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In Praise of Open Source Textbooks

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Re: In Praise of Open Source Textbooks

#31

Post by wrycoder »

anigbrowl wrote: post #15
dehrmann wrote: post #9

I have no idea how commercial textbooks for anything up to specialized, college-level classes are viable. You'd think that enough states (and countries) would put the work into the Wikibooks calculus book so it meets their standards and just use that.

In other countries textbooks are cheap because (as you say) the subject matter is more or less agreed-upon so there are just a few different textbooks largely distinguished by the quality of the writing and presentation. In the US students are treated as a captive audience and publishers work hard to get professors and education authorities to specify particular books, which are then sold at a very high mark-up. The…

And they make sure to publish new editions with relatively minor changes every few years. Then they sell a Chem 101 text for $175. It's like the price is inverse to the number of readers.

Re: In Praise of Open Source Textbooks

#32

Post by TchoBeer »

WalterBright wrote: post #29
pgalvin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is laughable to suggest that history does not change. Even studying history at the equivalent of high school had me comparing secondary sources from the 1960s, to the 1990s, to just a couple years prior. History, or rather our interpretation of it, is constantly evolving. I expect it is the same for most of the humanities.

> is constantly evolving Being an amateur historian myself, most of that smacks of political fashion. The (very) shallow view of history taught by K-12 doesn't need to change. The War of 1812 hasn't moved to 1814 yet. Hitler still lost WW2. Edison still invented the first practical lightbulb, despite all the attempts to dethrone him :-)

The war of 1812 ended in 1815

Re: In Praise of Open Source Textbooks

#33

Post by WalterBright »

detaro wrote: post #22
WalterBright wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it, either. I laugh when schools complain their textbooks are "old and outdated". So what? Has there been a revolution in algebra I didn't hear about? I also laugh when teachers say they expend all this effort making "lesson plans". There are 3.7 million teachers just in the U.S. You'd think they could share them?

Not all subjects have the luxury of being so isolated from changes in the real world.

I kept nearly all of my textbooks from college 40 years ago. None of them are outdated. They still fetch high prices used on Amazon.

Re: In Praise of Open Source Textbooks

#34

Post by WalterBright »

TchoBeer wrote: post #32
WalterBright wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is constantly evolving Being an amateur historian myself, most of that smacks of political fashion. The (very) shallow view of history taught by K-12 doesn't need to change. The War of 1812 hasn't moved to 1814 yet. Hitler still lost WW2. Edison still invented the first practical lightbulb, despite all the attempts to dethrone him :-)

The war of 1812 ended in 1815

Things are usually named by when they start, not end.

Re: In Praise of Open Source Textbooks

#35

Post by nicoburns »

anigbrowl wrote: post #15
dehrmann wrote: post #9

I have no idea how commercial textbooks for anything up to specialized, college-level classes are viable. You'd think that enough states (and countries) would put the work into the Wikibooks calculus book so it meets their standards and just use that.

In other countries textbooks are cheap because (as you say) the subject matter is more or less agreed-upon so there are just a few different textbooks largely distinguished by the quality of the writing and presentation. In the US students are treated as a captive audience and publishers work hard to get professors and education authorities to specify particular books, which are then sold at a very high mark-up. The…

Yeah. I'm not quite sure how it works in the US, but here in the UK we have strong student unions that often have a good relationship with the university whose students they represent. I think any professor attempting this would get shut down pretty quickly.

Re: In Praise of Open Source Textbooks

#36

Post by detaro »

WalterBright wrote: post #24
detaro wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all subjects have the luxury of being so isolated from changes in the real world.

Let's see. Science? Nope. History? Nope. Exercise? Nope. Reading? Nope. Writing? Nope. Foreign languages? Nope. Current events? Yup. Just bring a newspaper to class.

> History?

Modern perspective on it is constantly evolving, especially on more recent bits, and there's plenty topics I'd rather have my kids being taught with a perspective from this century (E.g. to take my local German perspective, events surrounding WW2 and post-war development). Also, plenty things that happened while you were alive are History now. (remember, kids finishing high school now weren't born when 9/11 happened)

> Reading? Nope. Writing? Nope. Foreign languages? Nope.

Languages: Languages change (German literally added a letter in the past decade, new words are created, how people speak changes, ...). Language studies tend to be steeped in cultural aspects too, both for native and foreign languages (e.g. media literacy should probably cover internet material differently than it did when I was in high school, explaining the US media landscape in the English books probably also should look differently now). Being somewhat up-to-date with topics also helps students being interested.

> Science?

More stable, but also not frozen. Especially in biology and with medical topics you'll have changes, but other sciences too especially where discussing applications, but that's not as critical.

Some more examples:

Geography: If you'd given me 10 years old material in my first geography lessons even which country the lesson took place in would have been wrong.

Any kind of thing that deals with law/demographics/economics/politics (how exactly that's divided up into different subjects very much depends on where you are, it often comes up in material for other subjects) will benefit from regular review and updates.

A textbook being outdated doesn't mean the entire thing is useless now, often its just small sections that will stand out badly if not updated.

Re: In Praise of Open Source Textbooks

#38

Post by gnicholas »

FYI, if you are a student with a 'qualifying print disability' (which includes visual impairment, dyslexia, and other learning disabilities), you may be able to get free access to hundreds of thousands of books/textbooks via Bookshare. [1]

They get digital versions of books from the publishers and make them accessible to people with print disabilities. This means adding image descriptions and offering various text alterations (different text sizes, special fonts and colors, etc.) to make them easier to read. They also offer math-based tools to make equations accessible.

Bookshare is 100% free to any US-based student who qualifies, and various other countries have agreements with Bookshare as well. They are part of the tech-for-good nonprofit Benetech and are based out of Palo Alto.

1: http://www.bookshare.org.

Re: In Praise of Open Source Textbooks

#39

Post by WalterBright »

detaro wrote: post #36
WalterBright wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's see. Science? Nope. History? Nope. Exercise? Nope. Reading? Nope. Writing? Nope. Foreign languages? Nope. Current events? Yup. Just bring a newspaper to class.

> History? Modern perspective on it is constantly evolving, especially on more recent bits, and there's plenty topics I'd rather have my kids being taught with a perspective from this century (E.g. to take my local German perspective, events surrounding WW2 and post-war development). Also, plenty things that happened while you were alive are History now. (remember, kids finishing high school now weren't born when 9/1…

For small sections, a pamphlet supplement would be all that's necessary, if that. The teacher can just say "that sentence is outdated, today we're pretty sure the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid."

Re: In Praise of Open Source Textbooks

#40

Post by burkaman »

WalterBright wrote: post #20
dehrmann wrote: post #9

I have no idea how commercial textbooks for anything up to specialized, college-level classes are viable. You'd think that enough states (and countries) would put the work into the Wikibooks calculus book so it meets their standards and just use that.

I don't get it, either. I laugh when schools complain their textbooks are "old and outdated". So what? Has there been a revolution in algebra I didn't hear about? I also laugh when teachers say they expend all this effort making "lesson plans". There are 3.7 million teachers just in the U.S. You'd think they could share them?

Have you ever talked to any of these people you're laughing at? Maybe there is some nuance or background you're not aware of.

I'm not a teacher, but I think often when they talk about old textbooks, the issue is that they are physically falling apart, not just that they were published a long time ago. These books are in continuous use by children, so you can't compare it to a book you've had on your shelf for 40 years. As for lesson plans, most teachers don't have the luxury to just pick a plan they think is best. Every state, district, individual school might have its own rules about what can and must be taught, and teachers often aren't given much say in that.

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