Ambassadors of Discovery: The Librarian's Role in Open Educational Resources and Practices [24:54]

When looking at STEM-related opportunities for collaboration, one entry point is to contribute to Open Educational Resources (OER) development, implementation, and promotion. This idea is explored in Enter the OER Ninja: School Librarians as Curators and Co-Curators of STEM Learning, and the video interview above features one of the co-authors of the article, Susan D. Ballard, along with two colleagues that she invited into the conversation: Dr. Pamela C. Harland and Dr. Gerard L. Hanley.

When asked to share advice in the interview, Ballard encourages school librarians to take a leadership role with OER; helping students access quality resources is a vital part of promoting educational equity.

Dr. Hanley encourages educators to consider OER within the context of Open Educational Practices/Pedagogy (OEP), to help increase learner agency, and "shift the locus of control of the curriculum from the teacher to the student." Dr. Harland lends insight to the topic of OEP as well; check out her School Library Connection article The OER Mix Tape: School Librarians Using OER in Instructional Practice.

Finally, graciously referring to school librarians as "ambassadors of discovery," Dr. Hanley reminds us that we are not alone. There are a number of resources available to support our work with OER, including the following ones shared in brief during the video.

• MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Education): www.merlot.org
• MERLOT ICT Literacy prtal: https://ictliteracy.merlot.org/
• MERLOT Library and Information Services: https://www.merlot.org/merlot/Library.htm
• MERLOT Open Educational Practices: https://ep.merlot.org
• NCDE-MERLOT Digital Equity portal: https://www.merlt.org/merlot/viewSite.htm?id=9160590
• Skills Commons: www.skillscommons.org

School librarians should also be aware that MERLOT has a free OER authoring tool: https://info.merlot.org/merlothelp/topic.htm#t=Content_Builder_Welcome.htm

The following template may be useful when creating instructional modules for digital equity: https://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewSite.htm?id=9160593

And, this OER portal may help you move instruction online and can be customized and branded for your own institution: https://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewSite.htm?id=9162485