Ottenheimer Library Celebrates UA Little Rock OER Champions: Rex Wilkins

• When and why did you first begin using OER? I started using OER as a grad student. I recognized how financial burdens often limited a student’s ability to access certain courses that became prohibitively expensive through textbooks, materials, technology, and other things that seemed more like rent-seeking by textbook cartels. I wanted my students to focus on learning, not money.
• What is the greatest impact you have seen? Students tend to be surprised by what they can access for free using available resources online. Once they figure out how to break past the barrier of where to look for quality educational resources in language learning, students seem to feel like their learning is theirs. They don’t feel like their education comes with a license agreement anymore, and that alone makes a huge difference in their language learning.
• If you could describe OER in one sentence, what would that be? OER is the fulfillment of what education technology once promised–and what it could still become!
• What formats do you use in your teaching practice? Currently, we use an OER textbook designed at UT-Austin to help teach Spanish to Heritage Speakers. In the near future, we will be using a textbook designed by our own Spanish program faculty to teach our Elementary Spanish I and II courses to offset burdensome textbook costs for students.
• What advice would you give to someone wanting to start using OER? There are so many Open Educational Resources out there. Don’t feel like you have to be married to any one particular textbook, module, or application to make OER work for your courses. Experiment and assess. It is part of the fun of teaching to try new stuff once in a while, and OER can offer to help you with that.

Brief Bio: Dr. Wilkins is the Spanish Program Coordinator in the School of Human Inquiry at UA Little Rock. He is working to help make language learning not only more accessible, but also a meaningful university experience for all students. He and his colleague, Dr. Elizabeth Sotelo, are also working to develop experiential and service learning opportunities for UA Little Rocks students with structured internships, studies abroad, clubs, and special events. His areas of study include religious studies, US Latino studies, Mexican Studies, and Critical Theory. He also enjoys working in the local theatre scene as an actor. He resides in Little Rock with his wife, Aylea.

OPEN ACCESS WEEK is October 19-25. Discover how OER can work in your classroom.