MyOER

"At the heart of the movement to open educational resources is the simple and powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good and that technology in general, and the World Wide Web in particular provide an opportunity for everyone to share, use and re-use it." Kathy Casserly & Mike Smith, Hewlett Foundation

This wiki collects many useful resources that provide a guide to use of Open Educational Resources in K-12 and higher education as it relates to **Textbooks** and its transformation to **Digital Learning Content**.

The use of OER materials is transforming teaching and learning. This site contains some insight into the changing nature of use of OER and its impact on the publishing sector and source materials in K12 education. Knowledge can be created and redistributed and this is where the digital archives has it's true potential. A textbook is out-dated when printed but digital formats can be re-purposed, remixed and retain it's impact on learning.

We are moving away from copying and distributing and moving towards "free" digital content. The Freemium business model is based on creating and sharing content by users. This value added component is what makes digital artifacts free, and thus can easily be distributed. This certainly goes against the current publishing business model, with a focus on copyright and protection of intellectual property. Copyright materials goes against the grain of the value of the an open, sharable marketplace, where anyone can create, publish, share. Copyright restricts usage in education and this shift is noticeable in both K12 and tertiary levels. OER on the other hand enables the opportunities the Internet provides for impacting all facets of learning.

This wiki brings some of these thoughts into clearer focus to highlight the changing nature of supply and demand for digital content into the learning environment. Lets begin to explore some of the sites, tools and resources as well as some blogs and articles that highlight the polarity between textbooks and digital learning content, using an OER lens as much as possible.

The UNESCO OER Toolkit is an invaluable tool that highlights many of the terminology, resources and characteristics related to OER. A more recent version of the Toolkit can be found in the wiki. A second valuable resource, The OER Handbook for Educators also contains a wide range of information on OER resources, however this version is a bit dated. Both of these sources are great starting points for research in to OER and textbook publishing. Another great resources, WikiEducator contains a list of free open elearning repositories, and many contain links for e-textbooks and finally there is the JISC site.


 * Why textbooks?**

How did the textbook become such a critical component in many of today's classrooms? Why is still such a critical piece to the classroom learning environment? When information was scarce, educators were looking for sources of information and a collection of material that provides a basis for instruction. External Subject Matter Experts (SME) were gathered to share their knowledge and place together their information into a bound edition. This then became the standard for instruction, a so called hierarchy of coherence or course outline for which teachers and student could reference. This was the source of information, the curriculum or learning content for readings, assignments and reference, and every number of years a new edition was printed which contained 'new material'. It was bound, in print, somewhat mobile even, and was the standard reference and even became the **'curriculum'** over many years, and was supplemented with assessment pieces that were closely linked with the bound editions.

However, the textbook served is purpose during the industrial revolution and agrarian days of developing the model of schooling. In today's learning environments and information ,knowledge age it not longer has the established meaning or purpose and thus the debate over the role of textbooks. Since the textbook was originally developed by SME outside the classroom, the source of knowledge or subject expertise, was copyrighted by the author or publishers, the textbook was unsuitable, unsharable, and copyright protected to avoid distribution.Thus schools and districts were to purchase this copyrighted artifact for each student and utilize this resources for years to become cost effective.


 * Why OER Textbooks?**

The open educational resources (OER) model, including textbooks, has emerged as a response to rising text prices, a need for greater access to high-quality learning materials, the proliferation of e-reader devices, and a trend in publishing toward electronic media. Many contend that educational resources should be open and that instructional models increasingly depend on open content. **Open textbooks can be offered by commercial publishers or found in open repositories. Open resources can promote active learning through student interaction with the text, particularly when they contribute to authorship.** Although open textbooks face questions about the accuracy and reliability of their content, they allow higher education instructors to design content for their courses on an as-needed basis, choosing from an array of books, articles, videos, audio recordings, and readings. (1 )

This is a nice video by David Wiley on OER textbooks.

@http://blog.oer.sbctc.edu/2011/02/education-without-limits-why-open.html


 * Changes in Educational Practice.**

The OER movement seems to be gaining more momentum since President Obama announced " Obama's goal: an e-textbook in every student's hand by 2017." there has been major traction toward this initiative in the last year. This has been followed up by an article in Education Week (03/08/2012) that suggests the conversation around textbooks and e-texts is heating up. More on recent debates, discussions and even legal battles are referenced on other pages in this wiki.

"The aforementioned U.S. Secretary announced plans to have digital textbooks in every classroom. But it must be questioned whether those digital textbooks actually transform learning for the better, or if they are simply digital re-creations of print textbooks—a mere form of spinal relief.”

A closer look at the partnership with Apple is under close scrutiny. Pearson, a leading education publisher unveiled the first releases under the partnership recently to mixed reactions. Many people stated that the new version is similar to the printed text with some moving parts. The content is pretty much the same, and the main difference is navigation.

Even with the announcement from Arne Duncan to place digital books in the schools in the near future there is a shadow of doubt if the movement will actually take hold. Under the terms prescribe it appears the cost if significant higher than traditional books. What is the value seems to have been missed. (9)

The State of Washington has formally introduced a [|Bill] that recognizes the value of OER materials in the State. The digest of the HB 2337 is as follows:

The opening section of the bill reads:
 * //“The legislature finds the state’s recent adoption of common core K-12 standards provides an opportunity to develop high-quality, openly licensed K-12 courseware that is aligned with these standards. By developing this library of openly licensed courseware and making it available to school districts free of charge, the state and school districts will be able to provide students with curricula and texts while substantially reducing the expenses that districts would otherwise incur in purchasing these materials. In addition, this library of openly licensed courseware will provide districts and students with a broader selection of materials, and materials that are more up-to-date.”//

This is just another example of the sweeping changes occurring in government and state levels recognition contribution of OER to education and learning.(5)

The state of California has also [|proposed legislation] SB 1052 and SB 1053 that could offer more affordable textbooks for higher education. These legislation are key to validating the use of Open Educational Resources as quality and value to learning environments and also allow greater user generated content (UGC) as viable alternatives to proprietary textbooks.

“Senate Bill 1052, in summary, “will require publishers to provide free copies of textbooks to campus libraries to be placed on reserve.”

“The second bill, SB 1053, will create the California Digital Open Source Library, which will serve as a source for digital textbooks.” (7)

This momentum is not only a North American venture.(3)

Brazil has a very interesting openness approach as outlined in the OER into federal legislation article. The bill deals with three main issues: It 1) requires government funded educational resources to be made widely available to the public under an open license, 2) clarifies that resources produced by public servants under his/her official capacities should be open educational resources (or otherwise released under an open access framework), and 3) urges the government to support open federated systems for the distribution and archiving of OER. (6)

There have been two recent meetings on the future of digital textbooks. The first which was hosted by Discovery Education brought together many current educators and consultants in the education sector and discussed the future of textbooks. Here are a few of the outcomes of these meetings and for more please visit this blog and the second and third posts as well.

The second meeting brought together a host of publishing companies, government agencies and tech companies in the and also looked at the future of digital; textbooks in education environments. The emergence of a thought stream suggests that these larger corporations to save an estimated $250 per year using digital textbooks. Although nothing is set the direction discussed was interesting " The participants talked about the idea of working together to develop low-cost, high-quality bundled solutions that include device, content, connectivity and technical support"(5)

Although I may be skeptical but in light of the two meetings I would bet on the first meeting to have greater impact then the hosted company sessions. These two groups cannot be more opposite in terms of business objectives and thus coming together to shave a mere $250 off the total cost of educating a child is more a meas of getting into the education business for income stream rather than a solution to solve a problem.


 * Textbooks or E-Texts?**

The growing nature is changing specifically with regards to textbooks and the use of textbooks.

This also has the potential for financial savings. But Cable suggests that we need to move towards a ‘**not invented here**’ to ‘**proudly borrowed from there**’ stance so that resources can be shared. Additionally there are general advantages for society if people have increased access to education; good quality curricula and affordable up-to-date ‘textbooks’, constantly maintained and with use of the latest technologies.(1)

So while we will continue to debate the future of textbooks lets look at the situation visually. This is a great starting point to the impact of digitizing resources in education. We are only seeing the tip if the iceberg, the real bulk lies within the clear cold waters beneath the surface.

If you wish to subscribe to more information on OER visit OER Blogs to gain insight into the use of OER as alternative digital content to textbooks. Additionally peek into sole free learning members.
 * More on OER**

And on a final note, we are witnessing a shift in the use of OER in education. The recent lawsuit by publishers against Boundless Learning highlights the significance of open content in education and the importance of challenges to publishers and protection of their IP. It does appear that this renewed interest in growth of OER is occurring at a faster than the growth of sales of digitized content, thus publishers take action. However, the threat may not be OER but a threat to the scarcity model of business, and the rapid proliferation of resources made available. Publishers need to find new ways of generating revenue, likely through subscriptions and services and perhaps digital content packages. As a result, and what is generally not contested is that textbooks as we know it has outlived it's place in digital learning circles.

The final word.. I am watching these two projects closely, the Floe project and Achieve as they build greater tools that assist the development and use of OER in learning environments.

1.[| http://squiremorley.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/open-policy-ioe12/] 2.[| https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/276] 3. [] 4. [|http://creativecommons.org/tag/open-textbooks] 5. [] 6. [|http://creativecommons.org/tag/open-textbooks] 7.<span class="wiki_link_ext"> [] 8.<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> [] <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">9. [| http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/marketplacek12/2012/03/live_from_sxswedu_a_deeper_look_at_pearsons_e-textbooks.html]
 * References**