<html> <head> <style></style> </head> <body class='hmmessage'> Hi All, While we have been worrying about free textbooks on the internet for younger children, the 1000 pound gorilla in the high school text book "room," California,  has made it really start to happen for older students.  Here is an excerpt from Chris Bigenho's blog that has some interesting links (yes, we are related). XOs as book readers are entirely appropriate for grades 9-12. Are they compatible with these books?... don't know yet. I haven't had time to try it out. Caryl __________________________________________________ CK-12 Foundation- (Open Source Publishing) The CK-12 Foundation is a not-profit organization that is working to reduce the cost of text books through the use of Open content and web collaboration. This is just one more step toward the new publishing model that textbook companies need to fear and fear it they do. <a href="http://about.ck12.org/">http://about.ck12.org/</a>   CLRN This is an interesting follow-up of the post above. This is the California Learning Resource Network where they had a Free digital textbook initiative with review and results. Here you can see the entire report or look at the summary findings. Notice how many open content books made the list in competition with the big publishers. Yes, publishers need to look at the future as written on these pages. <a href="http://www.clrn.org/fdti/">http://www.clrn.org/fdti/</a> From Chris Bigenho's blog at: <a href="http://bigenhoc.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/diigo-university-day-1/#comments">http://bigenhoc.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/diigo-university-day-1/#comments</a> </body> </html>