{"id":937,"date":"2012-01-26T14:47:06","date_gmt":"2012-01-26T21:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.k12opened.com\/blog\/?p=937"},"modified":"2012-01-26T14:48:54","modified_gmt":"2012-01-26T21:48:54","slug":"state-moves-to-open-textbooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.k12opened.com\/blog\/archives\/937","title":{"rendered":"State moves to open textbooks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This week <a href=\"http:\/\/opencontent.org\/blog\/archives\/2134\">Utah announced a major initiative to use open textbooks in K-12<\/a>, thanks to the efforts of Dr. David Wiley.<\/p>\n<p>This move is significant for a number of reasons.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>It saves money. <\/strong><br \/>\nThis isn&#8217;t trivial in these times of budget crisis and cutbacks. Less money spent on instructional materials can mean more money spent on teachers.<br \/>\nUtah&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/utahopentextbooks.org\/\">pilot program<\/a> has demonstrated the cost savings possible from the use of open textbooks.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Technology is optional.<\/strong><br \/>\nUtah&#8217;s pilot was based on printed textbooks. You don&#8217;t have to have one-to-one, or any technology for that matter, to realize the type of gains they&#8217;ve demonstrated. Of course, if you take high quality materials and expand their interactivity with technology, you&#8217;ll probably see even better results.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Learning outcomes are not adversely affected and could be improved<\/strong>.<br \/>\nUtah&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/utahopentextbooks.org\/\">pilot program<\/a> showed that simply substituting open textbooks for proprietary ones did not impact learning outcomes. Of course, many of us believe that giving teachers a greater ability to remix content to differentiate instruction can significantly improve instruction. Bottom line, though, it&#8217;s more about the teacher and the learning environment than the instructional materials.<\/li>\n<li><strong>State endorsement means a lot<\/strong>.<br \/>\nThere are many barriers to innovative instructional materials adoption. Bureaucratic procurement processes is one. Fear of trying anything different in these days of accountability is another. Utah bypassed a lot of this by not only supporting this project but by actively endorsing it, &#8220;encourag[ing] districts and schools throughout the state to consider adopting these textbooks for use beginning this fall.&#8221; Kudos to the state and all those who made this happen.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s time for more states to become active in encouraging the use of open textbooks and other open educational resources. It&#8217;s good for schools; it&#8217;s good for teachers; it&#8217;s good for kids; and it&#8217;s good for the public. Open licensing is a wise use of public funds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week Utah announced a major initiative to use open textbooks in K-12, thanks to the efforts of Dr. David Wiley. This move is significant for a number of reasons. It saves money. This isn&#8217;t trivial in these times of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[5,10,6,78],"class_list":["post-937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-oer","tag-open","tag-textbooks","tag-utah"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6mlV-f7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.k12opened.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.k12opened.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.k12opened.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.k12opened.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.k12opened.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.k12opened.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.k12opened.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.k12opened.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.k12opened.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}