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Steps and advice on how to create your own textbook, with free resources included

Teachers across grade levels are forsaking traditional resources such as textbooks for free, online, and collaboratively-created instructional materials.

interesting advent in the digital textbook market - Discovery's Techbooks. iBooks competitor? From the article: Discovery's Techbook series is cloud-based, meaning students can access the materials from wherever they have an internet connection; the company says that's because not all school districts have the funds to give every student his or her own device. The Techbooks are also platform-agnostic to work with whatever hardware a district or student might have-iPads, tablets, mobile devices, laptops, or desktops.

Alternative to print-based textbooks - creating your own to match your curriculum

"A guide to help K-12 educators and administrators begin building rich digital learning experiences for students in districts across the country."

From the article: But South Korea, among the world's most wired nations, has also seen its plan to digitize elementary, middle and high school classrooms by 2015 collide with a trend it didn't anticipate: Education leaders here worry that digital devices are too pervasive and that this young generation of tablet-carrying, smartphone-obsessed students might benefit from less exposure to gadgets, not more.

More information in the paper book vs. ebook debate - usage/purchasing statistics, especially for textbooks

"...for the most part, schools have incorporated these 21st century instructional techniques and tools as add-ons to the teacher-centric 19th century classroom structure, in which the majority of the curriculum is pulled from a textbook, and, despite best intentions, most students learn the same thing in the same way at the same time. Enter personalized learning, a student-centered teaching and learning model that acknowledges and accommodates the range of abilities, prior experiences, needs, and interests of each student--with the goal of moving every student to a higher standard of achievement. It's not a particularly new theory (versions of it have been around since the 19th century), but it has gained currency among many of today's education thought leaders, particularly because technology seems to be ready to do its part to provide a more personalized learning environment for every student."

Online, community-developed learning resources