Thrifting My Fit
Searching for good open educational resources feels a lot like thrift shopping to me! There is usually so much to sift through and a lot will not be to your liking or won’t fit quite right. The process can often feel a bit exhausting. You have to be patient and strategic. BUT when you find that perfect fit, it is soooo rewarding!
I’m starting to prep for a course development in the fall on Crip Theory. I searched the repositories using a variety of terms. I began using “crip theory” but often that was too narrow. So then I would try “crip” which sometimes yielded irrelevant results. Lastly, I also tried searching ‘disabled’, which tended not to be narrow enough. For some topics, like this one, I find most of the OER repositories not as effective as good old-fashioned googling!
I am not the subject matter expert but as an ELearning Designer, I do my best to try and find quality OER to present to the faculty member I’m working with in hopes of encouraging the adoption of more OER. Given I am not an SME, it can be hard to know whether an OER is a good fit or not but here are three of the resources I’m excited to share in hopes that at least one might be a perfect fit!
- Disability Visibility Project – This project seems so great. Its website is current and contains great blog articles, podcasts, videos, and even artwork that is free to share with attribution. It does appear to be based in the States, but I think there is still a lot of relevancy. This is the resource that I have linked as my favourite.
- Crip Times Podcast – This podcast is really beautifully designed and drew me in right away. I think the episodes would be really interesting for students to listen to. It is based in Toronto but the latest episode was posted in August 2022.
- Digital Methods for Disability Studies – I usually try to search Pressbook repositories as I love this format as an alternative to the traditional textbook. I do this usually by just googling the subject matter I’m looking for and the word ‘pressbook’. I’m not sure if this whole pressbook would be relevant but perhaps a chapter or two. I love that it was published by folks at TMU and that it just released in February 2022.
Example for "Thrifting My Fit":
https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/