational Resources or OER.

US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan expressed his support for open educational resources, “OER can help us bring the best K-12 teachers and college professors and most cutting edge course and teaching methods within the reach of every single motivated student.”  He continued, “Despite the promise of this new approach, not enough people know about open educational resources and their tremendous transformational promise.”

“Open Education gives people access to knowledge, provides platforms for sharing, enables innovation, and connects communities of learners and educators around the world”, said Mary Lou Forward, executive director of the OpenCourseWare Consortium, a global consortium of higher education institutions and organizations supporting the benefits of open education. “Open Education Week highlights free and open opportunities already available to everyone around the world.”

For more information and to join webinars and events, see www.openeducationweek.org.  Open Education Week is coordinated by the OpenCourseWare Consortium. Participation in all events and use of all resources are free and open to anyone.