Courtesy of greenasian on Flickr

Over a year ago, I wrote about open source e-textbooks and I mentioned that I had trouble envisioning e-textbooks replacing paper-based books in a course like management accounting.  During that time I’ve read many things about the future of textbooks and I’m now of the opinion that limiting the thinking to things that exist today (like paper books and e-readers such as the Kindle) is probably dangerous.  I have a feeling that as states like California, some universities, and leaders with backgrounds in other industries (see below) push into open-source textbooks that can be modified to suit the needs of instructors everywhere that we’ll end up with something that looks/feels a lot like Wikipedia that will serve as the textbook of the future.

We won’t call it an “open-source textbook,” in my opinion.  Instead, the course material will be integrated into what we now see as learning management systems (such as D2L) and will be accessible through all kinds of devices including PCs, mobile phones, dedicated internet tablets, etc.  It just seems natural to me that learning will evolve in this direction as people that have grown up with technology think in different ways and use technology differently than those that have gone before them.

An interesting post (at this link: In School Systems, Slow Progress for Open-Source Textbooks via NYTimes.com) continues the discussion of where textbooks are heading.  This time, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems is behind an effort to do for learning what open-source software has done for computing.

Mr. McNealy, the fiery co-founder and former chief executive of Sun Microsystems, shuns basic math textbooks as bloated monstrosities: their price keeps rising while the core information inside of them stays the same.

“Ten plus 10 has been 20 for a long time,” Mr. McNealy says.

Early this year, Oracle, the database software maker, acquired Sun for $7.4 billion, leaving Mr. McNealy without a job. He has since decided to aim his energy and some money at Curriki, an online hub for free textbooks and other course material that he spearheaded six years ago.

I suppose we are years away from seeing things change at the university level, but it sure would be interesting to me if I had the ability to edit/add/clarify things in a textbook for my students.  I don’t know what kind of economic model would produce these works (one can’t expect experts to spend time writing for free…or can they?) but that is something that will get ironed out along the way when/if open-source products take off.