It seems to me that this would be a wonderful opportunity for NAIS to step
in. (Pat, are you monitoring this thread?)
NAIS could add its imprimatur to the effort which immediately grants it
legitimacy amongst the member schools. Further, NAIS could help facilitate
discussions of platforms, standards, etc. (hopefully all open-source, but
that's a personal bias), and laissez with foundations that might be willing
to help underwrite the work, and bring other partners to the table (perhaps
Apple with its iTunesU, for example) that may provide strategic and tactical
assistance.
Adding rich media sources such as the videos you refer to are wonderful!
They could serve as both direct instructional resources for students, as
well as professional development resources for teachers.
Sounds like a great workshop topic for NAIS national conference if not
before.
s
-----
Steve Taffee | Director of Strategic Projects
Castilleja School | staffee@castilleja.org
1310 Bryant Street | www.castilleja.org
Palo Alto, CA 94301 | taffee.edublogs.org
650.924.1040 (Google Voice)
Women Learning, Women Leading
<http://twitter.com/sjtaffee> <http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetaffee>
You don't *really* need to print this do you?
On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Fred Bartels <fredbartels@gmail.com> wrote:
> Steve,
>
> I like the way you are looking at this as a process that is likely to go
> through various stages. Most of the faculty at my school are very tied to
> their textbooks and are unlikely to be comfortable moving quickly to an
> open-content collaborative model.
>
> That being said, I really like the idea of a consortium of schools putting
> some real resources (money and time) behind supporting teachers who want to
> share their knowledge in this way. We too have a number of master teachers
> who are nearing retirement age and would welcome the opportunity to give
> back to the larger community; especially if it was clear that they were
> part
> of an well-supported and organized effort with a good chance of a
> successful
> outcome.
>
> As part of our public purpose effort we have been exploring the idea of
> filming some of our master teachers presenting lessons and then making
> these
> videos freely available online. Imagine what could be produced with a
> combination of text, art, animation, photography and video. This is all
> doable. The expertise is there, the resources are available, the
> understanding of how to put it together exists: how could we make it
> happen?
>
> Fred
>
> On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 3:41 PM, Steve Taffee <staffee@castilleja.org>
> wrote:
> > I had a conversation with Courseload this morning, and have a follow-up
> > scheduled for next week.
> >
> > From what i understand, Courseload does take existing textbooks and
> creates
> > a PDF-like document, which they then access through their own reader to
> > allow for some social collaboration features within a class. Books are
> > purchased, not leased, by students.
> >
> > I see this model as transitional; a bridge that enables teachers who are
> > familiar with textbooks to see that model in play with e-readers and
> > computers. Many teachers will quickly come to see that e-texts could be
> so
> > much more with embedded links, rich media contents, and built-in hooks to
> > their LMS.
> >
> > I agree with Fred and Bill about the potential of a consortium of schools
> > to
> > contribute content. If you are not familiar with CK12.org, they are a
> > non-profite creating open-content textbooks (they call them Flexbooks)
> that
> > I think might make an interesting partner. Having several teachers work
> > cooperatively also reduces the burden of a single person creating a text,
> > not to mention the richer ideas that emerge from such collaboration.
> >
> > Having schools collaborate on creating textbooks also has the benefit of
> > helping to capture the knowledge and pedagogy of master teachers, some of
> > whom are nearing retirement age, and whose loss to a school represents
> much
> > more than replacing one headcount with another. Knowledge retention is as
> > important in schools as it is in business.
> >
> > s
> > -----
> > Steve Taffee | Director of Strategic Projects
> > Castilleja School | staffee@castilleja.org
>
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