Re: [school-discuss] project idea: open source text books

[Yishay Mor <yishaym@xxxxxxxxx>]

James

Have you seen 
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/mathematics-and-statistics
The content on openlearn is organised as learning units, not as reference. And you can remix it!
There's also 
http://www.curriki.org/

There's plenty of content out there. The problem is discoverability and quality assurance. Wikipedia has a model that engenders quality, can you apply the same model to educational texts?
The other problem is that these resources require the learner to sit in front of a desktop (although curriki does export "books").

Yishay


On Friday, January 27, 2012, Mr. Klock <math@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Yep-- most (apparently 86.8%) of what's on OER is the Math Open Reference stuff, which I've used before, especially in my Geometry classes.  There are a couple of reasons why I don't love Math Open Reference: it's not really organized as a single text, but rather as a collection of notes/demonstrations/comments.  (A good math text is organized in a way that spirals content, reinforces ideas in light of what's been covered previously in the course, etc).  It also doesn't include any sort of practice exercises, and no assessment resources (for students or teachers to test their knowledge and understanding).  A lot of the demonstrations are things that I'd rather have students produce  themselves, using GeoGebra.  Finally, the text itself tends to be pretty dry, and fairly inaccessible for math students without a very strong background and aptitude in mathematics.  
> So, I stand by my statement: I haven't found any open-source texts that I love, still...  I have a sense of what that text would look like, for several topics (algebra, geometry, a short course in trigonometry, calculus, chemistry, environmental science), but I haven't made the time to undertake such a project, myself.  
> Anyway, I think a far better model, and one that's reflected by FLOSS development, would be an evolving project, involving a lot of authors and semi-managed by a small committee of leads (who would decide what the official release includes and how it's organized), but with the explicit understanding that individual users can modify the official release, adding or removing pieces of text from the common pool, as suits them.
>  James
>
> On Jan 27, 2012, at 10:57 AM, j. Tim Denny wrote:
>
> James
> have you examined these texts?    http://www.oercommons.org/browse/keyword/mathematics 
> Tim
> __________________________________
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> On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 22:33, Mr. Klock <math@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> I agree, Jeremy, and in fact am very enthusiastic about this idea.  I've been looking for open-content math texts for a while, and I haven't found anything I love on any of the existing text archives.
>
> I'd be happy to be involved in authoring math and science texts, and I could probably help wrangle up some other co-authors, but I'm not in a position right now to coordinate the effort.
>
>  James Klock
>  Chicago, IL
>
>
> On Jan 27, 2012, at 8:19 AM, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
>
>> I propose the group advocates and works toward open source text books.
>>
>> These would be open content projects that result in free digital and
>> (optionally) very low-cost print textbooks and course work. This would
>> be a public endeavor using open collaborative methods. The text and its
>> related artwork and formatting and tools to create and re-generate will
>> be freely and publically accessible and redistributable.
>>
>> Some side goals could be to save money for schools and better allocate
>> tax payers money, such as increasing school teacher's salaries, and
>> maybe better learning experience due to further media capabilities.
>> (Another minor goal is so kids, like mine, don't have to carry around
>> 20+ pounds of textbooks :)
>>
>> Maybe some ideas at:
>>
>> http://www.opencontent.org/
>>
>> http://archives.seul.org/schoolforge/discuss/May-2002/msg00194.html
>> (Hey David where is your document now?)
>>
>> http://www.jasonheppler.org/open-source-scholarship-and-why-history-should-be-open-source.html
>>
>> http://teachinghistory.org/teaching-materials/ask-a-master-teacher/22276
>>
>> http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/open.htm
>>
>> I know we talked a little about it before around May 2002, but sadly
>> nothing came out of it from me. But it is time to do this again because
>> I recently listed to an interview about Steve Jobs and their textbook
>> plans.  Here are some related links:
>>
>> http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/apples-textbook-partner-mcgraw-hill-reveals-ibooks-2-plans.php
>>
>> 350,000 downl

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