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Aug
1
Will open source textbooks change education?
Filed Under economy, education, open source | 3 Comments
I remember paying a lot for textbooks when I was in school.
I also remember the high cost of text books mean using older text books when I attended school in New Jersey. When my family moved to Indiana, textbook costs meant paying book rental fees, even though the rest of a student’s elementary and secondary public education tuition cost was state financed by virtue of the Indiana Constitution.
It wasn’t uncommon to pay hundreds of dollars for textbooks when I was in college and law school — only to have them become almost worthless when it came time to sell them back at the end of the year. Some of it was the bookstores trying to maximize their profits — sell the books high, then buy them back for as little as they could, then resell them as used books for as high as the market would pay. It’s the American way.
Sometimes the books were made obsolete by new editions. This year’s text might have been reformatted or updated with new information making the older version less valuable, even though the core of the information remained valid and worthwhile for readers.
Some textbooks, such as mathematics and science texts, should seem to be the type of books that would retain their value because it is unlikely that major portions of the subject will change from year to year, but they are often republished as well.
But the internet might be changing this traditional publishing marketplace. Open source books are the future. Will open source textbooks — and publishers such as Curriki — catch on as students and schools seek ways to cut costs?
Writes the New York Time’s Ashlee Vance about a new effort to bring open source books to the public:
Over the last few years, groups nationwide have adopted the open-source mantra of the software world and started financing open-source books. Experts — often retired teachers or groups of teachers — write these books and allow anyone to distribute them in digital, printed or audio formats. Schools can rearrange the contents of the books to suit their needs and requirements.
But progress with these open-source texts has been slow.
The future is here.
But, will educational systems adopt open source textbooks?
Feb
1
Has Chicago Lost Its Economic Mojo?
Filed Under Chicago, economy | Leave a Comment
The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s Bill Testa asks if Chicago’s economy has lost its economic mojo.
Has the Chicago area lost its mojo? Given the poor economic conditions pervading so many regions of the United States, Chicagoans are not alone in asking whether their path of growth and development has gone off track.
H/T to Aaron M. Renn a/k/a The Urbanophile.
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