The Coalition of Oregon School Administrators (COSA) today announced the launch of COSA on iTunes U, which provides free college-and-career-readiness standards-aligned course content for Oregon classroom teachers in the four core subject areas of mathematics, science, social studies and English language arts.  The announcement was made to about 700 Oregon school leaders at the 40^th Annual COSA Conference in Seaside.

With more than 1 billion downloads, iTunes U is the world’s largest online catalog of free educational content that helps educators create courses, including lectures, assignments, books, quizzes and syllabi, and offers them to millions of iOS users around the world.  COSA was prompted to launch this initiative due to the increasing number of iPad implementations in Oregon school districts and the desire among Oregon educators to provide more student-centered and college-and-career-readiness-aligned instructions. 

“This partnership breaks new ground in Oregon – with districts contributing teachers’ time, teachers contributing their knowledge and skill, and COSA providing training and support and web resources – to provide an affordable solution for making high-quality digital content available to schools that have increasing needs for flexible student-centered learning options,” COSA Executive Director Craig Hawkins said.

COSA on iTunes U makes it easy for teachers to access high-quality digital content that aligns to college and career readiness standards from the App Store, iBook Store, the iTunes Store, and other web-based sources that align to college and career readiness standards.

“The COSA iTunes U project gives teachers the extremely helpful ability to curate resources based on the standards,” said Nichole Carter, project participant and 8^th grade teacher at Neil Armstrong Middle School in Forest Grove.  “Sometimes all you need as an educator is to see what is out there in order to take your lesson design to a whole new level.  It is my belief that the iTunes U courses we have developed will be that important resource for Oregon educators.”

Dr. John Steach, superintendent of the Canby School District agrees.  “This project is enabling Oregon’s best and brightest teachers to share their expertise and resources with every teacher across the state…The bottom line is that iTunes U will help to better provide Oregon’s children with the education we want for them.”

Participating districts in the first phase of the project include: Beaverton, Bend-La Pine, Canby, Cascade, Central Point, Corvallis, Creswell, Eagle Point, Eugene, Forest Grove, Grant County, Gresham-Barlow, Ione, McMinnville, Newberg, Parkrose, Portland, Tillamook and Willamina. 

At its launch, COSA on iTunes U offers course content for:

• Algebra I
• High School Life Sciences
• Middle School Life Sciences
• English Language Arts, grades 11-12

Course content for 8-10 additional courses will be added this summer.  A second phase of the initiative is anticipated during the 2014-15 school year.

Please visit http://www.cosa.k12.or.us/content/cosa-itunes-u to learn more or access COSA on iTunes U courses, or go directly to https://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/confederation-oregon-school/id871327164.

For more information, please contact:  Colin Cameron, (503) 581-3141 or colin@cosa.k12.or.us.