captsolo weblog

Former Sun CEO says nonprofit Curriki Web site encourages learning (San Francisco Chronicle)

Sun Chairman Scott McNealy has spent most of the past year as the leading pitchman for Curriki, a nonprofit group that's trying to build a mega-Web site of educational materials that teachers, students and parents anywhere in the world can use, modify, critique and expand on. And they can do all that for free.

"There is no reason why in California (we) need to spend $400 million a year on textbooks when we can open-source. ... If we had half of the annual California textbook budget -- and we just need it one time -- we think we can become self-funding." -- he says.

Some trivia (new for me):

As the chief executive officer of Sun, McNealy often pointed to education as an arena where network computing can make a major difference. He routinely cites the tech giant's origins as a startup formed by a group of Stanford and UC Berkeley students who early on had to decide what to call their company.

"The big decision was to call it Stanford University Network or Berkeley University Network, and 'Sun' won over 'Bun,' " he quipped. "We've always been looking to pay back, share back, if you will."

Currently I did not find too much material in there, but it is a good idea to follow. I believe that we can only benefit from freely available education materials. (Still some prefer to lock them down).

This reminds what a colleague from E-Learning cluster said yesterday that in the future people will acquire most of their knowledge via informal learning. Or are we already doing that?