Karl wrote:
The advantage to reusing modules is that it saves a little bit of copying and pasting, right ? This is a shortcut that I think sets books up to be more on the generic side than tailored to suit. And when I use a textbook for myself Id rather have the whole thing tailored to suit.
Instructors do this already; they start a class on chapter 3, then go onto chapter 4.1, skip the rest of ch 4 and then do ch 2, then back to 5, then to 7.3-7.6, 9.1, 8.3-4 etc. The beauty of modules is that the same content can be reorganized in many different ways without having to fork content. There should, of course, be one reference edition for each book that the community maintains, but I would like to give instructors the ability to create index pages in their own userspace (in a user index:namespace perhaps). And having too many self references is bad anyway and should be avoided since things change. This will mean that some modules will have to be a bit more generic than they would otherwise, but I think that this will be a killer feature to have. Having this ability will also help to prevent book forks, since most forks would be organizational or content-based (that is, an instructor may want to have more or fewer modules in the textbook used in his/her class).
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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Karl wrote:
The advantage to reusing modules is that it saves a little bit of copying and pasting, right ? This is a shortcut that I think sets books up to be more on the generic side than tailored to suit. And when I use a textbook for myself Id rather have the whole thing tailored to suit.
Daniel Mayer wrote: Instructors do this already; they start a class on chapter 3, then go onto chapter 4.1, skip the rest of ch 4 and then do ch 2, then back to 5, then to 7.3-7.6, 9.1, 8.3-4 etc. The beauty of modules is that the same content can be reorganized in many different ways without having to fork content. There should, of course, be one reference edition for each book that the community maintains, but I would like to give instructors the ability to create index pages in their own userspace (in a user index:namespace perhaps). And having too many self references is bad anyway and should be avoided since things change. This will mean that some modules will have to be a bit more generic than they would otherwise, but I think that this will be a killer feature to have. Having this ability will also help to prevent book forks, since most forks would be organizational or content-based (that is, an instructor may want to have more or fewer modules in the textbook used in his/her class).
-------------
This is all good stuff. The way it works in California is as follows (I would assume it's similar in most of the other large states):
1) after a publisher readies a book, it has to pass a textbook committee review to make sure that it conforms to the frameworks.
2) Once a book has been approved, it's available for any district to adopt. The districts have their various curriculum experts, teachers, interested parents, etc. determine what's the best fit for the district. btw, it's more complex at K-5 [elementary school], where amorphous 'topics' like 'language development' take on the flavor of entire integrated programs, and are more complex, (but ideally suited to open content development).
So, this is one way it gets interesting is with open content developed in modular format via Wikipedia. It turns out that many, many excellent teachers have developed very good materials on their own over the years. Often, this material is published by a district, and distributed to all the schools in that district.
If a specific book is published via Wikipedia to adhere to standards, once the content is approved at state level, various districts could either self-publish, or request that a commercial publisher include those teacher materials specific to the district that had been published by Wikipedia. This would save time, money, and other resources - not to mention the benefit that(again, I would start with one (recommending California), and migrate to many...in fact, eventually, one could tag various modules within a 'book' as specific to one or another state, and go from there).
This is just one advantage of the modular approach, from a practical 'on-the-ground' approach. There are many others.
Sanford
This is all good stuff. The way it works in California is as follows (I would assume it's similar in most of the other large states):
- after a publisher readies a book, it has to pass
a textbook committee review to make sure that it conforms to the frameworks.
- Once a book has been approved, it's available for
any district to adopt. The districts have their various curriculum experts, teachers, interested parents, etc. determine what's the best fit for the district. btw, it's more complex at K-5 [elementary school], where amorphous 'topics' like 'language development' take on the flavor of entire integrated programs, and are more complex, (but ideally suited to open content development).
So, this is one way it gets interesting is with open content developed in modular format via Wikipedia. It turns out that many, many excellent teachers have developed very good materials on their own over the years. Often, this material is published by a district, and distributed to all the schools in that district.
If a specific book is published via Wikipedia to adhere to standards, once the content is approved at state level, various districts could either self-publish, or request that a commercial publisher include those teacher materials specific to the district that had been published by Wikipedia. This would save time, money, and other resources - not to mention the benefit that(again, I would start with one (recommending California), and migrate to many...in fact, eventually, one could tag various modules within a 'book' as specific to one or another state, and go from there).
This is just one advantage of the modular approach, from a practical 'on-the-ground' approach. There are many others.
Sanford
That's not how I heard it. After reading ''The Language Police'' by Diane Ravitch, I have a clear view of why my textbooks (as in at school, not at wikibooks) are so dull.
First, the textbook companies self-censor for the PC left and religious right in order to get the big contracts with the state and to not get sales hurt by a big lawsuit, initiated by a disgruntled pastor or feminist who doesn't like the fantasy in Aesop's fables or the imbalance in the roles of women as compared to men in history. These lawsuits are consistantly lost by the parents who want to censor the books, but it is enough for the textbook to stop selling almost completely. The textbook companies don't like this, so they self-censor.
Often three, two, or even only one textbook is approved in a state as big as California, and they're not forced to accept every textbook that just meets standards. They want to accept only textbooks that will prevent big public outrage. And they do have standards mandating gender-neutral language and such, but those aren't as harsh as the censorship the textbook companies themselves use.
Then, even if the book is approved by the state, it still needs to get through the school board, which isn't always that good on allowing objectionable material through (eg. not perfect race balance compared to recent US Census or something talking about the advantages of the UN in extreme cases).
Then, parents complain anyway, even after all of this censorship, not about the censorship, but about the lack of more of it.
I'm sorry if this letter sounded like a conspiricy-theory rant and I'm paranoid, but that's just what it seems like. So I don't think we should be aiming at schools. Maybe colleges or homeschoolers? In colleges, the professors pick out the textbooks, and they look around for the best one, unlike gradeschool teachers who have no power over the issue whatsoever. Homeschoolers tend to dislike textbooks, but that's probably because they're so terribly written. Or we could go for a place where this censorship isn't so bad, possible Europe or Canada? -LDan
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On Wed, Aug 13, 2003 at 06:47:22PM -0700, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
I'm sorry if this letter sounded like a conspiricy-theory rant and I'm paranoid, but that's just what it seems like. So I don't think we should be aiming at schools. Maybe colleges or homeschoolers? In colleges, the professors pick out the textbooks, and they look around for the best one, unlike gradeschool teachers who have no power over the issue whatsoever. Homeschoolers tend to dislike textbooks, but that's probably because they're so terribly written. Or we could go for a place where this censorship isn't so bad, possible Europe or Canada?
In Poland getting recommendation from Ministry of Education is quite easy, and you can find textbooks that fit almost any bias you like (it's harder to get npov one), as long as it more or less (usually less) fits frame curriculum.
Ministry only makes frame curriculum for public schools, and doesn't even seriously enforce that. Recently they started publishing much more detailed requirements ("syllabus") for state exam taken after high school ("matura"), but it's only indirectly related to textbooks.
In all schools it's the teacher who selects the textbook, whether it has Ministry's recommendation or not. Very often it doesn't, especially with imported textbooks for foreign language classes.
--- Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sourceforge.net
Ministry only makes frame curriculum for public schools, and doesn't even seriously enforce that. Recently they started publishing much more detailed requirements ("syllabus") for state exam taken after high school ("matura"), but it's only indirectly related to textbooks.
In all schools it's the teacher who selects the textbook, whether it has Ministry's recommendation or not. Very often it doesn't, especially with imported textbooks for foreign language classes.
Too bad we don't know Polish (except for you). But we could write easy readers in English for people learning it from other languages. Were you hinting at that?
In America, easy readers for 4-7 year olds are among the most censored of all. There must be a 1:1 ratio of boys to girls, the races must be in perfect proportion to the recent US census, and there must be no fantasy, ethics that disagrees with christianity or disrespect of authority. So, I guess this should only be for peole in foreign countries, but that's still a gigantic market. LDan
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----- Original Message ----- From: "Daniel Ehrenberg" littledanehren@yahoo.com To: textbook-l@wikipedia.org Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 6:47 PM Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] distinct books
This is all good stuff. The way it works in California is as follows (I would assume it's similar in most of the other large states):
- after a publisher readies a book, it has to pass
a textbook committee review to make sure that it conforms to the frameworks.
- Once a book has been approved, it's available for
any district to adopt. The districts have their various curriculum experts, teachers, interested parents, etc. determine what's the best fit for the district. btw, it's more complex at K-5 [elementary school], where amorphous 'topics' like 'language development' take on the flavor of entire integrated programs, and are more complex, (but ideally suited to open content development).
So, this is one way it gets interesting is with open content developed in modular format via Wikipedia. It turns out that many, many excellent teachers have developed very good materials on their own over the years. Often, this material is published by a district, and distributed to all the schools in that district.
If a specific book is published via Wikipedia to adhere to standards, once the content is approved at state level, various districts could either self-publish, or request that a commercial publisher include those teacher materials specific to the district that had been published by Wikipedia. This would save time, money, and other resources - not to mention the benefit that(again, I would start with one (recommending California), and migrate to many...in fact, eventually, one could tag various modules within a 'book' as specific to one or another state, and go from there).
This is just one advantage of the modular approach, from a practical 'on-the-ground' approach. There are many others.
Sanford
That's not how I heard it. After reading ''The Language Police'' by Diane Ravitch, I have a clear view of why my textbooks (as in at school, not at wikibooks) are so dull.
First, the textbook companies self-censor for the PC left and religious right in order to get the big contracts with the state and to not get sales hurt by a big lawsuit, initiated by a disgruntled pastor or feminist who doesn't like the fantasy in Aesop's fables or the imbalance in the roles of women as compared to men in history. These lawsuits are consistantly lost by the parents who want to censor the books, but it is enough for the textbook to stop selling almost completely. The textbook companies don't like this, so they self-censor.
------------ The publishers self-censor for lots of reasons. One of them is for the reason you mention. Others have to do with 1) an obsessive preoccupation with lowest-common-denominator grammar; 2) lowest-common-denominator content [somewhat related to your point]; 3) the fear that not pleasing everyone [which is impossible] will lose the 'big' state textbook adoptions, which the publishers need to break even (the gravy in made in the smaller states)
Often three, two, or even only one textbook is approved in a state as big as California, and they're not forced to accept every textbook that just meets standards. They want to accept only textbooks that will prevent big public outrage. And they do have standards mandating gender-neutral language and such, but those aren't as harsh as the censorship the textbook companies themselves use.
------------------------ Yes, it's true that that sometimes only one book passes peer review at the state level, but that's not often the case. Usually, there is a fairly large choice. (but not large enough, as far as I'm concerned).
Then, even if the book is approved by the state, it still needs to get through the school board, which isn't always that good on allowing objectionable material through (eg. not perfect race balance compared to recent US Census or something talking about the advantages of the UN in extreme cases).
------------------ Correct. But that's not something that an open content textbook policy can change. That's a community issue, having to do with 'community moral standards'.
Then, parents complain anyway, even after all of this censorship, not about the censorship, but about the lack of more of it.
----------------- Sometime true, sometimes not. Again, this is something that open source has no control over.
I'm sorry if this letter sounded like a conspiricy-theory rant and I'm paranoid, but that's just what it seems like. So I don't think we should be aiming at schools. Maybe colleges or homeschoolers? In colleges, the professors pick out the textbooks, and they look around for the best one, unlike gradeschool teachers who have no power over the issue whatsoever. Homeschoolers tend to dislike textbooks, but that's probably because they're so terribly written. Or we could go for a place where this censorship isn't so bad, possible Europe or Canada? -LDan
-------------- It's not a conspiracy-theory rant; it's a well-considered opinion. There is some truth to what you say. I don't think you're paranoid (unless you were writing this with your door quadruple-bolted and a loaded scrapnel grenade on your lap after your seventh Red Bull in the last 30 minutes) ;)
Here are some reasons why we *should* be aiming at schools.
1) States waste - cumulatively - *Billions* on inferior book products. The K-12 publishing business is essentially a commercial, price-controlling oligarchy that is virtually void of innovation - whether it be process, or content. The money could go to better use. Also, many nations on earth are in desperate need of good K-12 textbooks written in English (China and India, for example). Imagine how much open source K-12 books would mean to those billions of people. Further, imagine how open source K-12 texts are potentially extendable into other information resources, like open source encyclopedias. Wow.
2) Open source books, as long as they meet state frameworks, *will* pass state textbook selection committees.
3) Open source textbooks can - as suggested, and is advised - be modular, so that districts can choose those parts of a book that they want (that are in addition to the approved core. So, if you have a district that believes that the idea evoluton is the devil's work, they can add a module about how we didn't evolve from apes. They'll do it anyway. In fact, someone may very well contribute such a module to an open source text project. Wouldn't it be better to see the part of the book that is approved for general use in place (cheaper, better content, more flexible, etc.), than not? There's no way that open source content can legislate community morality.
Now, about colleges and homeschoolers. Open source college books are already being done. They will continue to be done. This is happening. And, it's a no-brainer. College instructors are largely an independent lot when it comes to book material.
Homeschoolers have almost infinite choice already when it comes to learning materials. Why even bother with a textbook?. And if you want to, why not customize your own form the best of open source, supplemented by other materials?
Sanford
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Correct. But that's not something that an open content textbook policy can change. That's a community issue, having to do with 'community moral standards'.
But sometimes, court cases are filed, making it a national issue by the time it gets to the supreme court. And you can bet FOX will have a field day over the lawsuit if our book gives any reference to religions other than christianity without giving equal (but out of place) refrences to christianity.
Sometime true, sometimes not. Again, this is something that open source has no control over.
It's something every textbook, open or closed, must do to be used.
It's not a conspiracy-theory rant; it's a well-considered opinion. There is some truth to what you say. I don't think you're paranoid (unless you were writing this with your door quadruple-bolted and a loaded scrapnel grenade on your lap after your seventh Red Bull in the last 30 minutes) ;)
Here are some reasons why we *should* be aiming at schools.
- Open source textbooks can - as suggested, and is
advised - be modular, so that districts can choose those parts of a book that they want (that are in addition to the approved core. So, if you have a district that believes that the idea evoluton is the devil's work, they can add a module about how we didn't evolve from apes. They'll do it anyway. In fact, someone may very well contribute such a module to an open source text project. Wouldn't it be better to see the part of the book that is approved for general use in place (cheaper, better content, more flexible, etc.), than not? There's no way that open source content can legislate community morality
Good idea. Kinda like letting them use the Wiki at their end. But that would probably be to cunbersome for them. They want a ready-made textbook. Not to mention that this modularity, although it is in theory good, would be a nightmare to print.
I came up with a new idea for what we can use our textbooks as without risk of censorship: idiot's-guide-type books! We could make a series called something like "World History: By Anyone, For Anyone" LDan
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Correct. But that's not something that an open content textbook policy can change. That's a community issue, having to do with 'community moral standards'.
But sometimes, court cases are filed, making it a national issue by the time it gets to the supreme court. And you can bet FOX will have a field day over the lawsuit if our book gives any reference to religions other than christianity without giving equal
------------------------- Who cares about FOX, or any other media outlet that one agrees, or disagrees with? I may not agree with certain points of view, or community standards, but whether FOX (or someone else) complains is of no concern to me.
Wiki is about open source content, not moral guarianship. In fact, moral guardianship is anethema to open source content.
(but out of place) refrences to christianity.
Sometime true, sometimes not. Again, this is something that open source has no control over.
It's something every textbook, open or closed, must do to be used.
It's not a conspiracy-theory rant; it's a well-considered opinion. There is some truth to what you say. I don't think you're paranoid (unless you were writing this with your door quadruple-bolted and a loaded scrapnel grenade on your lap after your seventh Red Bull in the last 30 minutes) ;)
Here are some reasons why we *should* be aiming at schools.
- Open source textbooks can - as suggested, and is
advised - be modular, so that districts can choose those parts of a book that they want (that are in addition to the approved core. So, if you have a district that believes that the idea evoluton is the devil's work, they can add a module about how we didn't evolve from apes. They'll do it anyway. In fact, someone may very well contribute such a module to an open source text project. Wouldn't it be better to see the part of the book that is approved for general use in place (cheaper, better content, more flexible, etc.), than not? There's no way that open source content can legislate community morality
Good idea. Kinda like letting them use the Wiki at their end. But that would probably be to cunbersome for them. They want a ready-made textbook. Not to mention that this modularity, although it is in theory good, would be a nightmare to print.
---------------- I envision a situation where modules could be selected, bundeled, and printed as a whole (or as individual modules, if one so chose).
The pilot that Wiki is going to work on may not be modular (or may be).
I came up with a new idea for what we can use our textbooks as without risk of censorship: idiot's-guide-type books! We could make a series called something like "World History: By Anyone, For Anyone"
----------------- That's what the situation is today, believe it or not. Historical perspectives abound. Are you familiar with Howard Zinn's books? He writes about history from the perspective of 'the people'. They're very interesting. Then again, one can find almost any perspective present in history books. History is both written, *and* made. ;)
Again, the project that we're going to take on can itself make history. We have a chance, together, to create a beginning model for open source K-12 that will save schools and students billions of dollars, provide more variety of content, help create an ethic of sharing content for the public good, permit the contribution of informed citzens who have something to offer the community of scholars (and citizens), and so on.
Your earlier points about some of the reasons why textbooks are so bad are well taken. This is oru chance to change that. It's a big challenge; I think we're up to it.
Sanford
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Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
First, the textbook companies self-censor for the PC left and religious right in order to get the big contracts with the state and to not get sales hurt by a big lawsuit, initiated by a disgruntled pastor or feminist who doesn't like the fantasy in Aesop's fables or the imbalance in the roles of women as compared to men in history. These lawsuits are consistantly lost by the parents who want to censor the books, but it is enough for the textbook to stop selling almost completely. The textbook companies don't like this, so they self-censor.
My own view is that NPOV itself provides a sort of self-censorship that is hopefully not as heavy handed as what a proprietary development process comes up with.
NPOV is designed to be maximally acceptable to a wide range of people. A feminist and a pastor of very different political and ethical frameworks ought to be able to read any NPOV article or book and agree that it's fair.
With a proprietary development process, the only way to achieve consensus is to simply omit or water down material that might offend. With the many-minds creativity of the wiki process, there's usually a way to present the material in such a way that everyone can agree on it.
I'm sorry if this letter sounded like a conspiricy-theory rant and I'm paranoid, but that's just what it seems like.
No, I don't think that. These are legitimate issues and we do have to consider them.
Or we could go for a place where this censorship isn't so bad, possible Europe or Canada?
I think you'll find that things are generally *much* worse elsewhere, and especially in Canada.
In Canada, a man was fined for placing an ad in the newspaper quoting from Leviticus and condemning homosexuality. This was upheld on appeal.
This website is worth reviewing, too: http://www.bcla.bc.ca/ifc/censorshipbc/intro.html
--- Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote:
My own view is that NPOV itself provides a sort of self-censorship that is hopefully not as heavy handed as what a proprietary development process comes up with.
NPOV is designed to be maximally acceptable to a wide range of people. A feminist and a pastor of very different political and ethical frameworks ought to be able to read any NPOV article or book and agree that it's fair.
With a proprietary development process, the only way to achieve consensus is to simply omit or water down material that might offend. With the many-minds creativity of the wiki process, there's usually a way to present the material in such a way that everyone can agree on it.
I wish I could agree with you, but I can't. Although NPOV is the epitomy of nonbias, it's just not enough for some people. Feminists, if they looked at Wikipedia for a school, might say that we don't use gender-neutral pronouns all the time and that hypothetical people (eg. "Each person has his own variation on language, called an ideolect") aren't either female or reffered to with the clumsy "him or her" (although that's being replaced again with "her or him"). The conservatives would complain that we report on certain topics like Wiccans and fantasy novels. It's minutae like that that are driving most of the censorship, slowly blanding all textbooks until they're nothing. There was a really good anecdote for this in that book (The Language Police) but I forgot exactly what it was. LDan
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Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
I wish I could agree with you, but I can't. Although NPOV is the epitomy of nonbias, it's just not enough for some people. Feminists, if they looked at Wikipedia for a school, might say that we don't use gender-neutral pronouns all the time and that hypothetical people (eg. "Each person has his own variation on language, called an ideolect") aren't either female or reffered to with the clumsy "him or her" (although that's being replaced again with "her or him").
Then they should edit it. Done well, gender neutral language is invisible. Only poor writers make it seem clumsy.
I have been an advocate of gender neutral language for many years, and I think I'm pretty successful at it. To my knowledge, no one really notices it in my writing, because I avoid clumsy constructions.
There is no question, of course, that at any given point in time, there *might* be something POV about an article, including using gendered pronouns inappropriately. But NPOV, which is a social process, not a final result, is very useful.
The conservatives would complain that we report on certain topics like Wiccans and fantasy novels.
I don't think reasonable conservatives would complain that we *report on* such things. After all, *they* report on such things all the time. :-)
It is of course true that it's always possible to find some lunatic for whom any mention of hot-button topic X must include a thorough denunciation of X. We can't please those people. But even some pretty hardcore partisans who are not lunatics can agree on a presentation of X that's NPOV.
This works more often than not.
--Jimbo
--- Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote:
Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
I wish I could agree with you, but I can't.
Although
NPOV is the epitomy of nonbias, it's just not
enough
for some people. Feminists, if they looked at Wikipedia for a school, might say that we don't
use
gender-neutral pronouns all the time and that hypothetical people (eg. "Each person has his own variation on language, called an ideolect") aren't either female or reffered to with the clumsy "him
or
her" (although that's being replaced again with
"her
or him").
Then they should edit it.
They don't want to write their own textbook. I agree with you in principle, though.
Done well, gender neutral language is invisible. Only poor writers make it seem clumsy.
You're right. A wiki would make for good gender-neutral language. And it gets pretty bad when extremists say you can reffer to ''his''tory or ''her''etic. This is not a pun, it is real.
I have been an advocate of gender neutral language for many years, and I think I'm pretty successful at it. To my knowledge, no one really notices it in my writing, because I avoid clumsy constructions.
I think gender neutral language can be OK, but since it means the same thing, what's the difference, really? I guess if it pleases people like you it's fine to use it.
There is no question, of course, that at any given point in time, there *might* be something POV about an article, including using gendered pronouns inappropriately. But NPOV, which is a social process, not a final result, is very useful.
The conservatives would complain that we report on
certain topics
like Wiccans and fantasy novels.
I don't think reasonable conservatives would complain that we *report on* such things. After all, *they* report on such things all the time. :-)
Again, you bring up the "reasonable" conservatives. Like many said after you mentioned the reasonable creationists (most creationists are conservatives), reasonable conservatives using your view are few and far bewteen and are disliked by many other conservatives.
It is of course true that it's always possible to find some lunatic for whom any mention of hot-button topic X must include a thorough denunciation of X. We can't please those people. But even some pretty hardcore partisans who are not lunatics can agree on a presentation of X that's NPOV.
But they say the representation itself is, well not POV (sorry about that usage of POV), but against their religion and therefore violates freedom of religion.
This works more often than not.
--Jimbo
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Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
Again, you bring up the "reasonable" conservatives. Like many said after you mentioned the reasonable creationists (most creationists are conservatives), reasonable conservatives using your view are few and far bewteen and are disliked by many other conservatives.
Well, I don't think so. I think that the success of the wiki model shows that even people of wildly different perspectives can behave reasonably when there is a culture and software to encourage it.
I don't think reasonable conservatives are hard to find, nor do I think reasonable liberals are hard to find.
But they say the representation itself is, well not POV (sorry about that usage of POV), but against their religion and therefore violates freedom of religion.
Well, a properly written NPOV presentation of wicca, for example, should absolutely NOT be against Christianity, nor should it be against Atheism. It's just a description of what it is, not advocacy in any way. By having people from many perspectives editing the same passage, we have excellent insurance (the best yet invented, I think) against inadvertant advocacy masquerading as objectivity.
--Jimbo
Daniel Mayer wrote:
Karl Wick wrote:
The advantage to reusing modules is that it saves a little bit of copying and pasting, right ? This is a shortcut that I think sets books up to be more on the generic side than tailored to suit. And when I use a textbook for myself Id rather have the whole thing tailored to suit.
Instructors do this already; they start a class on chapter 3, then go onto chapter 4.1, skip the rest of ch 4 and then do ch 2, then back to 5, then to 7.3-7.6, 9.1, 8.3-4 etc. The beauty of modules is that the same content can be reorganized in many different ways without having to fork content. There should, of course, be one reference edition for each book that the community maintains, but I would like to give instructors the ability to create index pages in their own userspace (in a user index:namespace perhaps).
I don't see any conflict here -- I agree with both of you!
Notice that mav's instructor already uses a single book, moving around within it, so each section should be modular. They often aren't, but in /our/ book, they can indeed be.
However, this doesn't mean that Karl's OChem modules are going to be the same as what appears in PChem texts. I don't know enough chemistry to predict that, actually -- whether the goals and needs of the disciplines are similar enough. So these could still be separated -- and if /not/ these, then certainly the Chem modules from the French cooking.
More interesting to me, however, is that 2 OChem books may appear that take differing pedagogical approaches and don't share modules! The second book might start by copying the first but fork -- a legitimate fork if it represents differing approaches to the subject. Again, I don't know enough chemistry to know if this happens in OChem, but it would certainly happen with calculus vs graduate analysis.
-- Toby
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