I've often thought that textbooks would be a productive place to focus excess energy among software freedom types. The way I see it, there are at least three ways in which most technology professionals could effectively contribute:
- Content production and editing
- Improving the design and branding of open textbook purveyors
- Advocating for the adoption of open source textbooks in your local K-12 system and community colleges (especially the more cash-strapped ones)
I know of no organization that attempts to organize community efforts in these directions, though. If there is one, I'd love to know about it and get involved. If not, maybe it's an idea whose time has come.
I often suggest Wikimedia use their excess money not spent on Wikipedia itself to create low-cost or openly-licensed textbooks. If adopted by schools, students everywhere would save money on textbooks that were high quality. The collection would grow over time as both revenue and donations come in. They might also do something similar to Coursera. Textbooks just seemed like they'd be easier project with large, positive outcome. Plus, some could be updated rarely (eg 5 years) since the content doesn't change much.
There is something called Wikibooks, though I've only spent maybe half an hour reading a particular wikibook years ago and can't speak to overall quality:
Yeah but I wasnt impressed with the quality when I looked at them. Im talking about paying good writers and illustrators to do stuff students would actually want to buy. Then, price it affordably. Maybe even tiered with a default price plus discounts for smaller institutions.
- Content production and editing
- Improving the design and branding of open textbook purveyors
- Advocating for the adoption of open source textbooks in your local K-12 system and community colleges (especially the more cash-strapped ones)
I know of no organization that attempts to organize community efforts in these directions, though. If there is one, I'd love to know about it and get involved. If not, maybe it's an idea whose time has come.