California digital textbooks - update

Nate the great · 09-01-2009, 07:19 PM

In a press release dated 11 August:

Quote:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today released the first report of California’s free digital textbook initiative... Of the 16 free digital textbooks for high school math and science reviewed, ten meet at least 90 percent of California’s standards. Four meet 100 percent of standards, including the CK-12 Foundation’s CK-12 Single Variable Calculus, CK-12 Trigonometry, CK-12 Chemistry and Dr. H. Jerome Keisler’s Elementary Calculus: An Infinitesimal Approach.

press release

You can find the digital textbooks here (as well as a report specifying exactly how well they did).
*************

Curiously enough, I can't see that a second step has been planned. I really wonder where they are going to go from here.

gregcd · 09-01-2009, 08:52 PM

90 megabytes for one textbook!
Sounds like scanned material to me...

carlobee · 09-01-2009, 11:12 PM

^^ yeah. pretty much. however, that would do for a a very good free educational material .

acidzebra · 09-02-2009, 04:07 AM

The source material seems more than a little fragmented, lots of different sites, many proper PDFs, some scanned image PDFs (only one or two, many PDFs are that large because they are very rich in images), some are broken up into awkward chapters with awkward names, and so on.

Still, a good initiative.

danielRay · 09-02-2009, 05:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nate the great

In a press release dated 11 August:

press release

You can find the digital textbooks here (as well as a report specifying exactly how well they did).
*************

Curiously enough, I can't see that a second step has been planned. I really wonder where they are going to go from here.

:

what the hell is this

WillAdams · 09-02-2009, 08:12 AM

At least one of them (the CK-12 calculus textbook available at http://cafreetextbooks.ck12.org/math/CK12_Calculus.pdf ) uses bitmap graphics for all mathematics --- not even bothering to line things up on the baseline and using a mix of Computer Modern (in w/ text) and Times / Symbol (for labelling figures).

Absolutely wretched and along the lines of one of my worst experiences w/ a boss attempting to outsource composition work.

Sometimes ``free'' is too expensive.

William

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09-01-2009, 08:52 PM	#2
gregcd Connoisseur Posts: 90 Karma: 100000 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: New Zealand Device: prs-t1, prs-650 to sell	90 megabytes for one textbook! Sounds like scanned material to me...

09-01-2009, 11:12 PM	#3
carlobee Fanatic Posts: 535 Karma: 972 Join Date: Jul 2009 Device: The new iPad	^^ yeah. pretty much. however, that would do for a a very good free educational material .

09-02-2009, 04:07 AM	#4
acidzebra Liseuse Lover Posts: 869 Karma: 1035404 Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Netherlands Device: PRS-505	The source material seems more than a little fragmented, lots of different sites, many proper PDFs, some scanned image PDFs (only one or two, many PDFs are that large because they are very rich in images), some are broken up into awkward chapters with awkward names, and so on. Still, a good initiative.

09-02-2009, 08:12 AM	#6
WillAdams Wizard Posts: 1,250 Karma: 3439432 Join Date: Feb 2008 Device: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (300ppi), Samsung Galaxy Book 12	At least one of them (the CK-12 calculus textbook available at http://cafreetextbooks.ck12.org/math/CK12_Calculus.pdf ) uses bitmap graphics for all mathematics --- not even bothering to line things up on the baseline and using a mix of Computer Modern (in w/ text) and Times / Symbol (for labelling figures). Absolutely wretched and along the lines of one of my worst experiences w/ a boss attempting to outsource composition work. Sometimes ``free'' is too expensive. William

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