OERB (Ontario Educational Resource Bank)
(updated February 2012)
What is it?
¾ A repository of curriculum related materials for students and teachers to use
¾ Open to all teachers, students (and their parents) of publicly funded schools in Ontario
¾ Part of e-Learning Ontario, a Ministry of Education initiative (ontario.ca/elearning):
• OERB
• Online courses (offered using the provincial Learning Management System or LMS)
• E-community Ontario (a place for teachers using online resources and teaching online
course to share and communicate)
Who created the resources found in the OERB?
¾ Everything was created by Ontario certified teachers; much of it created by teachers seconded to
eLearning specifically to create the online courses (identified as eLO authored), but any teacher
can upload and share resources they have created
What will I find there?
¾ They use the terms “object” or “resource” to refer to each individual resource you might find – an
object might be an online activity, a lesson, or an entire unit
¾ Includes resources for kindergarten to grade 12, all levels
¾ Includes all the currently available online courses (grades 5 – 12, both Public and Catholic)
broken down into units (so you could find an entire unit for ENG2P for example)
¾ Learn360 resources are also included in this collection
Why might you find it useful?
¾ To find lessons or whole units you can use as is or modify as needed (especially helpful for brand
new teachers!)
¾ To find cool activities to do with your whole class via a projector or Smartboard to supplement
your instruction
¾ To differentiate instruction for a particular student or group of students who need easier, or more
difficult, activities
¾ To differentiate instruction for any student or group of students who need more visual, auditory
and/or interactive activities
¾ To find lessons that can be completed by students who are away (lengthy illness, holiday, etc.)
but who have access to the internet
How do I access it?
¾ At https://resources.elearningontario.ca
¾ Links can also be found on the Teacher Resources page of the CCI library website, as
well as on the “Viewing and Listening:, “How to.. . .info and tutorials” and the “Homework
Help” pages
¾ Teacher login info: username = scdsbteacher and password = oerbt
¾ Student login info: username = scdsbstudent and password = oerbs
•
(this info is also on the login and password info pages that can be accessed via the library
website)
¾ Training tutorials are available online from the OERB homepage
¾ Note: each time you log in you must “accept” the terms of use (basically you agree that you will
not post anything from the OERB on an open website or sell it or share it with a non-approved
user, and that you will give credit to the original source if you modify a resource)
What are my search options?
¾ Simple search = keyword search (eg. “figurative language” or “multiplication”)
¾ Curriculum Search =
o Public or Catholic
ƒ Grade
• Subject
o Strand
ƒ Specific expectation
¾ Advanced Search
o Combine search terms and filtering options
¾ Limit searches by
o Language (English or French)
o Only eLO authored resources
o Just OERB, just Learn 360, or both
o Public curriculum or Catholic curriculum or both
¾ Filter results by
o File format (Word, audio, flash, etc.)
o Creator
o Resource type (lesson, video clip, interactive activity, unit, etc.)
o Learning style (visual-spatial, logical-mathematical, etc.)
o Teacher-learner strategy (independent learning strategies, direct instruction, etc.)
What can I do with a resource once I have found one I like?
¾ Preview it
¾ Open it up and view it/interact with it immediately online
¾ Copy the unique “resource ID” # to use in a future search so that you can go straight to that
resource (or give the ID # to a student to take them directly to that object after they log in)
¾ Download it (as a zip file) – you can then edit/modify as you like to use in the classroom off a
jump drive or from the school drive (note: doing this means that students won’t see the
indentifying information, including the course info, which might be a good idea if you want a grade
ten student to do an activity from the grade five curriculum, for example)
Other things?
¾ RSS feeds – you can set up an RSS feed to let you know when new resources are added for a
particular course
What is “blended learning”?
¾ a combination of traditional face-to-face, in the classroom learning and online 24/7 learning (it
has already gone through some trial runs and is now being made more widely available)
¾ classroom teachers can use the LMS system (currently used by teachers delivering online
courses) to create an online class environment where students can access OERB lessons/units,
create and submit work, collaborate, communicate with the teacher and with each other, etc. all
within a protected online environment
¾ teachers could use this for the entire class for one unit in a course, or to differentiate in an
ongoing way for a particular student or group of students (such as for a student who rarely
attends, is disengaged, has health issues, prefers the online environment, needs modified
materials at a lower reading level, or who needs extension opportunities at a higher level)
¾ for more information, contact the e-Learning person at the Board office (as of Feb 2012 that is
Dale Beech)