Comments on: Petition to philanthropists: liberate educational content

By: Deep Currents » Archives » Monitoring and Scanning Report

Deep Currents » Archives » Monitoring and Scanning Report — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 01:59:15 +0000

[...] http://blog.citizendium.org/2008/03/24/a-plea-to-liberate-educational-content/ [...]

By: amerlino

amerlino — Wed, 28 May 2008 13:01:15 +0000

I am assuming that posting this information on a secure sight to avoid any manipulation of the material that users will be learning from is a given!?
Kids Learning Tools

By: Kelly

Kelly — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:42:25 +0000

I really would like to have some help with getting a proposal funded for teaching about maps to my first graders. We have to start somewhere and I for one know that kids love learning, but if teachers do not have the tools necessary, they have a very difficult job! I have written a proposal for books to teach about maps and space. If you want to read it, I have added the link below:
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=161418&verify=-392735715&zone=0

By: Ecclesial Dreamer… » Food for thought…

Ecclesial Dreamer… » Food for thought… — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 05:36:33 +0000

[...] of interesting articles have caught my ecclesial dreamer eye recently. First, is this call to liberate educational content. I find this type of thinking very inspiring not necessarily because I agree with everything but [...]

By: Wikipedia Co-Founder Supports Free Textbooks at Degree Space

Wikipedia Co-Founder Supports Free Textbooks at Degree Space — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:38:14 +0000

[...] week Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger issued a statement urging philanthropists to support the creation of free online textbooks. Wired Campus reports: [...]

By: Larry Sanger

Larry Sanger — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:03:34 +0000

You know, I included educational software under my second bullet point above…without realizing that, er, that’s software, not content. (So I agree there.) Well, I’ve been using enough educational software lately that it just seems to me mainly content, not software. The software part is not the part users are interested in; we want it mainly as a way to deliver content.

By: Doug Holton

Doug Holton — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:50:35 +0000

I would look into opening up educational software, too. And like someone above mentioned, there is some abandonware or older stuff out there that would be nice if it were opened up.
For example, the Understanding by Design website charges teachers to share and access lessons. There was a very effective video-based math curriculum called the Jasper Woodbury series. See some other research-based educational software and resources here:
http://edtechdev.blogspot.com/2008/02/learning-sciences-open-education_14.html

The Concord Consortium and TERC and other organizations like those have done great work developing K-12 curriculum and software. But those organizations and most funding goes purely to math & science. You see little funding or free software or textbooks for history, geography, writing, etc.

By: Historia i Media | Larry Sanger apeluje o darmowe podręczniki

Historia i Media | Larry Sanger apeluje o darmowe podręczniki — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:14:54 +0000

[...] Larry Sanger, jeden z założycieli Wikipedii, apeluje o finansowanie darmowych podręczników w licencji open-source. [...]

By: Larry Sanger

Larry Sanger — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:33:23 +0000

I don’t know, but I imagine that very, very few teachers make any significant money from textbooks. More importantly, teachers continue to be paid this way, just not by publishers — they are paid, instead, by philanthropists.

The whole idea of “the market being subverted” is fascinating, but needs elaboration. I am inclined to reject the very possibility of markets being “subverted” by philanthropy. Philanthropists are part of a free market.

By: Stephen Ewen

Stephen Ewen — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:20:02 +0000

To illustrate my post above, consider the following.

Larry said, “Suppose a philanthropist gave a million dollars to a team of people to create a sixth-grade science textbook, as good as or better than any available on the market, to be released to the world for free.”

One unintended outcome of this would be that teachers who are able to supplement their typically inadequate teacher’s salary by writing and publishing textbooks will by and large have this venue removed. It becomes a very poor choice of one’s time to attempt to write a good textbook when the market has been subverted by a philanthroposit making one “as good as or better than any available on the market” available for free. An unintended consequence of that would be diminished innovation in writing superior textbooks.