Horizon Report Highlights 6 Technologies to Watch in Education: "open content"

From the Chronicle:

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"The Horizon Report," an annual guide to tech trends, comes out next week. And it’s predicting a new technology king: open content.

After failing to make last year's “Technologies to Watch” list, the “open content” movement now joins mobile computing as the two trends most likely to enter mainstream learning in the next year, says the report, from the New Media Consortium and Educause.

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Our system’s Open Course Library project is all about providing a safe (and funded) space for WA Community and Technical College faculty and staff to engage this global “open content” discussion.

The Horizon report suggests “open content” is going mainstream.  This project is a real opportunity for our faculty and staff learn about and lead this global movement.

Deadline for the grant is Feb 17^th.

Flat World and Bookshare To Deliver Accessible Open Content Texts to College Students

Campus Technology article:

Open-content publisher Flat World Knowledge has announced it will supply college textbooks to Bookshare, the free online library for people with print disabilities. Flat World will be the first publisher of post-secondary texts to contribute material to the organization.

"If all publishers supplied their books directly to Bookshare, it would save colleges and universities millions of dollars each year and immediately equalize educational opportunities," said Jim Fruchterman, CEO of Benetech, the nonprofit that operates Bookshare. "Without the cooperation of a publisher such as Flat World, students often wait for weeks to get textbooks in accessible formats and, in some cases, are forced to drop courses due to lack of accessible books. Flat World is the first post-secondary textbook publisher to recognize and alleviate this problem."