The Education Bazaar

The Freedom Toaster Meets Open Content?

October 30th, 2007

Is this the future of the book?

The “Espresso Book Machine” is like a kiosk version of the Freedom Toaster for books, including
those in public domain, and according to the London Times and others, books in the Open Content Alliance collection. Watch the QuickTime movie of the machine in action!

On Demand Books, LLC
http://www.ondemandbooks.com/

Somehow I missed this when it came out in 2006. Engadget had a good post with this picture of the New York Public Library demonstration unit earlier this year. The Espresso can pump out 15-20 paperbacks an hour, according to the company’s materials.

The On Demand press release even directly mentions the Open Content Alliance:

Library users will have the opportunity to print free copies of such public domain classics as â€œThe Adventures of Tom Sawyerâ€ by Mark Twain, â€œMoby Dickâ€ by Herman Melville, â€œA Christmas Carolâ€ by Charles Dickens and â€œSongs of Innocenceâ€ by William Blake, as well as appropriately themed in-copyright titles as Chris Andersonâ€™s â€œThe Long Tailâ€ and Jason Epsteinâ€™s own â€œBook Business.â€ The public domain titles were provided by the Open Content Alliance (â€œOCAâ€), a non-profit organization with a database of over 200,000 titles. The OCA and ODB are working closely to offer this digital content free of charge to libraries across the country. Both organizations have received partial funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

The cynic in me wants to interject that the OCA content is free to all, not just libraries, and not just because of the Espresso Book Machine. On Demand is clearly not giving the machines to libraries.

I’ve been completely underwhelmed by the handheld “digital readers”, like Sony’s PRS-505, and, well with reading books on handhelds in general. Sure, they are neat, but I have enough expensive, powered gizmos to lug around. I also just plain LIKE books. In my humble opinion, ayone attracted to the eReader type of device will likely carry a laptop or iPod with them anyway, and both can display PDFs and other formats. Palm, you say? iPaq? Do they still sell those things?

No, this is different. What a cool idea. It’s like a cross between the Shuttleworth Foundation’s Freedom Toaster for software, and Open Content…with a little Lulu.com thrown in
Reality Check

Sadly, according the to Publisher’s Weekly, they retail for about $100,000 each. Ugh. So much for this taking off in anything other than a commercial environment.

There have been other attempts to use Print on Demand (POD) outside the current web-based approach. The On Demand Machine Corporation had an enormous device the size of a small moving van back in 2004, and they won a $15 million verdict against Amazon and others. Doesn’t seem to have caught on, and little information about an active marketing plan for them is available. Rumors placed the price at over $1,000,000 per unit. Google Answers has some links to other efforts to move POD out on the street.

Calling Mark Shuttleworth…

Mr. Shuttleworth, some guy from Alaska is holding on Line 1 Seriously, though, wouldn’t it be hot to offer Open Content in print form for the price of materials.

This is what the Shuttleworth Freedom Toaster does with software, and I don’t know how practical it would be from a low cost engineering standpoint. The idea is intriguing to me, though, and I wonder if this has been discussed much in the blogosphere.

On Demand is apparently taking some steps toward Open Content with the Espresso, but their royalty structure, and approach has prompted Peter Hirtle of Library Law Blog to wonder how “open” the arrangement with OCA members really is..and how fair.

The Times article made me wonder if the libraries participating in the OCA would also receive royalties from commercial use of public domain works that they have digitized from their collections. It doesn’t seem fair that everyone associated with the production of printed public domain books (On Demand Books, the maker of the printer; the bookseller where it is located; and for all I know the OCA itself) might make money on the arrangement, but the library that provides the content that drives the system only gets to pay to have it digitized in the first place.

How is the Espresso Being Positioned?

According to today’s London Times article, this is how things are shaping up for a roll out in Britain:

â€œRetailers will only need to stock bestsellers and perhaps hold a selection of titles for browsing purposes. Nothing will ever go out of print,â€ enthuses Neller. The cost of the machines producing a book is currently a penny for every two pages, plus the royalties where copyright or other legal rights apply, and the retailerâ€™s commission. On Demand says that prices will soon tumble…

At current Espresso pricing - which is “projected to tumble” - an average, say 350-page book would cost $1.75 instead of $7.99 for the paperback I just bought. Even a hefty 1174-page novel like Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon would only cost $5.87, rather than the $8.99 going rate.

On Demand is also working with the Open Content Alliance (OCA), a nonprofit collaboration of cultural, technology and government bodies from all over the world that is building an online archive of multilingual digitised texts that are available, without charge, to everybody.

The OCA has already digitised 200,000 books ranging from Moby Dick by Herman Melville to Songs of Innocence by William Blake â€“ and it is â€œscanning them in at a prodigious rateâ€, according to Neller. These titles are available to be printed by the Espresso alongside those On Demand has secured deals for from publishers. Last week the OCA announced it had signed up several US academic institutions to its project as they preferred its more open approach over the commercial restrictions that would be imposed by signing up for the free book digitisation services offered by Google or Microsoft.

So where do the royalties go? If only the distribution partners are getting the compensation, as Hirtle suggests, what would the potential be for distributing nearly free books from Open Content if the royalties were waived? That would seem more in the spirit of Open Content, and would complement and serve to publicize the trade books the Espresso could print.

Too idealistic? OK…how about an effort to fund something like a Freedom Toaster for books?

Posted in New Roles for Knowledge, Open Content, Open Textbooks | Comments Off

Andrew Keen: Luddite?

July 16th, 2007

There is new book getting national press that tries to articulate the “dangers of Web 2.0″.

I’m surprised at the level of exposure this book is getting in Big Media. For instance, the New York Cult of the Amateur - Amazon Book Cover Image Times did a review a few weeks ago. The chances of a relatively unknown author getting a NYT review are somewhat small…unless the editorial staff consider the topic timely or important.

Author Andrew Keen says in The Cult of the Amateur: How today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture that:

“The only way to efficaciously fight back against the radical democratizers is by exposing Web 2.0 to serious public scutiny. People outside Silicon Valley get it when they are exposed to the Web 2.0 nonsense. Teachers, politicians, business leaders, editors, librarians, broadcasters, and, above all, parents are aware of Web 2.0â€™s destructive consequencesâ€¦The intellectual life of our society is at stake. This is a critically serious debate that will determine the credibility and the very viability of our information economy. If we want our kids to be ignorant, then accept the fashionable inanities of Web 2.0. If not, join the cause. And fight against the flattening of our culture into a wasteland of collectivist nonsense.“

I don’t agree with Andrew at all, but it’s nice to see someone take a clear position

There is an increasing schism in larger society between Old Media / Big Media, and New Media. This tension has clear parallels in education’s “product”….knowledge. The politics of knowledge is filtering the debate in education over access vs. control of information, traditional textbooks and materials vs. Open Content, proprietary vs. open systems and thinking in both K-12 and Higher Education organizations.

Clay Shirky says that both Keen, and fellow Brittanica blogger Michael Gorman base their criticisms of Web 2.0 on the premise that, “technology is one thing, but the way it is used is another, and that the two can and should be separated”.

Andrew Keen’s Positions http://blogs.britannica.com/blog/main/2007/06/the-answer-to-web-20-political-activism/ http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=6714&R=113E51BE2F

Michael Gorman’s Positions http://blogs.britannica.com/blog/main/2007/06/jabberwiki-the-educational-response-part-i/ http://blogs.britannica.com/blog/main/2007/06/jabberwiki-the-educational-response-part-ii/

Shirky argues that Keen and Gorman are Luddites, and in doing so he captures nicely some of the things I’ve been talking about here on this blog in a less articulate fashion This one is definitely worth a read:

Andrew Keen: Rescuing ‘Luddite’ from the Luddites
http://many.corante.com/archives/2007/07/09/andrew_keen_rescuing_luddite_from_the_luddites.php

Clay does a great job drawing out the real roots of the Luddite Rebellion, and makes an excellent, and useful parallel to current calls for control of technology to protect the current winners in the market place.

There is no revolution without someone losing, folks. The players in Old Media / Big Media, textbook publishing, vendors of proprietary & closed solutions for K-12 and Higher Ed are going to be the losers in the coming struggle.

I believe that there will continue to be room for both ends of the extreme, but these traditional information markets, and others inextricably linking profits to ideas about “expertise” are going to suffer. They will not give up without a fight any more than the Luddites did. The lines are really being drawn now.

I’ve talked before about the false economy of knowledge, and the fight now centers around a conservative backlash against the product of Internet - user-driven, “democratized”, open and free information - not the technology itself. Shirky is right in that they are not discrete and separate things.

It will be interesting to see how this continues to develop, and at want point the political forces at work will become more widely recongized on the national level. There are tentacles that reach out from this debate into many institutions and markets. Stay tuned.

Posted in New Roles for Knowledge, Open Systems Thinking, Web 2.0 Challenges | No Comments »

Vendor-Driven Misperceptions about Web 2.0 in Schools

June 25th, 2007

There I was, having coffee, enjoying the sunrise, and reading an amusing article in today’s Computerworld about how IBM’s proprietary technology is ready now to bring Web 2.0 to the business world:

IBM last week launched an effort to extend Web 2.0 to the corporate world by unveiling team collaboration, social computing and Web mashup development tools.

The new Quickr 8, Lotus Connections and Info 2.0 products are part of IBMâ€™s new â€œWeb 2.0 Goes to Workâ€ initiative, which aims to expand business use of popular consumer technologies like blogs, wikis and social networks, said Rod Smith, vice president of emerging technologies.

Web 2.0 technology can help workers more easily brainstorm and collaborate with one another and with corporate partners and customers, explained Smith.

John Tincher, global Lotus Notes administrator at Flint Group North America, said that his firm has made limited use of Web 2.0 technologies to date and that he doubts they will become business-critical in the near term. â€œHaving the social networking at some point will be wonderful, but I donâ€™t see it taking root at least for another couple of years in our environment,â€ he said.

Computerworld Article

And that’s when the trouble started

As silly as this article is in presuming that the corporate world needs Lotus to lead the way with proprietary software CHARMINGLY named using a synonym for term wiki - Quickr 8? Uh, folks, Ward Cunningham says”wiki” means “quick” in Hawaiian - I wouldn’t normally post about non-education items.

So why am I agititated? Computerworld throws this disturbing segment in near the top:

Vijay Sonty, CIO for Broward County Public Schools in Sunrise, Fla., said that the tools wonâ€™t likely benefit the K-12 education sector until IBM can come up with specific features needed there.

For example, the Web 2.0 tools should support training programs for the districtâ€™s 15,000 teachers and add the security capabilities required to receive federal monies, he said.

Vijay….what are you smoking, buddy? As “CIO” of our district’s educational technology department, I’m excited to have wiki and other tools for collaborative work. In fact, I am a non-IT guy, but can’t believe the impact Web 2.0 has had our organization’s ability to do the very things that you say can’t yet occur.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Collaborative Tools, Outrageous But True, Web 2.0 Challenges | 4 Comments »

The Need to Characterize Open Content Projects

June 19th, 2007

Last summer I wrote a blog post that looked at many of the Open Content projects aimed at K-12 consumers and participants, and at the larger question of how those resources might fit into K-12 classrooms and curriculum.I learned quite a bit in the process of writing that rather long entry, and although much has happened since then, the essential points I made at the time are quite relevant in light of recent developments.

Is K-12 Ready for Open Content Textbooks?
http://teachers4schools.com/open/?p=10#more-10

One of the things I talked about in the post was the need to better characterize Open Content. This post uses a couple of newer projects to clarify my thinking on the need for way to better describe projects.

My morning news feed yesterday picked up a small article in the Miami Herald that talked about the Curriki project. The piece by Bridget Carey is pretty representative of the interviews and releases Scott McNealy has been making recently as he works at getting exposure for Curriki. I’ve followed this all winter, and it got me thinking again about the need for characterization of Open Content projects, and about their future.

Curriki.org Fuels Communities, Bridges Digital Divide
http://www.miamiherald.com/154/story/141532.html

So our biggest challenge right now is raising money to get all of the resources we need to go put all of this stuff together in a way that makes the website just stunningly attractive. I think if we do that we won’t need to advertise, but raising the money is probably the biggest time consumer and the biggest challenge we have.

Open Content initiatives of various flavors are springing up all over the place, and I think there are two basic approaches. Taken to their logical extremes, one is primarily associated with traditional ideas about expert vetting and control of knowledge, and the other is mainly linked to user-driven content prodcution and quality control.

At the current time the popular media, and to some degree the blogosphere, tends to lump these together. As the use of collaborative tools in education expands, I think that there is a need to distinguish between projects. When I hear Scott talk about the need for money being their biggest hurdle with Curriki I almost feel like I know what type of Open Content project it is - one that is focused more on expert vetted knowledge than user production and collaboration.

Perhaps each type has a place, but in most regards I would say that the highly vetted and controlled sites are not that much different than the current process used to create textbooks, and online subscription databases for education like Encyclopedia Brittanica Online.

For teachers truly interested in collabortive production and consumption of Open Content resources, limited communities of practice will offer little promise, and will not leverage the Web 2.0 technologies that allow us to really change the way teachers teach and students learn.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in New Roles for Knowledge, Open Content, Open Textbooks | 4 Comments »

Librarians 2.0?

September 6th, 2006

I was talking last week with Darla, a librarian friend, and discussing the new role of “Google Jockey” that suddenly exists. For those of you who are not yet familiar, a Google Jockey assists a presenter or lecturer with identifying resources in real time during a presentation.

The results are shared on a second screen…but I would use a wiki-based interface for my results, not just show the screen. Many audience members these days in my sessions are listening, and surfing at the same time. Rather than be offended by this, I ENCOURAGE it

I think this involves the participant in the topic much more than passive receptivity, assuming that my topic is engaging to begin with. If not, keeps them out of trouble! Stephen Downes did this last spring using JotSpot. Very effective. Most references so far have been in university lecture settings.

I am thinking that you will see this as a service offered at progressive conferences in the near future. If I were running a major event, like a keynote at a big educational technology conference, I would gladly spend a few hundred dollars to pay a skilled Google Jockey to bring my “millenial” audience into the presentation through multiple modalities.

As I am talking with Darla, she indicates that such a role would be an ideal side job for Web 2.0 Librarians, and you know, I believe she have something. Who better skilled to locate quality resources quickly? Isn’t that what librarians love to do?

Although clearly not every librarian is ready for Librarian 2.0 status, Darla is! Check out her blog at:

Alaska Bush Library Services Blog
http://aklibrarian1.edublogs.org

It seems to me that the Google Jockey role would be an ideal side job and source of income for some innovative group of librarians who live near major conference center.

Here are some links on the Google Jockey scene:

http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/05/19/internet_searching_graduates_to_classroom.htm
http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=ELI7014
http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/cda/article_print/0,1983,BDC_2448_4733634_ARTICLE-DETAIL-PRINT,00.html
http://blog.wku.edu/~terry.elliott/?p=34
http://its.noctrl.edu/updates/msg00448.shtml

Another potential hobby job for them, and for students I know who are skilled web searches would be working for a service like ChaCha. This site was written up on the SearchEngineWatch blog:

Brad Bostic, co-founder of ChaCha, said that the site had lined up about 2500 guides at launch: college students, retirees, stay-at-home moms and others “who are online all day anyway.” But not just anyone can become a guide apparently; you have to be “sponsored” (invited by an existing guide) and work your way up a hierarchy consisting of four levels.

New guides are considered “apprentices” and are matched with areas of personal interest and expertise. New guides also have mentors, more experienced guides who monitor their work. Apprentices cannot interact with http://blog.searchenginestrategies.com/mt-static/images/formatting-icons/bold.gif
Boldthe public initially and must pass several tests for speed, quality and accuracy. If they meet these requirements they become “pros.”

Pros then get the chance to interact with the public and will be paid (US$5 per “search hour”). After pro come two other levels: “master” and ultimately “elite.” Elite-level guides make US $10 per search hour. But once you become a master you’re eligible to earn 10% of what your “network” makes. Your network consists of those you’ve brought into the “ChaCha Underground” (the community of guides).

A skilled librarian would clearly make “Elite” status on ChaCha, eh? The “10% of your network” carrot could really pay off in such a situation.

Let’s take it a step further. What about this as side job for a skilled student in high school or college? Heck, I worked some horrible jobs in college that would make leading a cadre in the ChaCha Underground look like a day in paradise

Posted in Collaborative Tools, New Roles for Knowledge, Open Systems Thinking | No Comments »

The Education Bazaar

The Freedom Toaster Meets Open Content?

Andrew Keen: Luddite?

Vendor-Driven Misperceptions about Web 2.0 in Schools

The Need to Characterize Open Content Projects

Librarians 2.0?

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