Hi Frank,
You bring up some good points. Another respondent suggested that we (or
whoever) should create an open-license lab manual along with an open-license
digital textbook. Part of the materials you have developed sound perhaps more
along the lines of the lab manual. Or as learning exercises that could go with
either the digital textbook or the lab manual. It is common to hear that these
online text and lab and learning exercise resources should be packaged in the
form of modules.
Getting students to start
with, and in the end go back to, their own local geological setting would be
important pedagogically, I agree. That would take some thinking about. Yes, it
would be good to talk – after December 1? I seemed to be overbooked until
then. Or else this coming Thursday afternoon or the following Tuesday
afternoon.
--Ralph
Ralph Dawes
Earth Sciences
Wenatchee Valley College
1300 Fifth Street
Wenatchee, WA 98801
(509) 682-6754
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From: Frank Granshaw [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 10:09 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Creating a Geology 101 Digital Textbook as an Open
Educational Resource
Ralph...
I'm
definitely interested in talking with you about this project, since I have
several hundred megabytes of on-line information files, animations, and
simulations that I've written over the past 15+ years. I've also got
several projects now in process that might be applicable to the effort that you
are describing. Regarding your comments about going through publishing companies,
many of them don't like anything with a regional focus since it limits their
marketability. But as you are well aware, starting with where students
live and moving out from there can make an earth science course much more
relevant and engaging to students. It seems like the project that you are
proposing could take this into account.
Perhaps
a phone call might be in order to talk more.
Cheers
Frank
Frank D. Granshaw
Earth Science Instructor
Portland Community
College
Sylvania Campus
Portland, OR
503-977-8236
On
Nov 15, 2010, at 9:22 AM, Dawes, Ralph wrote:
Care to contribute to an open
educational resource for introducing college students to physical geology? In
other words, help write and edit a free and open online textbook for Geology
101?
You have probably heard about open
educational resources. Besides being easily found on the Web, the key criteria
for an open educational resource (OER) are that it:
1. Is
free of charge.
2. Is
copyrighted for free use (or free with attribution), including use in altered,
edited, and excerpted forms.
3. Requires
no login, registration, or user information to be accessed.
If enough of us get together and
create an open Geology 101 textbook online, we can leverage (1) each
other’s experience in teaching introductory geology, (2) each
other’s content knowledge from our earth science research backgrounds,
and (3) each other’s pedagogical knowledge from up-to-date educational
research, in order to group-source, as they say, a high-quality digital
textbook.
Once it is available to the world at
large, we can keep improving the digital textbook with future edits and
revisions as it gets perused, used, and commented upon.
The next common questions might be:
What’s in it for me? Don’t people write textbooks, which can take
years of effort, at least partly for a profit motive? Yes, there is a lot to be
said for traditional textbooks, including letting the publishers provide
editing, image-making artwork, publicity, printing, and shipping; letting the
academic marketplace filter textbooks by purchasing more of those with the
desired qualities; and in the end rewarding those who write good-quality
textbooks and get them published.
However, in spite of the questions
we may raise about the nebulous-seeming enterprise of open educational
resources, and the benefits of traditional for-profit textbooks, OER textbooks
are going to happen. In my view, the best way for an open, online, digital
textbook for Geology 101 to happen is for those of us who care most about
having students be introduced to geology properly at the college level be the
ones who create it.
That is why I am asking you to join
me in this endeavor. At this point, it is just an inquiry on my part. If
several of you express interest, we can go ahead and set up a wiki to work
together, agree on the editing controls, and go from there until the digital
text creation and editing site is up, online, and its contents being composed
by us, presumably sometime during 2011. There are no deadlines.
By the way, if we spot some grant
requests for proposals that the Geology 101 OER textbook might be suitable for,
we should consider applying, as there will be some aspects of the work that a
grant could help us deal with more efficiently. But regardless of whether we do
this as a bootstrapped, from-the-grassroots, on-our-own-time side project, or
whether we find some support along the way, the two key words are open and
educational. In my view, only those who have a sense of urgency about wanting
to do this should step forward and get involved in helping to make this happen.
In the meantime, all inquiries and
comments are welcome. Thank you.
--Ralph
Ralph Dawes, Ph.D.
Earth Sciences
Wenatchee Valley College
1300 Fifth Street
Wenatchee, WA 98801
(509) 682-6754
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