Challenge C: Substantive Post 1

Open Education Resources

Figure 1. ClipArt from PBS Lesson Plan Website

I had a hard time trying to think of an Open Education Resource (OER) to look into. I think some of the struggle I had with this is because so many OER’s are implicit in our daily lives and we aren’t acutely aware that we are using an OER. For example the CBC news app could be considered an OER. It is free, accessible over the web or as an app, and is educating its users about current events.

An example of an OER that I think is relevant to this course and my prospective career is the PBS Learning Media for Teachers website (https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/grades/9-12/?rank_by=recency&selected_facet=subject:1880&selected_facet=media_type:Lesson%20Plan). This is a site that includes resources for teachers to use in their classrooms. It has a multitude of lesson plans available to teachers. I think this is considered an OER because it is educating teachers on what to present to their classes, how to go about it, and offering free tools for the classroom. 

I looked specifically at a lesson plan titled “Falling Down the Rabbit Hole: Courageous Conversations” (https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/falling-down-the-rabbit-hole-lesson-plan/courageous-conversations/). This page was divided into three sections: Overview, Procedure, Standards. I think this highlights Merrill’s principle that states learning is activated when it is used as a foundation for new knowledge (Granchelli, 2025). This website setup allows a teacher to engage at an overarching, surface level to gain general understanding of the lesson plan. Then dives deeper into the intricacies of how the lesson will develop based on the overview. Finally, the standards section reinforces the learning by tying it back to curriculum goals allowing the teachers to see the progression of the exercises and what they are aiming to achieve.   

I think something this OER could improve upon is its visual complexity. It would benefit from engaging with some of Mayer’s principles such as minimizing excess graphics to lower extraneous load and focusing on signalling to highlight the important sections of the website (Granchelli, 2025). For example, I found it hard to distinguish between different lesson plans because of the density of font and the similarity of all the lesson plan photos. Also the use of the same tones of blue could be effective, but I personally think it makes everything on the page look too similar and makes it difficult to distinguish what you are looking for or what is important. 

Granchelli, Adrian. (2025). Models of active learning EDCI337. Educational Technology UVic. https://edtechuvic.ca/edci337/2025/10/19/models-of-active-learning/

Granchelli, Adrian. (2025). Theories of multimedia learning EDCI 337. Educational technology Uvic. https://edtechuvic.ca/edci337/2025/09/05/theories-of-multimedia-learning/