Textbooks in public ed?

A month ago (giver or take) Clint Kennedy posted some interesting questions in his blog.

What if teachers and administrators used some/all of their PD days to prepare materials for students? They could use web resources, existing texts, each other, etc.  They could publish this content online, as paper copies, via a blog or email or even a wiki. Students and teachers could then add/modify these resources over the course of the year/years.

 

In thinking about these an as I’m enrolled in classes at UCONN, I realized this is already happening with some higher education courses. Many teachers are finding articles and using them in classes, and the nice ones are giving full references for students to locate the digital copies themselves and save on buying the textbooks. I’m in my final year as a master’s candidate and have had to buy relatively few books, but have megabits of digital paper as references.

 

As will most technologies changes, most of the changes happen at the top, the real question is how do we help facilitate it downward?