Open Space is Ohio’s hub for Open Educational Resources. You can find textbooks, lesson plans, activities, interactive labs, modules, or even full courses on the Open Space platform. This OER repository also includes advanced filter options, such as searching by grade level, subject area, material type, and Ohio’s Learning Standards. Take a look at the walkthrough below to see how to start searching in Open Space.

Use Cases

When or why would you want to use Open Space? Consider the following use cases:

Scenario #1: Building a Professional Network. A teacher wants to expand their professional learning network, so they join Open Space and:

1. Find or create a group dedicated to their subject area.
2. Invite colleagues to join the group.
3. Search Open Space for new materials and save the quality resources to the group for easy discovery by other teachers.
4. Using group discussions, ask questions and seek feedback about certain topics and resources.
5. Contribute and respond to ideas to integrate strategies, tools, and content into the curriculum.

Scenario #2: Collaborate on Curriculum. A small district curriculum team would like a space to collaborate with each other and find and organize resources for a new curriculum. They create an invite-only group on Open Space and add folders that represent each class that is a part of the curriculum pathway. Within each class folder, a curriculum alignment map is uploaded so team members can all find and reference outcomes. Also within each class folder, additional folders are created that represent each unit that will be in the class. They search Open Space to find materials that fit within each class and alignment map and save them to the unit folders. The group uses the discussions feature to post status updates and announcements, hold conversations in between in-person meetings, and seek feedback from each other.

Scenario #3: Create and Share Lessons With Others. A teacher wants to share a lesson they created because it has been one of their students’ favorites on a topic where not many materials exist. They think it will help strengthen student understanding and assist other educators in teaching the topic. The teacher uses the Add OER button on Open Space to submit the lesson through the Submit from Web option, link to the lesson via Google Docs and fill in additional information like description, topic, tags, and Ohio standards. After submitting, it is reviewed and approved, and other educators will be able to search for and use the lesson on Open Space.

Search Example

To find a supplemental interactive learning activity for students in grade 8 English Language Arts (ELA) to practice forming and using verbs in the active and passive voice (Ohio Learning Standards OH.ELA-Literacy.L.8.3a and OH.ELA-Literacy.L.8.1b), first type active passive in the search box and hit Enter or click the Search button. After the initial results appear, apply the following limiters on the left side of the page to refine the search:

• Education Standards: Ohio Standards for English Language Arts
• Grade: Grade 8
• Material Type: Interactive

The remaining results are now filtered to only show interactive items that are standards-aligned to grade 8 ELA. Scan through the list of results to find the perfect supplement to your lesson and click on the title or image to view the resource’s details and explore it further.

The true value of Open Space isn't just in the instructional materials available, but in the possibilities for community, curation, and creation.

Community

With Open Space, you can start or join groups dedicated to a certain topic, problem, or working group! With Open Space, you can:

• Join and create groups, organized for different purposes.
• Participate in discussion boards, allowing you to discuss ideas, seek feedback, and connect with other educators.
• Save resources to groups and folders to help organize and present content to others.
• Add comments and ratings to instructional materials.

Check out the brief preview of what's possible in graphic below and see all the available groups by going to openspace.infohio.org/groups.

You will have a chance to learn more about Groups later in the course, but for now, start your journey into Groups by signing up for an Open Space account and joining our All About OER group which will be used later in the course to post thoughts and ideas!

Task: Join a Group on Open Space!

Before continuing in this course, complete the following steps to join an OER-focused group on Open Space:

1. Go to openspace.infohio.org and sign-in or sign-up for an account.
2. Click on the Groups menu item in the top navigation bar to see featured groups and the See all Groups link. Find and click on the "All About OER" group. Alternatively, access the All About OER group directly here.
3. Click the "Join this group" button in the top section of the group.

Congratulations, you're now a part of the All About OER group on Open Space! We will revisit this space later in the course.

Curation

Open Space offers users the ability to save resources to their own folders and the groups to which they belong. Other elements of curation on Open Space include the ability to:

• Search from over 11,000 educational resources.
• Find full courses, textbooks, units, modules, lesson plans, activities and labs, interactive materials and games, videos, primary source documents, and more. 
• Search by Ohio Learning Standard.
• Save, organize, and share resources to folders within Groups and user profiles.
• Evaluate materials against the Achieve OER rubric and align them to Ohio’s Learning Standards.

INFOhio staff have also created curated collections to help jump start your search for relevant resources, which includes remote-friendly materials, subject-specific content, and materials from select content providers. 

Creation

Another powerful feature of Open Space is the ability for users to submit and create new resources to share with other educators! With just an Open Space account, you can submit any existing resource from around the web or use our Open Author platform to create an instructional material from scratch. Take a look at how with this short video:

Again, consider all of this the quick high-level overview of the platform. You will learn more about Open Space in the coming lessons, including a deeper dive into groups, saving and sharing, and creating new resources.

Additional Resources

• Open Space Basics class in INFOhio Campus
• Open Space Collaboration and Creation class in INFOhio Campus
• Open Space Groups for Users guide
• Finding and Integrating Open Educational Resources article in Teach with INFOhio Blog
• Creating and Sharing Open Educational Resources article in Teach with INFOhio Blog
• Using INFOhio Tools to Design Learning Experiences article in Teach with INFOhio Blog