Great post. Some thoughts below:
--- On Thu, 11/20/08, Peter Gow <pgow@bcdschool.org> wrote:
> Well, e-readers or even tablet or laptop computers could
> make a big dent
> in the backpack problem, but a few things need to happen
> first.
>
> One is that the "reader" function must become
> easy to use, robust, and not
> just a wee bit durable. Some folks love their Kindles or
> other readers,
> but are these machines ready for the hurly-burly of 165
> school days?
> Laptops are coming down in price but not that comfy as
> reading devices,
> while tablets are still pretty dear and only a bit more
> comfy. Ideally,
> someone will cook up a tough tablet with an exceptional
> reader function in
> a form factor closer to the Kindle or a 9-10" netbook
> than to the larger
> models around today. I know there now are tablets the right
> size, but
> tough and easily readable are mostly still missing
> qualities.
How close is the OLPC to this desired form factor and functionality? I recently installed the most recent build, and was very impressed by the new functionality and stability.
>
> More important, one of two other things has to happen:
> either textbook
> companies have to offer universal availability of their
> product lines,
> including novels, or educators have to wean themselves from
> dependency on
> textbooks as the source and center of their curricula.
I see the second happening before the first. For a decent overview, check out the pdf version of the paper you can get from this link: http://www.aei.org/events/eventID.1522,filter.all,type.past/event_detail.asp -- the event was put on by the American Enterprise Institute, so it has a particular philosophical orientation, but the paper gives some great insight on how textbook companies work the political system to their financial benefit, and (I would argue) our children's detriment.
>> Good stuff snipped <<
> Demand may be a major factor in
> why they
> haven't moved this way as far as one might have hoped
> by now; it may come
> down to a question of which comes first, the gadget or the
> content? In a
> slumping economy, the impetus to develop either may be
> diminishing.
The content is already here. Teachers are producing curriculum every day. The problem is distribution; few people are sharing.
>
> However, I love to imagine imagine downloading to my and my
> students'
> robust, writable tablet-readers a fairly skeletal text for,
> say, a basic
> history survey course, something like an AMSCO review book,
> and then
> filling up my syllabus with downloaded and teacher-created
> bits and pieces
> that would allow me to customize my course like crazy in
> all the ways I'd
> love to be able to do this. (We can do this now,
> incidentally, so it's not
> really a matter of technology.) Better can I imagine doing
> this without
> the outline for more specialized elective courses. Right
> now, one issue in
> doing this, whether computer-based or xeroxed, has to do
> with permissions
> and copyright, while for a lot of teachers an even bigger
> barrier is the
> sheer hassle of working this way--it's too novel, too
> overwhelming, or
> just too cumbersome.
And this is the real issue. A while back I wrote about a passive distribution system that allows for teachers to blog their curriculum, and have curriculum aggregated from various sources into a central repository. Over time, as more material is aggregated in that central repository, it becomes the source of multiple textbooks, as teachers can come in, organize (or clone) these existing posts, and subsequently redistribute these texts. This is not vaporware; this is a real system that can be built today. The missing ingredient is content, although I suspect that if we scoured the internet we could probably find enough teachers blogging lesson plans to make a good start.
This could be jumpstarted by five schools agreeing to work together at the beginning of the school year. Not all teachers would need to participate; interested teachers from the various schools would agree to blog their lessons, and share lessons using cc-licensed material. Over the course of the school year, their lessons would be aggregated in the central repository. At the end of that year, we would have an authoritative data source for textbooks on a wide variety of subjects. All of this content could be readily remixed, and easily redistributed.
The blog post where I lay this out is at http://funnymonkey.com/oers-publishing-easy-part, or http://is.gd/8qd4
So -- any schools want to participate in an initiative like this, starting with the 2009-2010 school year?
Cheers,
Bill
>
> Like your teacher, I dream of the day when all I or my
> students or my own
> children will need is one slick gadget, good for reading,
> research,
> communication, note-taking, and probably a bunch of other
> functions
> (musical, audio-visual) that I'm not thinking of. It
> will be about the
> size and weight of a trade paperback, have great battery
> life, excellent
> durability (waterproof would be nice, too), and superb
> connectivity. Hasta
> la vista, giant L.L. Bean backpacks and Timbuktu messenger
> bags!
>
> But there is much work to be done first--Peter Gow
>
> Peter Gow, Director of College Counseling and Special
> Programs
> Beaver Country Day School
> 791 Hammond Street
> Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
> www.bcdschool.org
> Tel. 617-738-2755
> FAX 617-738-2701
> Skype: petergow3
>
>
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