Building Digital TextbooksOpen Source Content Management
Friday, March 2, 12
Today's Agenda• How The Mighty Have Fallen
• From Inaccessible to Accessible
• The Changing Model of Textbooks
• Open Source Software
• Creative Commons Resources
• iBooks Author
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Music Industry
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Newspaper Industry
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TV
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Airlines and Travel
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Cable
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A Brief History(Why do we print books?)
• "Keeping" Information
•Printing Information
•Transporting Information
•Value of Information
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The Gutenberg BibleNot Very Portable
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The "Pocket" BibleSignificantly More Portable
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According to the College Board
Students Spend an Average of $1,137.00 Per Year
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Elementary Textbook Spending$400,000,000
Per Year
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Why TextbooksAre Doomed
• Textbooks are finite, linear, and rote.
• It is NOT difficult to create and publish a book. Lulu, iPhoto and other services.
• Text and images are ridiculously cheap to transmit digitally.
• iBooks Author
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Textbook "Facts"• $600.00 per pupil spending on textbooks.
• Outdated once they are printed.
• Not necessarily written by experts and trusted scholars.
• Most librarians agree that reference books are most at risk in a digital world.
• 7 year review cycle.
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New Textbook Ideas• Textbooks are reference manuals.
• Massive "Brain-Trust" in teaching faculty.
• Subscription Model vs. Purchasing.
• Media rich, endless examples, always up to date.
• Flexbook and Open Textbook Initiative
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What is a CMS?• A content management system is software that
keeps track of every piece of content on your website.
• A major advantage of using a CMS is that it requires almost no technical skill or knowledge to manage.
• Runs on a SQL database.
• Backend functions on a cPanel, a Unix based web hosting control panel.
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Joomla!• Joomla is an award-winning
content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications.
• Joomla is an open source solution that is freely available to everyone.
• Joomla's roots go back to 2000 and has over 200,000 community users and contributors.
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Open Office
• Free MS Office Alternative
• Fully functional to develop content.
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Creative Commons Resources
• A new "copyleft license" aimed at flexible handling of copyright protection for all kinds of creative work.
• Attribution
• Share Alike
• Non-Commercial
• No Derivative Works
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Wiki Commons
• A project of the Wikimedia Foundation that is an online repository of free-use images, sound and other media files.
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/
• Our source for charts and diagrams.
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Moving Forward• eReaders, Kindles, ipads,
Nooks, Coming Tablets
• Costly $600.00 +
• Textbook reimbursement issues.
• It’s not Rocket Science. It’s just High School Chemistry.
• Recent Changes in NYS Textbook Spending Rules
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There’s a New GameIn Town
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Discussion&
Demonstration
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