According to Victoria Shannon in her International Herald Tribune article "A group approach to teaching teachers," Curriki.org is the "Wikipedia of curriculum" and the brainchild of Scott McNealy and Andy Bechtolsheim, Sun chairman and co-founder, respectively. But, she writes, how can Curiki avoid the stigma that attaches to Wikipedia, which often posts specious, unvetted entries, since Curriki also solicits contributions from users?

Explaining his motives in establishing Curriki.org, McNealy asked rhetorically, "It just seemed to me why are we open-sourcing browsers and spreadsheets and operating systems, when we ought to be open-sourcing third-grade math textbooks?"

Shannon notes that, "while Curriki has attracted 35,000 members and has started experimental partnerships with government education offices in India, South Korea, Britain, Canada and elsewhere, it has not signed up any of the world's major textbook publishers."

Still, Shannon reports, Curriki hopes to announce a partnership with Sesame Workshop for lesson-plan content related to its new Panwapa line of Muppet characters in the near future. Barbara Kurshan, Curriki's Washington-based executive director, characterizes the deal as a "major coup" that would promote the goal of attracting mainstream academic publishers because of the high-profile Sesame name.

Kurshan also announced that Curriki is in talks with an unnamed, major non-U.S. publisher about contributing science-class content to Curriki in a test to see "how open-source can improve their products." Yet another agreement involves Cambridge University Press's subscription-based Web site for copyright-cleared educational material, called the Global Grid for Learning.

The potential benefits to textbook publishers of contributing content to Curriki cited by Kurshan include access to a community of educators who could be future textbook writers for them, along with exposure of their content out to different geographic markets they would not ordinarily reach. Nor does posting "open-source" content on Curriki preclude the commercialization of information, Kurshan added. The chief requirement is for continued sharing of the content, according to the fine print of open-source licenses. While these possibilities are being explored, she continued, "educators around the world, often isolated from the latest cutting-edge thinking on their profession, can find lesson plans and entire subject or grade curriculums free for the taking on Curriki."

Educators also have the opportunity through Curriki to access a variety of online tools built by Sun and a French open-source company called XWiki, as well as the ability to share resources with others, write a textbook or build a curriculum out of content available on the site, available at the moment only in English and Hindi.

Curriki has enlisted former teachers through the AARP who will act as subject matter evaluators in reviewing curricular materials that are posted to the site. Unlike Wikipedia, Kurshan explained, "We don't have the luxury of putting out a bad fact and waiting 20 minutes until somebody corrects it."

The nonprofit group, which has an annual budget of about $2 million, said it hoped to use viral marketing on the Internet itself as its marketing plan. "Teachers and parents and students are really good at finding things that make it easier for them to teach or quicker for them to learn something," Kurshan told Shannon.

Curriki has also joined with Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child effort, preparing "Curriki Light," which can be used on that organization's XO computer.

Evidence of the increasing credibility being accorded Curriki lies in the award UNESCO will present to Kurshan in Paris in January for the site's global efforts.

For Shannon's complete article, visit the International Herald Tribune. [...read more...]

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