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It鈥檚 been a dual track. As states across the country look for ways to provide more high-quality resources to classroom teachers, universities have been experimenting with materials that reduce the crushing cost of college textbooks.

In Connecticut, one state commission is looking to unite the two and share open educational resources at all levels, from local school districts through state universities and colleges.

鈥淭he idea is that we would have one big repository or index of materials from K-12 and higher ed,鈥� said Doug Casey, executive director of the Connecticut Commission for Educational Technology. 鈥淚n speaking with some of the folks in secondary education and higher ed, they are excited about that.鈥�

Casey, the state鈥檚 cheerleader for equity of access, foresees a future in which professors of community college remedial classes can easily find high school materials that are aligned with state standards to quickly bring their students up to speed. Conversely, high schools would be able to offer classes normally found only at the college level without breaking their budgets.

鈥淭here are a lot of benefits we haven鈥檛 even imagined yet,鈥� he said.

Connecticut is one of 20 states that are working together to develop best practices and share materials that are aligned with common standards, Casey said. The plans to develop a technology platform for sharing curriculum materials across district and state lines.

The first order of business is to get the word out.

鈥淲e鈥檝e started an awareness campaign, how to get going with OER,鈥� Casey said.

He worked with University of Connecticut students to set up the website, which provides resources for educators, and created a with testimonials from teachers, administrators, professors and students who have seen the benefits of using shared educational resources.

鈥淚 really liked having open textbooks in my class,鈥� says Kharl Reynado, a student at the University of Connecticut. 鈥淚t really leveled the playing field because all of us had access to the same resources at the same time. It was really affordable, and if we had to print anything out, that was really affordable as well.鈥�

It turns out that telling college students in advance which classes use open educational resources instead of traditional textbooks not only saves students money but also leads to more success, said Eileen Rhodes, director of library services at Capital Community College in Hartford.

鈥淲e started labelling courses in spring 2018,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hen a student logs in to register for their courses, they can see #NoLo, which means 鈥榥o cost or low cost.鈥� Those courses are $40 or less for materials.鈥�

So far, eight of Connecticut鈥檚 12 community colleges use the #NoLo system.

鈥淗ere at Capital, we鈥檝e had two 100-level courses in which we switched from a traditional textbook with a cost of about $150 to OpenStax, which is a line of OER that comes out of Rice University,鈥� Rhodes said. 鈥淵ou can download the book for free online or you can print the bound book for about $35. We鈥檝e seen an increase in the number of students who have passed the course and a decrease in the number of students who dropped out of the course.鈥�

Capital is just beginning to track the data for remedial classes that have made the #NoLo switch, Rhodes said. Having data is important when trying to convince professors to change their ways.

鈥淭here are two camps,鈥� Rhodes said. 鈥淪ome professors are all in. But a lot of professors feel that if you are paying more, there is going to be a higher quality attached to it. I think a lot of professors, though, I hate to say it, but they want to just do things the way they鈥檝e always done them. The publishers calling them up and saying, 鈥榃e have your textbook, we have all your ancillaries, your PowerPoints, your test banks, all you need to do is just choose us and you鈥檙e good to go.鈥欌��

Adjusting to change is rarely easy. Abbe Waldron, instructional leader for technology in Connecticut鈥檚 Region 14 school district in Woodbury, has created a digital literacy curriculum that is aligned with state and national standards as well as American Library Association standards.

She identified the topics that were critical for students at each grade level in the district of almost 1,800 students, and she is putting together an implementation guide with assessments and resources that will be shared statewide.

鈥淪o many people are doing the same work in isolation, but it would be really great to work together, to work with people in other districts,鈥� Waldron said. 鈥淧eople are really generous with their work.鈥�

Region 14鈥檚 curriculum budget for some content areas has been cut by two-thirds since using open educational resources, Michael Rafferty, the district鈥檚 director of teaching and learning, said in his GoOpen video.

In many cases, it鈥檚 a matter of tapping into what鈥檚 already there, Casey said.

鈥淒irectors of curriculum do all that work and develop all these unit plans and lesson plans, and they鈥檝e got to be stored somewhere,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o, you鈥檝e got that process times 169 towns, so you step back from that and say, 鈥榃ait a minute, if we are all designing these materials based on the standards, somewhere out there probably stored in the cloud and stored in the Google Drive 鈥斅燽ecause every single district uses Google for storage 鈥斅爐here are some great lesson plans out there.鈥�

鈥淚f you could somehow open that all up and connect it, you would have a phenomenal statewide collection of lesson plans that are all aligned with state standards.鈥�

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