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CK-12's Murugan Pal to Contribute to
California Digital Textbook Initiative's Technology Committee
CK-12
Foundation has been highly involved in California's Digital Textbook Initiative
since its launch in May of 2009, and currently has nine standards-aligned
titles available, for free, to schools throughout the state. California's Secretary of Education Bonnie
Reiss and her team are seeking to expand the program, which aims to ensure
California's students have access to high-quality, cost-effective instructional
materials.
The development
of an advanced technology infrastructure is critical to a successful expansion
of the Digital Textbook Initiative. To get that development process jumpstarted
Bonnie Reiss has created a sub-working group to address relevant technology
issues. CK-12 co-founder Murugan Pal has been invited to participate in this
group, which is charged with making recommendations addressing a variety of
areas, including the creation of a consistent format and "home" for the books
to be shared by all participating digital publishers. Other participants in this technology
sub-working group include school district superintendents, publishers and
technology experts.
CK-12 will
provide updates on the findings of this group in this newsletter as its work
progresses.
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James Dann - Physics
FlexBook on You Tube
James Dann, physics teacher at The Menlo School in Menlo
Park, California, and author of The People's Physics
FlexBook,
is a dedicated teacher devoted to best practices in open-source content. Check out the remarkable knowledge that he
imparts in a passionate and engaging manner on some great You Tube videos. The videos, some of which feature his
students, serve as a valuable supplemental resource to the educational text and
cover an array of topics ranging from "The Physics of a YoYo" and "The Physics
of Walking," to "Fun with Lightbulbs" and "Newton's Third Law." Check out a sample below on "Angular
Momentum."
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Teacher Quote
"The CK-12 Chemistry book I
used was vastly superior to the Holt Chemistry book I have been using. It was easier for students to read, it was
more enriched. I attribute this to the
skill of the author(s). It does not
appear to have been written by a committee to meet state standards, but written
by experienced teachers with a passion for teaching and a love of the subject
matter."
Bill Hunt, science teacher at the Big Pine High
School/Middle School in Sierra Nevada, California, in an email sent to the
California Department of Education
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In the News
Noted media outlet names
Neeru Khosla one of the most influential people affecting the advancement of
technology in education today
As part of Tech
& Learning's 30th anniversary celebration, the editors are
compiling a compendium of the most influential people affecting the
advancement of technology in education. Their second group of honorees reflects
today's leaders who are changing the landscape of edtech through innovation and
vision. CK-12 Co-Founder and Executive Director Neeru Khosla was recognized, along with U.S. Secretary of Education
Arne Duncan and Roberto J. Rodriguez, currently serving on the White House
Domestic Policy Council as special assistant to President Obama for education,
among others.
http://www.techlearning.com/article/30350
Future of Education - July 14, 2010
Neeru Khosla Shares FlexBook Mission with
the Future of Education
http://www.learncentral.org/event/84915
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New
FlexBooks Coming This Fall
New Math Titles
CK-12 Middle School Math - Grade 6
CK-12 Middle School Math - Grade 7
CK-12 Basic Algebra
CK-12 Basic Geometry
CK-12 Basic Probability and Statistics -
A Full Course
CK-12 Algebra I - Second Edition
CK-12 Geometry - Second Edition
CK-12 Advanced Probability and Statistics
- Second Edition
New Science Titles
CK-12 Earth Science - Middle School
CK-12 Earth Science - High School
CK-12 Life Science - Middle School
CK-12 Biology I
CK-12 Chemistry - Second Edition
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Check it Out
FlexBooks are now available in ePub and iPad formats. Check out the titles and how to download them
at http://www.ck12.org/flexr/browse/epub/
FlexBook
titles are now aligned with the standards of 7 states: California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Oregon, Texas and Utah. View the correlations: http://about.ck12.org/standards
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Notes from Neeru
After much consideration we at CK-12 Foundation have decided
to update our content licensing type from Creative Commons
By-Attribution-Share-Alike to Creative Commons
By-Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share-Alike (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/).
We made this move after much deliberation, taking into
consideration the many aspects of our work and the people involved in what we
do.
For example, donors have been asking CK-12 to rethink our
license because they were not comfortable with the fact that anyone could use
their content for commercial purposes. Some
of our content users have been requesting us to our make license interoperable
with university initiatives like MIT's Open Courseware. Also, many commercial entities have been
approaching us to partner with them for our content but they are not interested
in helping us sustain our mission.
After seeing how well the new license works for other Open
Educational Resources (OER) consortia like MIT's Open Courseware (http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm) and
Carnegie Mellon University's Open Learning Initiative (http://oli.web.cmu.edu/openlearning/),
we felt taking this same approach was appropriate and more beneficial to our
donors and content users. These entities
are still "open" and represent the sharing spirit. We feel that we can now better protect the
hard work of our donors and give them the security of knowing that commercialization
is not taken without our permission.
This change in license does not affect how you enjoy and use
our content. You may do so with the same
freedom to share and change to your requirements as you see fit. The only difference now is that we ask you to
approach us before you make any decision to commercialize our content.
We understand that you may have questions and hope you will
contact us with any concerns at info@ck12.org.
We appreciate your support of CK-12 and hope that you'll forward
this newsletter on to any of your contacts who may share your interest in the
digital textbook movement.
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