Tomorrow I am going to be chatting (update: Tony wasn’t able to find the conversation table at the back of room or got side-tracked, so this part of the conversation didn’t happen, though other great conversations, did) with Tony Bates (@drtonybates) in one of the Virtually Connecting sessions at #worldconf17, and I like to refresh my memory before I talk to people.
Searching for his name I immediately was drawn to the title of his most recent book – “Teaching in a Digital Age” as I scanned down his book summary page, thinking to myself, I need to read this, I came to this paragraph:
“Teaching in a Digital Age: Guidelines for Teaching and Learning is available as a free, online open textbook.
The English version is available for reading in the following versions:”
And there it was, immediately available, free, and accessible to read in multiple formats.
Why oh why doesn’t this happen more often (to me)? But at the same time, I am very curious how he got paid for writing this book? Writing a book isn’t a quick blog type writing endeavor. Writers should get paid for their work, especially if people want to read it, surely? I am aware this isn’t a new question and the whole OER textbook domain is well understood. I guess that I just haven’t accidentally come across it before.
The link, by the way, takes us to the Open Textbook Library and as I browse I find more and more books I want to read. How exciting.
But as to getting answers to my question, I think I’ll save them for tomorrow.
Also published on Medium.