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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.
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.
If you think that free textbooks for kids is what bankrupted Greece then you are being naive. This has been standard practice even before Greece joined the EU and is a direct follow-up of the Greek constitution. Oh, and you might want to look up on how this systems works in Greece before posting further comments.
For the record, I agree with you on taxes and spending. You just have to apply this concept to sections of the budget like "military spending" and "Olympics 2004". And don't get me started on corruption, bad management and the like...
free textbooks are the norm around europe. there was a recession when I was a kid and we had to use books that were used already, but still, before the highschool equivalent stage the state pays the books, which makes sense since you're required to get schooled anyhow.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Use Polish notation?
Then they can program with a Lisp.
Wouldn 't that be Polith nothathion?
I went to school in the United States and I don't remember ever having to pay for textbooks for grades K-12, either. You gave them back at the end of the term, so most classes handed out used books.
When I first saw this story, my initial reaction was, "Oh no, are they making elementary school kids pay for books somewhere?" I can just imagine what it would be like to teach a class in American schools where half the kids don't even have a copy of the book.
Breakfast served all day!
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 :-)
This Is Not a Sig
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)
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
Of course someone had to pay for them.
You think that providing an education for your citizenry is a burden on society?
Do you think it would it be more efficient to spend the money on prisons and welfare?
I can just imagine what it would be like to teach a class in American schools where half the kids don't even have a copy of the book.
no imagination necessary, just go to any inner city school. but that's not too bad, the teacher just ends up giving the textbooks to the half that can actually read.
this is just a placeholder till i send back my real sig from the future.
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?
* 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.