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Polish Government To Deliver Free Textbooks For All Kids Grades 4-6
rekrutacja writes "Today the Polish government started a Digital School pilot program, which includes distributing e-textbooks. This came after a years-long effort by the Open Education Coalition and its members to persuade policy makers, that Open Educational Resources are the future of education. The last few months have been especially eventful, as the free textbooks part of the program was dropped by the Ministry of Education and reinstated again by the Prime Minister Office."
The India government is looking to deliver K-12 education to a half billion kids in the next decade, if they can get Android tablets at $40 each. I wish them luck. Right now the price point is $128 for a 7" tablet. The education is, of course, free - thanks to the diligent work of Michael Hart (may he rest in peace!)
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The article doesn't mention for which e-book reader the textbooks will be available. I hope this is not part of someone's marketing strategy...
Free textbooks in Europe is not new, however. E.g. the Greek state has been giving away dead-tree textbooks for all classes for free since decades now.
from the article (in Polish):
all these resources will be available under CC BY, which is compliant with the Definition of Free Cultural Works.
Payed with North-Western European taxes. Perhaps governments should only spend what they are prepared to collect in taxes. And a population should only expect for "free" what they are prepared for with taxes.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
having to use a small e-reader to read a textbook. Okay, maybe it's not so bad with certain subjects, but given mathbooks, I can't imagine having to view a small version of just one page.
What we need is an e-reader that is the dimension of some of the larger math textbooks, but dual screens. That is, connected via a "PATA-like" wire where it folds out like a book, but within a case. I can't describe it in words too well. Dual screens would be to view both pages at once, or two different pages, without loss of size.
These kids are going to be totally left behind by the daily innovations in basic math and Algebra with their static etexts. Why, quite often Algebra Science is stood on its ear by decisions of the courts. Just a few years ago Alabama sought to upset Euclid and legislate that Pi was exactly equal to three. There's no way these tablets can be kept current with modern jurisprudence.
And then there's the Hubble constant, which we all know gets edited every year to re-explain the observations.
Or maybe you could just not be such a freaking retard. The above text (in case you didn't know) is sarcasm. That I have to call that out makes me want to (not talk to) you all. You may insert into (not talk to) whatever remediation technologies you prefer, as long as they involve acid, ballistic weapons, or a freaking flamethrower.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Use Polish notation?
Then they can program with a Lisp.
For those that didn't follow the link (and perhaps the link poster), from the link:
Origins: This wonderful bit of creative writing began circulating on the Internet in April 1998. Written by Mark Boslough as an April Fool's parody on legislative and school board attacks on evolution in New Mexico, the author took real statements from New Mexican legislators and school board members supporting creationism and recast them into a fictional account detailing how Alabama legislators had passed a law calling for the value of pi to be set to the "Biblical value" of 3.0.
Whoosh. Nothin' but net.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
'Rekrutacja' guy is in reality Jarosaw Lipszyc, which is also author of wikipedia article about the subject, is mentioned as the guy proposing entire programme to the government and seems to be the 'owner' of the foundation itself. It is official 'charity' foundation registered in Poland, so it is eligible for 1% tax donation - and we still have till 30th of April to decide where 1% of our tax goes to.
April is month where charity organizations in Poland fight for their lives. While I applaud the idea of free text books for school, slashdot submission is not "Look, they have free text books in Poland", but rather "Give me your 1% of tax NOW". I don't like Slashvertisments which are not stating the interest of original poster clearly...
"The above text (in case you didn't know) is sarcasm."
What part of that got away from you?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Maybe someone from Poland or more familiar with the topic could expand a little on the content creation, as I found no information about this and surfing the net through google translate glasses is quite painful. What interests me (and maybe a few more ./ers) most is:
- Who is going to write the material? Is it going to be decided by a standard public purchase procedure?
- How about subsequent improvements? Is everything will be organised around central repository?
- Are there going to be different flavours of textbooks or only one set? How about a possibility for a school or anyone to alter the content? Is the source going to be published and tinker friendly, or not?
That I have to call that out makes me want to (not talk to) you all.
So you don't want to talke to me? Oh, wait... you just replied.
Seriously though, I took the sarcasm to be about the Hubble constant and not both statements. Either way, by now, your point has been well made.
Agreed... I think very few things actually change in the specific fields represented in the K-12 curriculum. As far as I can see, the only potential changes are (some) of the following:
I think you could take a full set of school books from 20 years ago and they'd be almost identical to the ones used today.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
No, you I might want to talk to. It's the rest of these idiots that bore me. I'm really tired of the /. astroturf brigade, and the defenders against such.
The Hubble constant. Let's start there. Share your thoughts. Myself, I think it's less a constant than a function, and we look at it as a constant because we have a limited temporal view.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Polish Government To Deliver Free Textbooks
Don't elementary schools provide free textbooks, not only in Poland, but pretty much the wold over?
"Polish Elementary Schools switching to e-books" would be more accurate.
Indiana Pi Bill was not fictional.
The Indiana Pi Bill is the popular name for bill #246 of the 1897 sitting of the Indiana General Assembly, one of the most famous attempts to establish scientific truth by legislative fiat. Despite that name, the main result claimed by the bill is a method to square the circle, rather than to establish a certain value for the mathematical constant (pi), the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. However, the bill does contain text that appears to dictate various incorrect values of , such as 3.2 (when 3.1 is closer, with = 3.14159265...).
The bill never became law, due to the intervention of a mathematics professor who happened to be present in the legislature
That is so true! I feel really bad because now you exposed all my dirty secrets. I lobbied governement all those years to accept this program exactly yesterday, because i want to advertise on Slashdot, and win all those 1% donations. I will use this money for champagne, caviar and orbital trips. I'm also a member of Majestic 12, and work for New World Order, for full disclosure :-)
That is so true! I feel really bad because now you exposed all my dirty secrets. I lobbied governement all those years to accept this program exactly yesterday, because i want to advertise on Slashdot, and win all those 1% donations. I will use this money for champagne, caviar and orbital trips. I'm also a member of Majestic 12, and work for New World Order, for full disclosure :-)
That is so true! I feel really bad because now you exposed all my dirty secrets. I lobbied governement all those years to accept this program exactly yesterday, because i want to advertise on Slashdot, and win all those 1% donations. I will use this money for champagne, caviar and orbital trips. I'm also a member of Majestic 12, and work for New World Order, for full disclosure :-)
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Will the textbooks be in Polish?
It's funny how you can predict the opinion of the masses before anyone has posted.
the whole "Lists and a comma before 'and' thing" - for example: it used to be "Jim, John, and Lisa" but apparently it is now supposed to be "Jim, John and Lisa" for... some reason.
As far as I know, English has no such "grammatical rule" - not only this seems to be more about orthography than about grammar, English also doesn't have a governing body the way that, e.g., French does. To claim that there are "rules for grammar" does not seem to make sense, then. And whatever "it is now supposed to be" is supposed to mean, the newest edition of CMoS (section 6.18) still recommends it, while other guides still don't recommend it. I.e., the new anarchy is the same as the old one.
Ezekiel 23:20
Towards the end of elementary school for me (so around 1999-2000), this was introduced by my teachers vis-a-vis their English department. It was never brought up in high school as far as I know. Yes, the "rules" for English grammar are very schizophrenic to say the least.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
There may actually be sound reasons to legislatively set Pi to a rounded constant. One that comes to mind: Many property lines are defined along a circular arc (mine is). Pi is arguably too precise for property law, lest people might argue about a tree impeding a nanometer over their property line. Rounding it would settle those disputes. Of course, such a ruling wouldn't be broadly desirable outside that particular niche... and there are other aspects of property law that attempt to address this, such as setbacks.
Changes to grammatical rules (the whole "Lists and a comma before 'and' thing" - for example: it used to be "Jim, John, and Lisa" but apparently it is now supposed to be "Jim, John and Lisa" for... some reason. I think it's idiotic as the first one better represents how one would actually say the sentence, though.)
Any such rule would be the style of a particular institution. There is no such rule of English grammar. Partly because ( as K. S. Kyosuke points out) because there's no legislative body for English, but that wouldn't be enough; it would still be considered wrong to, use' arbitrary~ punctuation! all` over [{] the place or fail to put a major stop at the end of a sentence
More significant is that there is absolutely no consensus over the Oxford comma. Some current style guides mandate it, some forbid it, and all of the respectable style guides add the qualification that you can break the "rule" to avoid ambiguity.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
"it used to be "Jim, John, and Lisa" but apparently it is now supposed to be "Jim, John and Lisa" for... some reason. I think it's idiotic as the first one better represents how one would actually say the sentence, though.)"
The second variant is also used in Russian (also Ukrainian) and German.
Pi is only needed in calculating the area and circumference, though; if your property is circular, you can simply measure the distance from the defined center point to determine if something is included, and pi isn't needed there at all. Thus, legislating a different value for pi for that purpose would be useless.
...kids are still using the same textbooks from the stone age.
Hey government? This is one of the (many) reasons we're falling behind the rest of the world.
...if you give it free early on.. it looses its importance.
history class should teach history, not legends
Indeed, teaching history and legends and how the two diverge is critical to an understanding of how to correctly read a religious text.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
My daughter, sixth grade, can get to a few of her textbooks online right now. It would be nice if they offered them in a non-proprietary format to load them on her Kindle. Sounds like the Polish Government is onto something here.
-- 4 8 15 16 23 42
Certainly someone has to pay for them, right?
0.01$ Socialism never works.
0.01$ Polish people I know are very unhappy about their government; they say it the worst one after communism was overthrown; they have also had a lot of bitter remarks about public education. (Actually some people in Poland are on hunger strike now protesting against the removal of history lessons.) So this "free" stuff looks like the goverment is trying to improve their PR.
* Changes to grammatical rules (the whole "Lists and a comma before 'and' thing" - for example: it used to be "Jim, John, and Lisa" but apparently it is now supposed to be "Jim, John and Lisa" for... some reason. I think it's idiotic as the first one better represents how one would actually say the sentence, though.)
It depends who you ask.
The second comma in your example is called the Oxford Comma, and made big news a while ago as Oxford was considering dropping it from their recommendations of style.
In the US, different standard manuals of style have different recommendations. The Chicago Manual, for instance, recommends using the Oxford comma, whereas the AP Manual does not. (Or maybe it's the other way around. It's been a while since I edited professionally.) I've always preferred it, though had been taught over 25 years ago that it's optional, as long as use (or non-use) is consistent throughout any particular document
Worry not, though, for the Oxford comma is still safe (at Oxford anyway). They decided to keep it.
My favorite comment defending it in the recent brouhaha was somebody's much-repeated post: "For teaching me that the Oxford comma resolves ambiguity, I'd like to thank my parents, Sinead O'Connor and the Pope.”
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
Indeed - not even on the name
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
They teach children in school that a predicate is just a verb. Apparently that is enough concept to achieve "Mastery" on a standardized test!
How would rounding Pi make the slightest fuck of a difference to your hypothetical case? If someone is going to be a dick and get upset over a nanometer (as if they could measure that), they would be a dick whatever the value of Pi is.
The problem is that without rules on how properties are divided, they can be defined in arbitrary ways. Vague definitions are cause for disputes. Overly precise definitions based on constants such Pi are also vague. With Pi, you must, practically, round. If your property is explicitly framed in the context of Pi and your neighbor plans bushes in your yard because he estimated Pi as 22/7... do you bring it to a judge and argue precision?
It is a silly thought experiment with few practical applications. I don't see why legislators would bother, unless they're bored on the hill, or there is a particularly generous landowner with thousands of acres of property with ill-defined boundaries.
There's the thing: your property isn't defined in terms of pi. If your property is defined in terms of a circle, or some segment of a circle, then it's defined in terms of a center point and a radius. *You never need to know the value of pi at all in order to determine whether or not something is on your property.* You only need to use pi if, for some reason, you need to know the perimeter or area or your property. It has nothing to do with defining what is and isn't part of your property. Thus, your neighbor can believe pi is equal to 673, and it won't affect his or her determination of where your property ends and his/hers begins, because that's a simple measurement from a point, and pi is never used in it.
Use a fucking calculator and don't round until you get your final figure, then you can round to the nearest millimeter which is likely to be far more precise than most people can measure on the scale properties are measured at, and you still having put forth a good case for even needing Pi in any of these calculations.