With extreme joy and happiness I can now announce that this past Friday (the 9th) the Utah Board of Education formally approved our request to create a new charter school to be called the Open High School of Utah. For those unfamiliar with how US charter schools work, a charter school is a publicly funded school with a specific emphasis - like a performing arts high school. OHSU will be a completely online school (or “virtual school” as they are sometimes called) that will use open educational resources exclusively. ...

Leigh Blackall reports that later this week Otago Polytechnic will become the second higher education institution to formally sign the Cape Town Open Education Declaration. Way to go!

Fabulous talk by Clay Shirky about where people find the time to work on things like Wikipedia; highly recommended.

FWK is conducting a survey in Facebook about college students’ feelings toward textbooks and potentially open textbooks. Students just go to http://apps.facebook.com/fwksurvey/ and all of the information that they need is there, including info about how we’re compensating students for taking the survey: The first 1,000 responders are guaranteed a $15 Amazon Gift Card; Every responder is entered to win $1k; For each Friend you “Tell” in Facebook you get one entry in a drawing to win a $100 Amazon Gift Card. Please pass along to any students you know. Thanks!

In addition to being the author of some of my all-time favorite books, the eight-book Ender’s Game cycle, Orson Scott Card just plain gets it. His most recent piece criticizes J. K. Rowling for the ridiculous lawsuit she is currently engaged in. ...

Since the discussion last week throughout the media generated so much interest (especially the story from Ben - who I respect a great deal - on Slashdot), some words on the FWK licensing model seem appropriate. ...

The New York Times ran a piece today on the outrageous cost of textbooks, That Books Costs How Much? that mentions Flat World Knowledge. It’s currently the second most blogged piece in the Opinion section! I’ll have another post coming on Monday explaining more about the FWK business model for those of you who are interested.

This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a very long time. The cute yellow warning box says it as well as anyone could… Click through for a legibly large image from the Wikipedia entry on Learning Objects.

Marc has recently done a great essay called Philanthropy on the Commons. Quoting part of the article: The funny thing is, Michael Edwards seems to think that the commons and business are at odds. “The problem is that these approaches are absent from the philanthrocapitalist menu”, he says. The facts say otherwise. Who are the top funders of Wikipedia? Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla and Richard Branson’s Virgin Unite. Who funds the creative commons? Sun, Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Yahoo, Facebook as well as a number of foundations created with newly minted high-tech wealth. The commons is clearly on the philanthrocapitalist menu. ...

In commenting on my recent post about Flat World Knowledge, Stephen asks: I can’t help wondering whether there’s any link between Wiley’s participation in this commercial venture and his advocacy regarding the commercial production and use of open educational resources. The answer is yes, there is a link. Specifically, I don’t have a problem with the commercial production of open educational resources, I don’t have a problem with the commercial use of open educational resources, and I see responsible corporate participation in the OER world as a critically important to the long-term sustainability of the field. Therefore, I am extremely excited about the contribution FWK is going to make to OER and am thrilled to be a part of it.