Use AI to Create OER
2025 FL OER Summit Presentation Recap and Next Steps
A week ago, I had the privilege of presenting at the 2025 Florida OER Summit and received encouraging feedback from colleagues. Before we get to next steps, I’ll recap and give an overview of what we discussed for those who may have missed it.
The Revolution Hiding in Plain Sight
Two paintings are side by side. One is a masterpiece by Jacques-Louis David, the legendary French neoclassicist who helped incite the French Revolution and later worked for Napoleon. The other was created by someone like me in minutes using AI. Can you tell the difference?
Let’s find out with my icebreaker: “Art or Artificial?”
The “Slop” I’ve Made
A warning: no matter how well you use AI or how much effort you put into your projects, it may be reflexively dismissed by critics as "soulless AI slop" by those who have ethical or aesthetic objections. And honestly, many of the objections are valid. AI was trained with data that artists, writers, and coders did not consent to be ingested. They were not compensated for the harvesting of their data.
In education specifically, students often use AI to cheat, and it is getting increasingly difficult to catch. I warned about this reality early on, and those concerns have only grown.
However, we can’t just focus on the risks, costs, and concerns of a technology. We also have to consider the potential benefits. What does this tech unlock?
For me, it has opened a chance to program educational games that would otherwise be impossible for me to bring to life in a realistic timeline. One of those games is Math Nightmare, in which players are a vampire with particularly high numeracy who uses multiplication and division to cast fireballs at skeletons.
Another is a Subway Surfers inspired 3D game called Smilerun in which the player collects perfect squares, and dodges all other numbers so that they don’t damage their health bar.
FactorCast is my exploration of the question, “what if I made a platform like MyOpenMath or MyMathLab but jazzed it up with a Harry Potter like vibe?” So far only Laboratory works, but I’ve got big plans for a story mode.
None of these prototypes is ready for primetime yet, but I can see a clear pathway to my Holy Grail: free, high quality, engaging resources that allow us to truly compete with TikTok and Fortnight for student attention. Instead of students cheating to avoid learning, I am certain I can make learning so fun they crave it. It just takes time, because even with AI in one’s corner, making great games is very, very difficult.
The Why
What happens if I don’t do this?
My co-presenter Mike Ba has been my friend for several years now. We met in a programming group on Facebook and text regularly. Mike teaches elementary school in a village in Senegal where he's the only English speaker. He's fluent in French, English, Arabic, Pular, and Wolof—languages he learned online, including through connections with people like me.
Unfortunately Mike wasn’t able to join the presentation last week because his power went out, underscoring the difficulties he faces. But as you’ll see in an interview we’ll publish soon on my YouTube Channel, no one is more excited about AI’s potential than Mike.
For his students, the alternative to "AI slop" isn't expensive textbooks from major publishers.
It's nothing.
No resources. No materials. No access to the global economy of knowledge that most of us take for granted.
That's why this isn't just a résumé builder for us. It's a revolution. It's frontline educators deciding for ourselves who gets to be part of the global conversation, no longer needing vast organizational resources to produce what we need.
What AI Really Unlocks
David Wiley, co-founder of Lumen Learning and OER pioneer, boldly asserted that "Open Education will become Generative AI Education." If broad accessibility of learning is our core mission as educators, then we need to use the most time-efficient, cost-effective, flexible tool in our arsenal.
Today, that tool is clearly Generative AI.
Interestingly, Wiley noted that OER itself faced exactly the same dismissiveness and criticism about quality that AI-generated content faces now. The parallels are both striking and encouraging.
Today’s Tools Are Just the Beginning
I demonstrated how I build and publish code written by the AI, and was encouraged to see some of my attendees jamming out some fantastic starter projects! Below is the brief guide I shared to help establish a starting point.
Vibe Coding
"Vibe Coding" is about partnering with AI to bring your creative software ideas to life. You provide the vision and the "vibe"; the AI provides rapid code generation. Here’s how to make it work for you:
Let’s be clear, the tools I demonstrated at my presentation - Google’s AI Studio, Claude, GitHub - are great, but they’re also like crude stone knives compared to what they'll evolve into over the next few years. The educational games and materials we're building might seem innovative, but again, they’re just the very beginning.
I believe it’s going to get easier and easier to use these tools as they become increasingly powerful. But I’m not going to sit back and wait for that to happen, and I hope you won’t either. The students who need these materials most can’t wait for “later”.
So here's my closing pitch: we don't need to wait for the perfect tools. We don't need enterprise-grade solutions or massive funding. The revolution in educational content is happening right now, and it's being led by people like you and me—educators who understand both the needs of our students and the potential of these technologies.
I invite you to join this movement. Take these imperfect tools and create something that matters. Make something that reaches a student who would otherwise be unreachable. Develop materials for communities that commercial publishers have ignored. Experiment, share, collaborate. Don't wait for permission or approvals.
I've shown you some slop today. Now go make your own beautiful, meaningful, world-changing slop. And then share it back with me! Leave a comment to your GitHub, or your libguide, or wherever you publish. And join us at OpenFL so that when we arrange a meeting schedule you don’t miss out.
Also, here’s the full presentation slideshow.