Open-Source Early Literacy Materials Gaining Some Attention

phooky writes "Although open teaching materials have been available at the university level for a while now, there have been very few materials for younger learners. That's beginning to change now with the advent of Free-Reading, a free, wiki-based resource for early literacy instruction. The availability of free materials could free up millions of dollars from school budgets for more teachers and training. From the USA Today article: 'Last fall, a Florida textbook adoption committee approved Free-Reading, a remediation program for primary-school children that's believed to be the first free, open-source reading program for K-12 public schools. It's awaiting approval by Eric Smith, the state's incoming education commissioner, who could approve it by mid-December. Florida is one of the top five textbook markets in the USA, so its move could lead to the development of other free materials that might someday challenge the dominance of a handful of big educational publishers.'"

Comments

it's about time

[Bota]

Kudos. this is great. I went to a small rural school where a lot of the teachers used a somewhat open sourced tact when creating yearly curriculums. that way all the differing classes could have some sort of continuity. and by using/re-using each other's work they took quite a load off of an overburdened group of people. now with this taking over perhaps the wiki style implementation will allow for a larger group of educators to have something of a similar system. the time and monetary savings could be put to some great projects that there was never time or finances for.

Re:Starfall

[mh1997]

Good for you! I seriously applaud anyone that takes the time to teach their children. Although not open source, we had a similar situation with our then 3 year old with hooked on phonics. It worked for her. She is in the first grade and reading at a 4th grade level.

Parental involvement is the key and I hope that you continue with your efforts.

Open-Source Textbooks

[RyoShin]

I've wondered about the potential for something like this- could you make "open source" textbooks?

The project linked seems to go a different way. My vision was such:

You would have a central company, not a charity, but not for-profit. It would do the things that textbook companies regularly do (or I hope they do), hire experts to write the text books, editors to check everything, a small publishing house, etc.

The difference is that it's all put online. It can be peer-reviewed by thousands, if not millions, and used by anyone. In order to make the company non-reliant on donations, it would be released under a custom license, one that allows reproduction of x pages at a time and unlimited but unedited online disbursal, while the company still sells the textbooks at cost.

The idea is that you would get a textbook that can be referenced by anyone, checked by anyone, and teachers can download updates and corrections without having to buy a whole new damn book. I don't know how well it would work in the long run, but I'd say it's a sight better than the current set up for text books in school.

Lies My Teacher Told Me

[MightyYar]

They should do this with history, too. History text books are terrible. Lies My Teacher Told Me makes a pretty good read.

Re:Starfall

[Anonymous Coward]

My 19 month old is in the habit of using a stick to transcribe slabs of Homer's Iliad onto the surface of his sandpit. I'm a bit worried about his development though as he keeps on getting the 'a' backwards in Iliad.

Seriously though my 19 month old just enjoys being outside and experiencing the world. My task is to not inhibit his sense of discovery by trying to shoehorn him into my completely corrupted view of what constitutes success and education in this world. The priority isn't to teach him to read but to teach him to love books along with the rest of life. There's plenty of time for formal education in his future. Once he goes to school he can learn his ABCs but not how fantastic it feels to roll in the mud.

Free == Open Source

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just a quirk of Slashdot that TFA spoke of "Free" educational material, but by the time the story made it here it was "Open Source?" Does it really matter if it is open source or built with 19 kinds of proprietary technology, as long as it is free? Free educational software is still "news for nerds, stuff that counts" even without the open source mantra.

Re:No Child's Behind Left

[mrbluze]

We'll soon have a law preventing free learning materials. I initially misinterpreted your comment by jumping to an idea - what if learning materials were not just free as in beer but free as in speech? If it meant that nobody needs a publisher to produce learning materials, then people with expertise everywhere would be able to publish their works with target audiences being children and teenagers, particularly in the field of history I could well see that being made illegal. No government wants its taxpayers to think any more than absolutely necessary.