Krassi Lazarova presented at Open Ed 2021 on “OpenStax College Physics – tips and tricks for implementation with Moodle.” Lazarova is an Associate Professor of Physics at Centenary University. They have searched for Open Educational Resources (OER) at their institution. Lazarova shared statistics about OER use and savings. They also described the challenges of OER use for STEM courses. One of those was the need to satisfy curricular requirements. Lazarova chose the OpenStax College Physics book and mentioned it works well for their course. Lazarova posted the link to the textbook as well as a PDF for download. Easy access to the textbook was stressed: everything is bookmarked! Unfortunately, this resource is not integrated with Moodle. I had wondered if some OpenStax resources were integrated with Moodle before! Lazarova added additional resources on Moodle as Word files. Lazarova also used “Snip and Sketch” from Windows 10 to select and present resources. Lazarova also likes the direct links to PHET simulations from the OpenStax textbook. OpenStax has resources for instructors, though Lazarova did mention these resources were not very helpful for a beginning instructor. Lazarova is a “firm believer in homework” and has done studies published in 2015. Lazarova, therefore, uses Expert TA. Expert TA is not integrated with Moodle, and Lazarova manually enters grades into the grade book. Since they teach both in-person and remote students, Lazarova uses a tablet to annotate diagrams and slides and then shares these annotations with students. Lazarova concluded that the OpenStax Physics book is very useful, though it doesn’t automatically integrate or transfer information to Moodle. This requires weekly LMS setup and additional help for homework assigned through Expert TA. Nevertheless, it seems the system works well for Lazarova and is manageable. This information is useful as I consider the use of OER and other tools in preparation for a Moodle update.
