Hi Wiki-Pilgrims,

Apparently a group at the Boston Public Schools is interested in creating free-content digital texts

Please reach out to Justin Reich (bjr795@mail.harvard.edu) if you're interested :)

Thanks, Richard (User:Pharos)

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com Date: Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 9:40 AM Subject: Fwd: Fwd: berkman center/ibooks To: Annie Lin alin@wikimedia.org

Dear Annie,

Is there anyone who worked on PPI who is interested in generation of digital texts for [offline] reading? The Boston Public Schools has ag roup that is working on improving curation of materials for their classes; if there is a good channel for geneaating free-format and free-content texts they could do their own curation on top of those collections.  Their initial thought was to work with iBooks and not necessarily take care to use free content... but then they realized it was a lot of work to do all of the curation and formatting themselves.  See below!

Warmly, SJ

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: B. Justin Reich bjr795@mail.harvard.edu Date: Mon, Mar 5, 2012 at 1:44 PM Subject: Re: Fwd: berkman center/ibooks To: Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com

Hi SJ,

I hope you are well! I received the request below from a great teacher in the Boston Public Schools. I poked around Berkman, and Amar suggested that you might have some contacts who might have some interest in helping out with a project like the one below. If you do, please let me know!

Best, Justin

...

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Avashia, Neemanavashia@boston.k12.ma.us Date: Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 12:51 PM Subject: berkman center/ibooks To: bjr795@mail.harvard.edu

Hi, Justin. I hope you're doing well. I'm writing in hopes that you might be able to help me think about some possibilities for Civics in BPS. Myself and another college are in the early phases of creating a series of ibooks for the Civics class that we teach. We use a lot of articles, self-created texts, pdfs, videos, images etc., and think that iBooks could provide a really powerful venue for housing that material. We're working hard to get BPS, or our individual schools, to purchase class sets of iPads that we could use to pilot this work in our classes.

What we're finding, though, is that we are spending a lot of time on formatting, rather than on resource refinement, which doesn't seem like the best use of our skills. I've heard some rumors that there are folks at the Berkman center who are interested in supporting the creation of digital texts, and wondered if you know if there is substance to the rumors, and if so, could point me in the direction of any people who are doing that work.

Let me know if you have any ideas.

Thank you!

Neema +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ "The pessimist from his corner looks out upon the world of wickedness and sin, and blinded to all that is good and hopeful in the condition and progress of the human race, bewails the present state of affairs and predicts woeful things for the future.

In every cloud he beholds a destructive storm, in every flash of lightning an omen of evil and in every shadow that falls across his path a lurking foe.

He forgets that the clouds also bring life and hope, that the lightning purifies the atmosphere, that shadow and darkness prepare for sunshine and growth, and that hardship and adversity nerve the race, as the individual, for greater efforts and grander victories."         --Horace Mann Bond

-- Justin Reich Visiting Lecturer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society Project Manager, Distributed Collaborative Learning Communities Project Doctoral Candidate (diss. completed), Harvard Graduate School of Education Blog: EdTechResearcher.org Twitter: @bjfr Email: bjr795@mail.harvard.edu Mobile: 978-831-3046

Co-Director, EdTechTeacher EdTechTeacher Winter Conference, March 3, Cambridge, MA EdTechTeacher Summer Workshops

-- Samuel Klein          identi.ca:sj           w:user:sj          +1 617 529 4266

-- Annie Lin Global Education Program Manager Wikimedia Foundation alin@wikimedia.org