Comments on: Open textbooks to the rescue

By: jas

jas — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 01:55:08 +0000

Theoretically, something similar in the US …
“Former Sun chief Scott McNealy’s better idea for school textbooks”
http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_15902614?nclick_check=1
The real problems in the US are not so much technical (i.e., technical implementation) but entrenched special interests — the textbook publishers — who draw on the same playbook as Big Pharma to make sure prices in the US are 3-4X what they are elsewhere. Unfortunately, politicians and “educators” (euphemism for teachers union) are all too willing co-conspirators and are rewarded as such. Hopefully systemic corruption is not the main problem SA faces.

By: elizabeth

elizabeth — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:29:30 +0000

I am interested to help with the English text books but not sure how to proceed…

By: Parag Shah

Parag Shah — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 09:44:38 +0000

This is a wonderful initiative. Recently I started an experiment where I am trying to do a masters in Computer Science, using open courseware and social learning. It will be wonderful if this can be complemented with open text books as well.

By: Volunteers Needed: Open Textbooks to Aid in South Africa | t-square

Volunteers Needed: Open Textbooks to Aid in South Africa | t-square — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:41:33 +0000

[...] a complete redesign and reorganization of t-square. On top of this, Mark Shuttleworth has posted an urgent request on his blog, asking for scientists and mathematicians to volunteer for editing of open-content science and [...]

By: Dinda

Dinda — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 01:13:43 +0000

I believe someone from the Flossmanuals.net group, Adam Hyde or Edward Cherlin, already contacted this group. But I wanted to add information about flossmanuals.net and now booki.org and the Book Sprint model that does exactly this kind of work. Adam has run several successful one week and even weekend book sprint events and now the Booki project is an open source collaborative platform for hosting these type of events and creating books. Furthermore participants can be both local and remote. The OLPC group, Inkscape and lots of other groups developed some great resources using this model.

It’s a valid model that deserves attention and support.

By: Alexander

Alexander — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:05:17 +0000

Wonderlik om te hoor dat daar sal ook skoolboeke in die lewende taal wees…

Count me in. I’ll do my bit!

By: Barbie

Barbie — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:44:38 +0000

GR8 Crises Management again in South Africa!! Where is the Governments long term plan for education?

By: Andre Jacobs

Andre Jacobs — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:50:12 +0000

Related to “open” education, check out the Khan Academy http://www.khanacademy.org/
This guy has made over 1800 videos on a variety of subjects, from basic maths to linear algebra, calculus, chemistry, history, physics, business and the list keeps growing.

Some people started distributing it off line in countries like Kenya etc.

Would be really nice if One Laptop Per Child started giving out more laptops in South Africa (seriously giving canada over 100,000 and SA only about 5000 is just wrong).

By: mandy sauls

mandy sauls — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 07:16:47 +0000

wot must i do?

By: Linux Rants » Blog Archive » Interesting Linux News for the Day – August 26, 2010

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 01:34:46 +0000

[...] Open textbooks to the rescue [...]