This weekend I had time to read a few of my technology magazines and I found a journal that sparked my interest. The Spring 08 Threshold magazine had several articles that talked about the future of education. I was increasingly engaged in the article that discussed open textbooks and courseware. I related to the challenge of moving from the dewey decimal system (printed, linear, time-limited) to google keywords (digital, changing, always available) in the current school settings. One issue in todays curriculum is relating real world applications and tools. (Try doing that with textbooks that are 5 years old!) With Web2.0, new ideas are transforming the classroom – including open source textbooks! Open source textbooks not only allow content to remain current, but also provide a wealth of resources to support deep learning for the learner.
The article goes on to state that, “It (movement) is happening so quickly that the way the brains of our children are conditioned to handle data is fundamentally different than in the past, and very different from the brains those currently responsible for formal education.”
Here are a couple of links from the article(s) that I suggest to look at if you want to learn more:
- http://www.curriki.org/
- http://en.wikiversity.org/
- http://ocwconsortium.org/
- http://www.learningcommons.org/
- http://fhsst.org
- http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page
What kind of real world application would students get out of their classrooms if they were able to collaborate with each other and write their own curriculum? This may be an “out of the box” thought, however, with the tools available today – it is possible!