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• Outdated once they are printed.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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