I want to second everything that Jimmy Wales has said. I've spent the
last 5 years - as time permits - participating in this issue, and
dealing with it where the rubber meets the road - lobbying the
California State legislature, lobbying the very top ranks of
teacher's union executives, lobbying non-profits devoted to
publishing workable open source textbook solutions, etc. etc. Combine
that with 12 years in the for-profit academic textbook sector, and
attempting to establish a simple proof-of-concept K-12 project http://
www.opensourcetext.org on my own (which has been difficult, because
there has been a dearth of understanding of the *absolute*
requirements for strict adherence to state curriculum framework
standards, until very recently).
Finally, the meme that helps people who want to publish open source
for *public schools* in America has been successfully spread; that's
essentially been the first part of my long-standing personal goal in
all of this. A second, more market-oriented goal remains.
That said, it bears repeating that public K-12 schools in America
will generally adopt ONLY those books that have been peer reviewed at
the state level, and approved for having met each particular state's
individual curriculum requirements. (some states don't require
curriculum frameworks, but follow other state's standards - an issue
that relates to the private school scenario, mentioned below)
Whether any of us agree with what those curriculum requirements are,
is entirely beside the point - as regards the success of the open
source effort in K-12 public schools in America. (it's a somewhat
different story in other countries, but challenging in somewhat
similar ways).
If someone wants to write a non-standards-based approach to a K-12
subject for *private* schools, go right ahead. In doing so, be aware
that that open source book will NOT be adopted en masse, by any large
entity. It will be a one-at-a-time adoption, by one school at a time
(as by public schools in states without curriculum standards,
mentioned above)
The great irony here is that many people who participate in open
source content directed at public education are thinking not only of
the efficiencies and economies that can be brought to the public
education enterprise, they are also passionately concerned with the
quality of the K-12 enterprise. The latter impulse tends to drive
open source projects to the imagined ideal for a particular topic,
rather than following the strict adherence to curriculum framework
rules mentioned above - with the ultimate result that the work
doesn't get considered for large-scale adoption What results is
something that the schools won't use.
This is an irony because if we can simply find ways to play by the
framework rules to begin with, we will get books written, published,
and adopted, en masse. Once that's accomplished, it will provide an
opening into opportunities to impact curriculum with open source
curriculum materials. We don't want our passion for a better quality
of public education to be lost, or frittered away, simply because we
refuse to understand that there is a Trojan Horse strategy possible
in all of this - i.e. getting open source K-12 books written and
adopted in large numbers, and thereby earning credibility in the
system/network that forges the nature of curriculum, thus giving
ourselves the power to effectively impact that network in the long run.
A final note: Content is no longer the problem - we now understand
what the content rules are, and need only to have the will to execute
projects based on those rules. The forward challenges for open source
K-12 publishing are constraints in content filtering, actual print
publishing, and effective distribution. Thus, the California Open
Source Textbook Project will continue - as it has in the last year -
to alter its primary focus from one of proselytizing for content
construction in specific ways, to a focus on innovative means to
solving the latter group of problems just mentioned. Stay tuned.
Cheers,
Sanford
Sanford Forte, Director
California Open Source Textbook Project
Palo Alto, CA
http://www.opensourcetext.org
On Oct 23, 2006, at 7:32 PM, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Brianna Laugher wrote:
On 11/09/06, Andrew Whitworth
<wknight8111(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
Jimbo: If you want us to use a specific defintion
of "textbook" and
"accredited institution", then you are going to have to mandate such
definitions to us. At the moment we are picking our way through such
matters, with varying degrees of success.
It is my observation that TPTB is very reluctant to offer such
definitions or mandates, even when requested. "Picking our way
through
such matters with varying degrees of success" -- it seems to be the
wiki way. Try just making your own definitions (as a project), and I
guess you'll find out if you've been too WP:BOLD if you notice some
personal interventions after that. :)
It doesn't seem ideal, but I guess I can understand why they're
reluctant to define such things. Then the criticism of such things
also falls to them. The people who are actually running the project
should take control of its direction at some stage... although
mandates would make life so easy.
Brianna has hit the nail on the head. I believe firmly that the
communities are smarter than I am, that I should not be involved to
the
level of detail that Andrew is asking for, except in an advisory
capacity more or less like everyone else.
I think that the charter of *what we are looking for* is pretty clear.
Andrew hit the nail on the head when he talked about bogus
"accredited"
institutions teaching nonsense that we don't want, and about perfectly
good community centers teaching perfectly sensible stuff without
worrying about being accredited.
That doesn't mean that the "accredited institution" test is useless in
every respect, of course, and I am guessing that he would agree.
But it
does mean that we have to dig into more details.
Some of the main points that I think are important...
-- Wikibooks is something we can get very passionate about, but that
passionate vision is marred if we allow it to become a dumping ground
for stuff people don't want in Wikipedia, or a POV haven for
nonsense, etc.
-- Wikibooks has a serious possibility to get independent funding, so
long as it remains focussed on its serious mission of textbooks. Such
funding can be used to customize and improve the software for
wikibooks,
as well as to *purchase and liberate* textbook works that already
exist.
Suffice to say: we can get funding for Wikibooks to radically
change the
education world if potential funders come to the project and see a
serious project doing good work. We can not get funding for Wikibooks
if potential funders come to the project and look at it and see a
bunch
of nonsense that we did not have the pride to disallow (random crap
that
got pushed out of Wikipedia, for example).
Funders are eager to find solutions to important questions facing
education. They are not eager to fund videogame manuals and pokeman
trivia reference books.
-- Wikibooks needs to focus on actual courses because we passionately
care that our work *actually be used in education*. In order to get
textbooks adopted by real schools, they must meet curriculum
standards.
It is as simple as that.
-------------
I could go on, but I think you begin to see... there are some basic
standards and concepts, but really we need to work together
carefully as
a community to build detailed policies to implement these and other
natural and sensible guidelines.
A fair amount of that work is already done, of course, and it will
be a
long and ongoing process.
--Jimbo
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