Title here
Summary here
Open Resources FTW!
November 4, 20252 minutes
There is a ton of opportunity to learn new things. Here are some of our favorite resources.
tl,dr; It is great to learn from multiple sources. Here are some resources that are freely available for your kids use. My eldest was extremely excited by some of these. I hope your kids are excited as well.
Details
Before getting to college, I thought that if I didn’t understand an author… I didn’t understand the subject. The reality is that to learn a subject it is best to leearn from multiple sources.Far after I graduate, I learned that textbook authors often rely on prior texts to create their books and the differences between texts are sometimes there to avoid copyright laws. So a gap or confusing point in a text may be due to elements totally unrelated to the author’s teaching preferences.
If authors create differences in their texts to avoid copyrights, you get the clearest view on a subject by combining texts. Back then it was very difficult to acquire multiple tests on a subject but today we have a large number of available resources. I would like to highlight some amazing open resources here:
Amazing Open Educational Resources
- OSPI Open Educational Resources: https://ospi.k12.wa.us/student-success/learning-standards-instructional-materials/open-educational-resources
- WA entry point to OER Commons: https://oercommons.org/hubs/washington
- OpenStax: https://openstax.org/subjects
- Rice U’s OpenStax “Press release: OpenStax surpasses $3B in student savings“: https://openstax.org/blog/press-release-openstax-surpasses-3b-in-student-savings
Awesome creators/teachers
- (Sal) Khan Academy: https://www.khanacademy.org/
Khan Academy is a great resource that has been around for many years. Great for early learners.
- 3 Brown 1 Blue: https://www.youtube.com/@3blue1brown/videos
If your kids like Grant’s style… always start here for advanced Math. More recently, he has been helping with intro to CS at MIT.
- IRL Big Bang Theory (Caltech):
If your kids ever see the Big Bang Theory and they want to know about the real places… check out these sites.
Until next time,Will