[Textbook-l] Introduction - California Open Source Textbook Project

[Sanford Forte]

Jimbo writes:
> Our greatest strength is the strength of our community, and the
> "institutional knowledge" that we've gained as a group.  We talk a
> lot, but more importantly, we just *do* things as they seem possible,
> without waiting for a 'project business model'. ;-)
------------ 
;) I'm with you. Here's some more background, to help make clear why there
is a project summary, and other 'constraints' in a project like this. It
should also enswer some of your questions.

In California (and most other states) the State Departments of Education
have "curriculum framworks" groups (or divisions). There's a link to the
California Curriculum Frameworks group on my web site.

The Frameworks groups 'rotates' the various content areas (for  all grades)
through th esystem every eight years. Thus, one year might see High School
Geometry, Physics, an elementary education topic, etc. developed. The
frameworks are put together by Education Department specialists, with some
voluntary help by a select group of teachers familiar with the subject
matter.

Once the framework for a certain course is finished, anyone can use it as a
guide to creating content.

The framework is absolutely necessary to follow, as a general guide to
content decisions, and approach. Why? Because once a publisher finsishes a
topical area (let's say high school geometry),  the finished product goes to
the State Board of Education textbook review committee for approval. If the
book is seen as meeting the framework standards, it is then recommended by
the Board for adoption by any California State District who want to use it.
Often, several books are chosen for a topical area, and the individual
districts adopt the one they most like.

Here's another caveat. K-8 (especially K-5) content is often created around
a highly detailed set of specifics that require publishers to create a whole
content 'program' that meets the framework standard.

Thus, a pilot project for some topical area in the grades 9-12 range would
probably be most practical, because the demands would be more discrete, and
easier to manage.

Another problem (one I have no control over at the moment), is that the
intention of COSTP is to have this all result in printed textbooks. The
minute one starts talking about replacing the printed book with cD-ROM's,
web-based environments, etc., eyes begin to gloss over. It costs money to
produce a book. However, if a successful pilot product could pass muster
with the State Board of Ed., it would be a matter of finding one of the R.R.
Donnelly's of the world to print it, at a normal markup (still saving
enormous profits taken by the publishers). At the very least, a pilot that
passed muster in terms of meeting the framework standards would prove that
this can be done, and spur legislation (if not in California, certainly
elsewhere)

I'm attaching a version of the project plan (which is really a rationale -
in depth - for the project...it's not a 'procedural guide for how to do
this')

Relative to open source, the one constraint in K-12 is that there *are*
frameworks standards to be met.

I would suggest reading the project plan - it's not that long - and then
going from there. I've spent a lot of time in the state sytem lobbying this
project. In another life, I worked with several major textbook publishers,
so I have some insight into how they work, and how the system works.

COSTP - ro something like it - could save billions in textbook costs,
worldwide.


> For your purposes, what kinds of textbooks would be most useful to you
> as as 'pilot that proves the concept'?  Choose wisely, because you may
> find yourself in two years holding a copy of whatever book you request
> of us!
-------------
Wow! This is what I like...action!

I would start by taking a look at the math frameworks
http://www.cde.ca.gov/cdepress/math.pdf

The above doc was accessed as a subset of www.cde.ca.gov/cfir

There are more frameworks guides there.

Here's Science http://www.cde.ca.gov/cdepress/downloads.html

There's more.

Again, the best place to start is the high school curriculum because it's
easier to manage.


> My own thinking here is that the textbook project of the Wikimedia
> Foundation should focus on a single book or series of books that fit
> into the K-8 curriculum.
----------
I would encourage any author (or group of authors) that wants to take on the
K-8 curriculum to read the framworks first. They're more integrated, and
demanding, than K-12 material. However, in some ways, it would make sense to
see what came out of an open source effort for say 'language development'.
It's an all-encompassing, amorphous area that crosses over disciplines.
However, it's also just the sort of undertaking - if proven to be possible
in open source - that would open the door to serious consideration by
California and other states to go the open source route for textbook
provisioning.

> Interested parties should then write in accordance with the California
> state standards, supplemented by standards of other states where
> appropriate, and should also endeavor to obtain examples of competitor
> books as a "development target", i.e.  to meet or exceed the standard
> set by existing texts.
----------
Well put. Mostly, the publishers 'pay attention' to the curriculum
frameworks of three states - California, Florida, and Texas. Their hope is
that they will get one, or more of those three states, make their
cost-of-goods' break even, and sell to the other states (most of which are
followers, with a few exceptions) - that's where the profit is made.

> If we focus our efforts in this way, we should be able to produce
> something that could be printed in small quantities as an example, and
> then you could use that as a proof of concept for your lobbying
> efforts.
-----------
Absolutely; if you guys can pull that off, millions, maybe billions of other
people would be forever in your debt.(I'm not exaggerating this #, as there
is a great need for K-12 books/content  written in English for places like
China, India, etc.).

There are massive economies that can be wrought via open source for
educational materials. In the college and university (and technical
training) texbook sectors, there is already some impressive work going on
(e.g. O'Reilly), but nobody has taken on the biggest challenge of all, K-12.

There are many, many advantages to doing open source in the K-12 sector. Not
only could the best 'on-the-ground' teacher content be included, but some
books that are currently out of print might be gotten back into the content
stream for with various 'attribution' licenses.

Also as portable digital devices begin to insinuate themselves into the
classroom (this will happen in a big way withint the next 5-10 years), it
will be important to be able to stream content without making people paying
an arm and a leg. From experience, I can tell you that if one of the
commercial publishers has published an 'integrated' social studies book, ten
years hense, and there is a lot of supplementary material streamed from
their servers to the stdents and teachers, someone is going to have to pay
for that. Imagine a 10th-grader streaming the 'Preamble to the Consitittion
of the United States" from say, a Prentice-Hall server, and having her
school system have to anye up a micropayment for it. This is just one more
thing that open source in this sector will do - i.e. liberate content for
the good of all in education, and help technology live up to its promise of
'more, for less, for everyone'.

If you have time, read the attached summary. If you have questions, fire
away! If you require a voice conversation, send me your #, and we'll chat.

Sanford




> --Jimbo
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> Textbook-l at wikipedia.org
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