Governor Brown Signs Legislation to Create Free Open Textbooks
Last edited Tue Oct 2, 2012, 12:11 PM - Edit history (1)
People who know me know I'm heavily into school reform, working with some pretty crazy ideas like the flipped classroom and Kahn Academy approaches to instruction.
In our world, everyone is a learner, everyone is a teacher, and we do not shy away from any technology.
Gone are the days of the textbook publisher good-old-boy-network teacher-centered "sit and get" classroom.
Well, along these lines, some good news in California, Governor Brown signed into law on September 27:
October 1, 2012 By Mike Palmedo
On September 27, California Governor Jerry Brown signed two bills into law to provide open access textbooks to students in the University of California university system. SB 1052, establishes the California Open Education Resources Council, which will guide the development of textbooks for fifty core college courses. The second bill, SB 1053, creates the California Digital Open Source Library where the free texts will be housed. The textbooks will be available for free online under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Students wishing to buy hard copies will be able to do so for around $20.
The bills were introduced by State Senator Darrell Steinberg, and passed the legislature with little opposition. In a statement, Sen. Steinberg said: “The current cost of traditional textbooks is so high, some college students are forced to struggle through a required class without the textbook, forced to drop classes or sometimes even drop out of college altogether. There’s absolutely no reason a basic biology, statistics or accounting textbook, for example, should cost $200. The Governor has shown great vision in signing this legislation as a way to help tens of thousands of students and families with the increasing expenses of higher education. Any avenue towards reducing those costs opens more doors for our students, and that in turn continues development of the educated workforce we need to fuel California’s economic engine.”
Timothy Vollmer, TITLE of Creative Commons said in a blog that “This is a massive win for California, and a most welcome example of open policy that aims to leverage open licensing to save money for California families and support the needs of teachers and students. We’ll continue to track this initiative and other Open Education Policies at our OER registry.”
We're pulling this down into K-12, working with the US Department of Ed and other supporters, because the future isn't going to look a hell of a lot like the past!
ETA Link: http://infojustice.org/archives/27420
= new reply since forum marked as read
I haven't read the full language of the three bills mentioned, but this article sheds some light:
(snip)
The new legislation encompasses two bills: One, a proposal for the state to fund 50 open-source digital textbooks, targeted to lower-division courses, which will be produced by California's universities. (Students will be able to download these books for free or pay $20 for hard copies.) The other bill is a proposal to establish a California Digital Open Source Library to host those books.
On the textbook side, California will ask the California Open Education Resources Council, comprised of school faculty, to create and oversee a book approval process -- which will include the development of a list of targeted courses "for which high-quality, affordable, digital open source textbooks and related materials would be developed or acquired" by the University of California, California State University, or California Community College systems. The council will then solicit bids to produce these textbooks in 2013. (The first free books are set to be available for the 2013-2014 school year.) And the bill makes clear that the council has the option to use "existing high-quality digital open source textbooks and related materials" if those materials fit its requirements.
The main idea here, politically and socially, is to lighten the burden -- a little bit -- for students who have been hit with tuition increases at California's public schools in recent years. "Many students are paying more than $1,000 every year on their textbooks, sometimes having to choose between buying the books they need or paying for food and other living expenses," said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, the author of the bills, in a statement.
The new law will also be something of a technological experiment -- and an intriguing one, at that. For one thing, it makes a point of extending its impact beyond California's borders. Any digital textbooks created under the council's auspices, the new legislation says, must be placed under a Creative Commons license -- which will allow faculty at universities in other states to make use of the textbooks for their own students. And the textbooks, furthermore, must be encoded in XML (or another "appropriate successor format"
to facilitate their re-use.
(snip)
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/california-takes-a-big-step-forward-free-digital-open-source-textbooks/263047/
Is this the best you can do for 1/6 of Americans (the 1/6 who are K12 students)?
You get on a board and try to belittle people?
Yeah, posters like you are what's wrong with this forum, IMHO and why it might be over, but I might just start posting in it daily to bring in the fresh air and good ideas and hope and positivity, I represent far more folks than the ones who promote fear and uncertainty and doubt.
I'll tell you something.
Reform is coming and I'm damned happy for it.
Schools are far too often filled with FAIL.
In some places the existing schools are worth saving, in other schools they need to be deconstructed and redesigned.
Reform isn't privatization. Privatization is privatization.
Why don't you start your own thread about what you think would help kids.
Do something productive instead of pissing on my thread with snark and rigid opposition to good ideas coming down the pike, you might like the feeling!
If you are comfortable in your ability to discuss, why use snark?
The fact that you label reform measure "deform" puts you in the same league, conversationally, as the likes of Michael Savage, who presumes to be an educated man but lowers himself to a middle school level by turning people's names into mockeries.
If you think all reform is deform, then you suffer from the kind of broadbrushing that never leads to progress.
Maybe it's not hostility that makes you write snide and unproductive replies, maybe it's fear or insecurity.
I really don't care but it's a curiosity, this wanting to shit on other people's productive posts.
Of course publishers have quite a few lobbyists and it'll take some effort to overcome the multi-billion dollar industry.
While shifting to e-books (digital content) is an exciting development, the real important movement is toward open resources, Creative Commons free-to-use materials.
