Open Source Education and Digtial Textbooks

As a teacher of Multimedia, naturally, I am an advocate for open source software and content. In fact, I can say that this technology is vital to my curriculum! I teach students skills that allow them to create many types of digital media in various contexts. My students learn skills from editing digital images, to editing sound files. I am fascinated with what I teach and I enjoy doing it. However, teaching multimedia presents a number of challenges as well. The field of Multimedia is so dynamic and is constantly changing. I really have to stay on top of things if my students are to benefit from my curriculum. Keeping up with the demands of the computer and software technology is alone, a daunting task. To throw textbooks into the equation just complicates matters even more. I don't even buy textbooks for my classroom, for the simple fact that a year later, they are likely to be outdated. For example, we use Adobe Creative Suite 3 (CS3), which contains a number of software applications used to develop digital media. Less than a year after this software package was released, Adobe introduced CS4. CS4 is now the "latest and the greatest," and had I purchased text books for CS3, those textbooks would technically be out of date. Even though CS4 has been released, I am still teaching CS3 due to the fact that some of the applications require a 64-bit computer whereas my computers are only 32-bit. My point here is that, if I am to give my students the best educational experience that I can, it is vital that I have the most updated learning and teaching resources, and I think that any teacher can say this about their subject areas as well.

In preparation to writing this blog, I read two articles about how Governor Schwarzenegger is sponsoring an initiative to replace all paper text books with digital textbooks. According to the article traditional print textbooks are usually approved by states on a six-year cycle (Hurst, 2009). In other words, students have new textbooks in their hands every six years. Think about how much can change in six years! Governor Schwarzenegger is quoted as saying, "So just think about the last six years, all the things that happened. For instance, the Iraq war, the country's first African-American president … all of this you wouldn't have in those textbooks” (Farrell, 2009). I am in complete agreement with Schwarzenegger on this issue and impressed with his lofty initiative. Michael B. Farrell, staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor (2009) poses the question: In the era of the Internet, do students really need to lug around pounds of often-outdated print? My answer, “absolutely not!”
 

Not only do open source textbooks provide students with up-to-date information, in the long run, they can be much more cost effective than traditional textbook. Farrell also points out that while not all open-source books are free; they usually have more lenient copyright licenses than do print textbooks – or digital books provided by mainstream publishers. Educators can download and distribute them at will without facing additional costs. Typically, the cost of producing the text is offset by foundations or private donations.
There are obviously some drawbacks to adopting this type of learning technology. In Linda Hurst’s article (2009) she quotes Ryan Paul, a California based technology writer. Paul points out that there are many students who don’t have access to a computer at home, which would make it difficult for students to complete homework. Also, many questions are raised as to what type of device students would use to access their digital Textbooks. Would they use a laptop, desktop computer, or even smaller devices like an iPod touch or Kindle? How do you get one of these devices into every students hand without it being costly for the school and the student? Once you get these into the students’ hands, who will provide the technical support, and what happens if a student loses or breaks their device?
This is a topic of debate, with good points on both sides. However, the idea of having digital open source textbooks in schools is something that should be given a good look at, even if it is still years down the road before it can become reality.

Farrell, M. (2009, June 11). Schwarznegger’s push for digital textbooks. The Christian Science Monitor.
   Retrieved from http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0611/p02s14-usgn.html

Hurst, L. (2009, June 13). Gov. Schwarznegger terminates textbooks. The Star.
  Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/650231