Texts
Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
There’s a new term you should add to your vocabulary. It’s ‘flexbooks’ and a Kansas State University assistant professor is hoping they change the way you teach. Click here to view an actual flexbook used at Kansas State University.
KSU Professor Developing ‘Flexbooks,’ The Textbook Of The Future
Open source textbook publisher projects $1M in savings
OpenStax has been well received on college campuses as textbook prices remain stubbornly high By Dennis Carter, Assistant Editor Read more by Denny Carter Educators at 55 colleges will use OpenStax books this fall. College students in some of the most heavily attended courses in the country will eclipse $1 million in textbook savings after a Rice University-based publisher had 13,000 open-source books downloaded since June. OpenStax College, a start-up online textbook publisher launched early this year, announced Aug. 14 that its first two book titles, College Physics and Introduction to Sociology , have sold more than 13,000 free copies – enough to save students $1 million during the upcoming fall semester.When the governors of the nation's two most populous states bang the drum for schools to switch to electronic textbooks, you gotta think that the transition away from paper and toward digital devices would be rapidly under way. Indeed, the big three textbook publishers do offer nearly all of their products in a digital form, just as they're scrambling to keep up with demand for supplemental, game-like resources. But while the rallying cry for open-source digital textbooks is coming from California and Texas, the real revolution is happening elsewhere. Create Your Own In districts from Arizona to Indiana, educators are opting out of textbooks altogether, culling from vetted electronic resources and courseware to essentially create their own texts.
Build Your Own Digital Textbooks
Sick of paying for textbooks? Get them now, free and online
In the same way that free open online courseware is threatening to disrupt traditional universities, open textbook initiatives such as OpenStax College from Rice University threaten to do the same to the traditional textbook market. OpenStax College has taken five of the most popular topics taught in American universities and produced high quality peer-reviewed textbooks that are available for anyone to download for free. OpenStax College aims to try and save students at least $90 million over five years by capturing 10% of the US textbook market.