ADVANCING ELECTRONIC EDUCATION:
THE free  e TEXTBOOK


Ronald Gordon Ziegler



There is probably no way of ascertaining with any accuracy the capital which American
society has devoted to its educational endeavors. Unquestionably it is much higher than it
should be, especially given the questionable results the society seems to be getting from
much of its investment. This is probably in some measure due to the fact that much of the
educational establishment is a public boondoggle that is becoming more and more
recognized to be the failure that socialism inevitably produces. And yet, it is not clear that
a huge dedication of capital to alternative institutions of learning -- at least as they are
presently given currency -- offers a great deal  more promise. It will probably be the case
that the situation will resolve itself in time, as market forces are invariably going to have
their way. Yet, that 'time' factor is critical to societal health and advance because it
involves a tremendous capitalization level. The costs of the market overcoming such
efforts will be astronomical if they are inevitable.

There is little question that education a century from now will look a great deal different
than it does today. The differentiation will not take that long to be manifest. Among the
more obvious alterations will be the text book phenomenon. Sometimes an interesting
enough creation, at times the text has become a damper on the cognitive process. It
certainly has become a burden on the purse string. This is even more the situation for the
public school systems than perhaps for higher levels of learning, but the dilatory impact is
not limited to those institutions, either. 

School districts expend billions each year to acquire and replace textbooks, many of which
are even worse than inadequate. In my field of 'social studies,' they are even worse, often
being little more than mind-numbing propaganda tools of political correctness. In the
course of my thirty years in the classroom, the school district in which I am but one of
some 12000 teachers has probably spent in the neighborhood of the equivalent of a quarter
of a million dollars on such devices for my student clients alone.  Not to completely pan
the text book industry, it can at least be said that such expenditures in the future would be
a total waste.

Through utilization of the evolving web publishing phenomenon, it will be possible to
replace such questionable expense in the near future. In fits and starts perhaps at first, we
should begin to experiment with the creation of free electronic 'textbooks' wherever they
can be made use of. In my own area of experience, this could be commenced with
considerable facility. Beginning with introductory comment, the use of links to related
reference points could provide a broad learning experience which would help cultivate
research skills as well as cognitive abilities and conceptual acheivements.

This essay is more of a challenge than it is anything else. But commencing with high
school American history, followed by world history, government, and economics, what I
propose to do is to begin the construction of an experimental set of such free e texts. I
also propose to apply the same thinking to applications at the general post secondary level,
as well. It will be a protracted process, but one that is well overdue. But as crude as the
initial product will appear in comparison to what it will in short order become, the
conceptual breakthrough involved is the critical issue.

The undertaking to be launched by the e Journal of Political Science will start with links
which will be included in these pages in upcoming issues to the first attempts at the
production of such e texts. The editor would hope to instigate commentary of a
contributory nature in this effort, such that eJPS might become an electronic workshop in
such construction. 

Attempts at this project are not intended to transgress in any fashion either conventional
publishing or copyright. Rather, they should be viewed as a gentle prodding of the
process. Probably what evolves will be in no measure similar to the first grudging,
stumbling steps on the path. 

To begin, the project will build upon an e text already present on the web.
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Ron Ziegler





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To the Beginning of Fall 1997 Issue