Virginia Begins Open-Source Physics Textbook 226
eldavojohn writes "The Commonwealth of Virginia has issued a request for contributions to an open source physics textbook (or 'flexbook' they termed it). They are partnering with CK-12 to make this educational textbook under the Creative Commons by Attribution Share-Alike license."
Forget textbooks - we need great teachers! (Score:1, Interesting)
I wish my kids could be in a class where
they measure the speed of sound with a microphone and oscilloscope. [ted.com]
How do we get more people like this to teach 8th grade (and high school) physics?
Light and Matter (Score:5, Interesting)
Go to Light and Matter [lightandmatter.com] for a high quality book set about physics.
By the way, CK-12,org already has one [ck12.org].
Sounds Interesting (Score:2, Interesting)
The thing to keep in mind is that this is their first step; the "flexbook," in its first form isn't going to replace the printed textbooks. After all, they want version 1 to be released on Feb. 27, 2009.
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Yeah, I RTFA.
I've written about this (Score:2, Interesting)
http://harns.blogspot.com/2008/07/so-obvious-and-yet-so-not-done.html [blogspot.com]
I'm split between Optimism and Pessimism... (Score:2, Interesting)
The battle has not yet begun...
Re:OSS Textbooks kick serious... (Score:3, Interesting)
You'd be right, except for one thing.
State requires only certain textbooks for the upcoming year, and typically textbook requirements change enough each year, often in spite of the fact that there is nothing that really changed in the textbooks year to year.
The whole Textbook issue is a HUGE issue for students and school districts, as the state LIMITS what is allowed. The political cronies and educational illites (sic) in charge are lining their pockets by requiring pointless changes.
I saw one ridiculous example where a mathbook was tossed out because one of the questions made a reference to "snow" in one of the word problems. Someone complained that it was discriminatory to inner city students who have never seen snow.
Mind you, snow had nothing to do with the actual question, other than being a description of condition (skier I believe) of weather. Insane!
Re:accreditation? (Score:2, Interesting)
I fail to see how making something "open source" will prevent it from being accredited. It may cost money, but the FOSS world has raised money before, while having their primary product remain open source.
Re:Web 2.0 as a force for good (Score:3, Interesting)
We're trying to do just this sort of thing with the intelligent book [theintelligentbook.com], but not just with examples but also exercises that actively help you work through them. (The demo at that link should come live next week, though in a pre-alpha state for an early publicity event.)
Essentially, it's me gradually turning my PhD thesis [cam.ac.uk] from a PhD into a publically available tool, and for all subjects, not just maths.
I guess that makes this post a shameless plug, but it is at least for something that is directly on-topic.
Umm, yeah (Score:5, Interesting)
Having lived in Lynchburg for a number of years, there are plenty of folks there who would demand removal of all sorts of things such as the true age of the universe if they had any input at all into the process. If instead it was written by experts, they'd be complaining to their representative about the state spending money on teaching atheism.
Re:others already exist (Score:4, Interesting)
A lot of high-level college textbooks have chapters written by different people. Typically by experts in the subjects covered in those chapters. This is why high-level textbooks are referred to by the names of their editors, not so much the authors.
So, I'm not sure if there is any particular drawback to distributing authorsip for an "open" textbook.
What I do like (other than the creative commons-style licensing) is that it seems there will be much greater oppportunity for community editing. This, if done properly, could result in greater readability and usefulness of the text.
Re:OSS Textbooks kick serious... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Calculus, or no-calculus? (Score:2, Interesting)
Not to mention that college level calc may well taught in an arena type hall with 250 students, by a TA or a professor who most likely is going to find such "elementary" math beneath him or her.
Getting calc "out of the way" (at a community college level, in a class of mostly highschoolers who wanted the credit) was the best thing I ever did.
Re:Hell Yes (Score:3, Interesting)
I would prefer they used Sears and Zemansky College version, but am afraid that schools couldn't afford it.
Gee, why not? It's only $150 (workbook $25 extra).
Of course, that's the 12th edition. You can get the 11th or 10th edition online for less than five bucks plus shipping. The 10th edition is only 8 years old. Has freshman physics changed that much in 8 years?
Re:Hell Yes (Score:2, Interesting)
numbers->addition->subtraction-> and so forth
What I find nice regarding how they're doing it is they bundle video explanations for each step. It allows you to monitor your progress and has multiple exercises with clues that only appear when you get a incorrect answer. I look forward to seeing other websites use a similar method for different subjects. I still don't understand why I can't find a website on any subject matter that begins with the 1st step in that subject and works its way up to the cutting edge of it's field.
I'm not complaining about the lack of resources on the internet. I do eventually find the information I'm looking for; however with open books this might be a lot easier. I'd love to see open books as stated above that go from preschool to university level. It doesn't mean it all has to be in one book and revised. So much like Wikipedia allows anyone to edit articles; so the books could allow anyone to edit them and be up for peer review. Just food for thought
I have no association with the Khan Academy other than having used its resources. Keep up the great work and thank you!
Re:It's been done. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure I'd quite agree with that. I learned physics a decade or two after the PSSC era, and now teach physics. I agree that the PSSC books were of unusually high quality. However, they didn't go out of print. I believe Kendall-Hunt was bringing out new editions until very recently. A quick search on amazon turned up a 1995 edition by Houghton Mifflin. (Did Houghton Mifflin buy Kendall-Hunt or something?) I think the publishers customized the book with their own proprietary content as well. If you compare a Kendall-Hunt PSSC Physics book from the 1990's with one of the original ones from the 1960's, you might not even recognize them as the same book. I've heard a variety of reasons suggested as to why PSSC wasn't a smashing success. Arnold Arons (author of a well known book on physics pedagogy) thinks one factor was that the book made heavy use of reasoning involving ratios and proportionalities, which is difficult for many students, isn't taught in the K-12 math curriculum, and is something that even many high school physics teachers aren't comfortable doing. Another factor was almost certainly the unusual order of topics. The original PSSC text started with waves, and only got to Newton's laws many chapters later. If you look at the versions from 30 years later, I believe they all use a more traditional order of topics.
Re:Pay better salaries (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh...you voted for the guy that supports the teachers unions. I won't knock teachers, but teachers unions exist to get teachers the highest salaries possible while doing the least amount of work. And at that they are tremendously successful.