Posted by mathieso on August 31, 2011 at 3:30pm
This page...
http://coredogs.com/article/textbook-writer-tools-writing-active-textbooks
... describes a tool for writing online textbooks. The textbooks:
- Embody best practices from learning science.
- Can be written and sold by individuals and small groups, without needing a publishing company.
Kieran
Comments
Is the code open? I want to
Is the code open? I want to develop something like that.....
The code is messy. I'm
The code is messy. I'm looking for a grant now to hire someone to rewrite the modules, and release as open source.
Do you have a project in mind?
Kieran
Kieran Mathieson
kieran@dolfinity.com
In your article you wrote
In your article you wrote "Ideally, I'd get a grant to hire Acquia, Lullabot, or another leading Drupal company to create production-ready modules. The modules would be contributed to the Drupal community, for anyone to use."
Did you know about the Drupal community cultivation grant?
https://association.drupal.org/grants
Thnx, yes, I know about those
Thnx, yes, I know about those grants. This is not about a community per se, not yet, but a product. I'm trying for a grant of $1/2 mill+, to create high-quality products, and then build a community around them. A community of authors, professors, teachers, and education researchers.
Kieran Mathieson
kieran@dolfinity.com
Working on something similar
We do a fair amount of open content work, and are currently working on a D7 version. We're doing this on our own time, but it's something we are committed to getting out for many of the reasons you lay out at http://coredogs.com/article/textbook-writer-tools-writing-active-textbooks
This post from last January shows a screencast from a proof of concept site we built out: http://funnymonkey.com/open-content-where-you-want-it We've since made some conceptual shifts
These notes from a presentation I've given a few times also give some additional background: http://funnymonkey.com/notes-on-crowdsourcing-the-death-of-the-textbook
FunnyMonkey
Cool project. What I am
Cool project.
What I am trying to do is different. I'm not interested in open content per se. That's not the goal.
The goal is to help people create effective online textbooks for flipped courses. "Effective" means that the textbooks help students learn skills, better than other approaches to skills courses.
How to make a textbook effective? By using lessons from learning science research. Esp. about:
Most textbook authors don't know what these terms mean, let alone how to implement them in a book. They don't study learning science. That's like trying to write software without studying programming. It's hard to get consistent quality.
If you want, you can read a story - A Tale of Two Students - about my goals. It's at http://tinyurl.com/6g3u8jt. It shows how principles like frequent formative feedback are realized in software.
From a learning science point of view, most textbooks suck. Tornado-in-Kansas-drop-a-house-on-a-witch suck. If you look at the story linked above, you'll see a different approach that - I hope - sucks less.
Kieran
Kieran Mathieson
kieran@dolfinity.com
Grant or Hire
I am researching to contract for the development of modules that are key to our outfit. I want them then to be distributed freely. I need the SCORM package finished and interacting with a grade book and LMS. I also would like a math editor refined as a fluid plugin for WYSIWYG.
What else do we need? I find input from others reminds me of gaps in our offering.
Tess