DAS Commission Enables Open Education

The launch of Go Open CT (www.GoOpenCT.org) by the Commission for Educational Technology last summer brought a host of benefits to the state. The site allows any teacher or professor in Connecticut to participate in the following activities:

• Search for and use tens of thousands of free and openly licensed courses and lessons, textbooks, and other learning materials such as instructional videos
• Create — alone or in teams — learning materials to share within their own school or statewide
• Curate collections of resources for research and teaching

The Go Open site came about from several years of planning and advocacy by the Commission. Using open education resources (OER) brings a host of benefits to schools, colleges, and students:

• Helps ensure equitable access to high-quality, standards-aligned learning materials, regardless of a school or student’s financial resources
• Provides a single location statewide to share materials that formerly existed in isolation
• Enables teams to write, implement, and update curriculum materials during key planning seasons and throughout the year
• Supports academic freedom by enabling educators to develop and curate instructional materials tailored to the needs of their students
• Allows for enormous savings for college students by significantly reducing the cost of textbooks and other instructional materials
• Encourages college students to enroll in courses and pursue majors based on their interests and talents, rather than their income level, leading to increased graduation rates
• Enables cost savings to schools, which can pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the purchase of just a single commercial textbook across schools and course sections

The site provides a robust platform to support the work of partner agencies as well.

On April 20, Governor Lamont joined the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) to announce the launch of curriculum materials that it developed for middle school math and financial literacy. The use of Go Open CT will play a pivotal role in ensuring open access to these and other high-quality, standards-aligned courses to every teacher in Connecticut. The flexibility of the platform also means that authors — from the CSDE’s Academic Office to individual teachers and professors — can easily update and publish materials to ensure their relevance and reflect best practices in teaching.

We are excited about this new website and the possibilities it lends to the education community of Connecticut.