数字技术掀起教科书革命

    一堂数学课。如果学校能以一本5美元、甚至更低的价格购买很快就会没用的课本，为什么要花上80美元？

    一批开放教育出版商现在就在致力于解决上面这个问题，而且逐渐赢得了大中小学的信任。包括CK-12和Boundless在内的这些企业推出免费的开源教材（大多为数学和科学教材），打造了数字课本和教辅资料，学生和教师可以随意编辑它们。由于目前没有某一家供应商能够全面统治市场，所以这类服务越来越好的同时，培生（Pearson）、里德爱思唯尔（Reed Elsevier）和圣智（Cengage）这些的传统课本巨头就越为他们的商业模式感到恐慌。

    根据美国联邦通信委员会（FCC）的数据，美国一年在基础教育（从幼儿园到高三）课本上的花销超过70亿美元。而根据美国企业研究所（American Enterprise Institute）的统计，从1978年到现在，大学课本的价格增长了惊人的812%。这个数字超过了同期通货膨胀、大学学费、甚至饱受争议的医疗费用的增长。全美学院商店协会（National Association of College Stores）2012年的报告显示，大学生在书籍和文具上每年平均花费655美元。

    学区和公立大学的预算紧张给了开源材料一个好机会。开源供应商已经开始雇佣传统教材行业的精英。麦格劳•希尔高等教育集团（McGraw Hill Higher Education）的前任数码产品总经理杰伊•查克拉帕尼于2月跳槽至CK-12，担任这家非盈利开源教育技术公司的总裁。

    查克拉帕尼现年41岁，曾在麦格劳•希尔用五年时间为它打造数字产品，努力将这家传统的教材出版商领上通往未来的道路。查克拉帕尼说：“我可以告诉你们，麦格劳•希尔和培生的未来志向就在这个方向。我想问题在于，他们现在做的基本就是把现有内容放到新的数字系统里而已。在这些内容自身变成垃圾、装进新系统也只能产出垃圾之前，能做的只有这么多了。”

    CK-12没有将课本看成不同章节内容的集合，而是将给定主题的每个方面拆开，变成电子课本中的一个个小部分，并称之为“灵活课本”。如此一来，教师和学生就能够自主打造自己的学习方式。相反，传统课本——即便是电子版本的传统课本——提供的功能就很有限。查克拉帕尼说：“CK-12主要着眼于科学、技术、工程和数学课本，将它们转化为涵盖所有内容的5000条基础概念。它不同于出版一本教科书，然后每三年推出新版，借此获得更多收入。这个创意来自对学生学习方式的思考。”

    2007年，在太阳微系统公司（Sun Microsystems）和风险投资公司科斯拉创投（Khosla Ventures）的共同创始人——亿万富翁维诺德•斯科拉的支持下，CK-12在加利福尼亚州的帕洛阿尔托（Palo Alto）成立，并由维诺德的妻子尼尔鲁•斯科拉领导。很大程度上这是斯卡拉的家族产业。实际上，在查克拉帕尼跳槽到这里出任董事长之前，他曾出人意料地给维诺德•斯科拉发过邮件，回应后者2012年1月在TechCrunch上发表的讨论教育未来的文章。电子邮件往来逐渐深入到电话交流，再到一起喝咖啡，最终发展成了一个工作机会。查克拉帕尼说，科斯拉家族希望教育改革成为他们能够留给后世的财富。

    最近几年，开源和免费教育运动这两个有所不同、却相互关联的想法碰撞出了火花。免费的教育资源——比如Coursera上的大学课程——可以让学生们免费使用。但是无论有多么喜欢这些课程内容，他们也无法重复使用、重新合成或将其用作他途。与之相反，CK-12这样的开源材料不仅免费，也能以学生或教师认为合适的方法用到其他用途。大规模开放网络课程（massive open online courses，MOOC）供应商，比如Coursera、EdX和Udacity都向越来越多的大学征集在线课程，供人们免费使用，尽管许多学校仍然坚持保留自身的课程内容。

    Call it a math lesson. Why would a school pay $80 for a textbook that may quickly become irrelevant, when it could pay around $5 or less?

    A cadre of so-called open-education publishers is slowly beginning to gain the trust of schools and university systems by posing that question. Using free, open-source education materials, firms like CK-12 and Boundless are building digital textbooks and learning materials (mostly for math and science) that students and teachers can use and edit as they wish. While no single outfit yet dominates, the better such offerings get, the more traditional textbook giants like Pearson (PSO), Reed Elsevier (RUK), and Cengage ought to fear for their business models.

    The U.S. spends more than $7 billion every year on K-12 textbooks, according to the FCC. And college textbook prices have increased by a whopping 812% since 1978, according to the American Enterprise Institute, surpassing inflation, college tuition increases -- even the much-discussed rise in medical expenses during that time period. College students report that they pay an average of $655 a year on books and supplies, according to a 2012 report from the National Association of College Stores.

    Major budget constraints on school districts and public universities have given open-source materials a shot. Open-source outfits have begun wooing traditional textbook industry talent over to their cause. Former McGraw Hill Higher Education general manager of digital products Jay Chakrapani jumped to CK-12 in February to serve as president at the nonprofit open-education tech venture.

    Chakrapani, 41, had spent five years at McGraw Hill, working to build up its digital offerings and bring the legacy textbook publisher into the future. "I can tell you that the aspirations of a McGraw Hill or a Pearson are in this direction," Chakrapani says. "I think the problem is that they are basically in the model of retrofitting existing content into these [new, digital] systems, and you can only go so far before it becomes garbage in, garbage out."

    Instead of thinking of textbooks as an assembly of different chapters of content, CK-12 has broken down each individual facet of a given subject into small parts in its digital textbooks, known as "flexbooks." This granularity gives teachers and students the ability to customize how they learn. By contrast, traditional textbooks -- even those that are digital -- offer much less versatility. "CK-12 basically looked at STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] and broke it down into the 5,000 fundamental concepts, and they mapped them all together," Chakrapani says. "It's not about creating a textbook and every three years putting out a new edition so you can capture more revenue. It's about thinking how a student learns."

    Founded in 2007 with backing from billionaire Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and VC firm Khosla Ventures, Palo Alto, Calif.-based CK-12 is led by Vinod's wife, Neeru Khosla, and is very much a Khosla family affair. In fact, Chakrapani landed his gig as president after emailing Vinod Khosla out of the blue, responding to an article Khosla had written for TechCrunch in January 2012 on the future of education. A few emails between the two eventually led to several phone calls, which led to coffee, which ultimately led to a job offer. Chakrapani says that the Khoslas want education reform to be their legacy.

    In recent years, the open-source and free education movements -- two different, but related, ideas -- have picked up steam. Free educational resources -- like a university course on Coursera, for example -- may be available for students to use at no cost, but students cannot reuse, remix, or repurpose that course content however they'd like. By contrast open-source materials like CK-12's materials are not only free, but can also be freely repurposed in any way a student or teacher sees fit. Massive open online courses (MOOC) providers like Coursera, EdX, and Udacity have been recruiting more and more universities to offer courses online to anyone for free, though many schools still insist on owning their course content.