collaborating on open-source 'textbooks' might work. Like most visions, it
is a little vague, but perhaps it will resonate with some of you, and you
can help develop it.
There are many independent schools with, or with access to, vast financial
resources.
Many of these schools are pursuing or developing public purpose programs
(primarily involving service learning) in order to share their abundant
resources with the larger community.
The collaborative creation of open-source high-quality digital 'textbooks'
for secondary school courses is a project that would stretch and challenge
independent schools but is eminently doable and would result in new valuabl=
e
educational resources available to all.
How might this develop?
School Year 1
=95Formation of a consortium. A consortium of participating schools commits=
to
providing resources, primarily faculty time and money.
=95An opening gathering of participants to share ideas, get to know each
other, and build community.
=95Brainstorming period. A period of time is spent researching, brainstormi=
ng,
and developing ideas. Almost all of this work is done online through variou=
s
Web 2.0 tools.
=95An extended conference in the summer following the first year. At this
conference working groups are formalized and detailed plans are developed
for producing content.
School Year 2
=95Working groups produce prototypes during the first half of the school ye=
ar.
=95A mid-year conference to share and revise prototypes.
=95Over the remainder of the school year working groups produce beta versio=
ns
of 'textbooks'.
=95Another extended conference in the summer to share and polish betas.
School Year 3
=95Betas are piloted at participating schools and working groups use feedba=
ck
from beta sites to fix problems and add features.
=95Structures and procedures are established to allow ongoing collaborative
modifications of the content so that the 'textbooks' can develop and change
in an organic fashion.
School Year 4
=95Wonderfully creative, engaging, innovative, dynamic, customizable, livin=
g
'textbooks' are made freely available to all who want to use them.
Just some thoughts that I wrote down in my paper notebook on a delightful
digital-free Sunday.
Fred
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