[Athen] CA Digital Textbook Initiative

[Pat Brogan]

Are all of these print only materials? I see that they met state curriculum
standards but was there also a set of accessibility standards? Audio,
Braille, or if richer media, captioned? I assume there are media format
requirements?

Pat Brogan, Ph.D.
Vice President, Sales and Marketing 
Automatic Sync Technologies
877-ast-sync ext. 712
Mobile 408-656-6145
http://www.automaticsync.com
 

-----Original Message-----
From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On
Behalf Of Sean J Keegan
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2009 10:36 AM
To: Alternate Media; Access Technology Higher Education Network
Subject: [Athen] CA Digital Textbook Initiative

The California Governor's Office released information about the Digital 
Textbook Initiative for K-12 and which companies have met the state 
content standards.

http://gov.ca.gov/press-release/12996/

Interestingly, the non-profit organization CK-12 
(http://about.ck12.org/) had three textbooks that met 100% of the state 
content standards.  CK-12 has an open-content model with the materials 
licensed under a Creative Commons-Share Alike license.  Other open 
content educational systems (i.e., Connexions) also did well in some 
subject areas.

This certainly does address one issue that comes up in discussions that 
"open-source" educational materials are not capable of meeting the 
academic rigor necessary for state or other educational standards.


Take care,
Sean