Open Source Text Books for California Schools

[shrimphead]

The governor of California has launched a new initiative to compile open source textbooks for the state. He hopes that the plan will help cut costs and improve the quality of education. The effort seems very promising, but the state's complex standards and arduous textbook evaluation process will pose major challenges.

via Ars Technica

[Nate the great]

Neat. Thanks.
http://gov.ca.gov/press-release/12225/

[DaleDe]

Good article. CA schools have a real problem since all text books have to be written especially for CA. The article mentions the requirement to have merged ethnic and handicapped pictures into the books but does not mention the requirement to have evolution taught in all the books. For example a math book must have problems that involve the idea of evolution in the problem itself. Every subject must conform to these kinds of requirements, and these are only two examples. Thus every book has to be especially written. No wonder the costs are so high and the kids have no better, likely worse education as CA schools are not rated very high compared to other states.

I hope the governors idea helps in this area but it doesn't address the real problems of high cost.

Dale

[301verbs]

What exactly does open-source mean with respect to textbooks?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by 301verbs

What exactly does open-source mean with respect to textbooks?

Presumably they would be PD or CC licensed and free to the school system. I am not sure that modifiable is the intent but it may be a consequence.

Dale

[Andybaby]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Presumably they would be PD or CC licensed and free to the school system. I am not sure that modifiable is the intent but it may be a consequence.

Dale

it possibly is, I think changes to the textbook would probably go through a committee, hopefully made up of HS and College Professors, and a Large Vote, to better the books.

So many times while I was in school, we skipped total sections of books because they were dated, or just plain wrong.

also, these books should be easialy availbable when Ebook readers become Sub100 bucks in 5 to 10 years

[rgeorg]

This is interesting. Perhaps a better use of the newest Kindle would be secondary schools rather than at university? Administrators would want to limit WWW-use by HS students, so lack of a general browser/download/upload would be an asset rather than a limitation.