Looking for teaching ideas or course materials? Connexions is
"an environment for collaboratively developing, freely sharing, and rapidly publishing scholarly content on the Web. Our Content Commons contains educational materials for everyone — from children to college students to professionals — organized in small modules that are easily connected into larger courses. All content is free to use and reuse under the Creative Commons "attribution" license."
Since the content is broken down into smaller pieces, it should be more easily used and adapted than textbooks. Ideally, you could locate and make connections among several modules and use them in a course. While the site has quite a bit of material, it may need some more before it's easy to put together a course this way. Also, the organization of material is in a flat format which might be a challenge as the site grows -- all of the material submitted under one category is listed there. Each module has links to related modules, making it easy to find similar material.
Check out the TED presentation by Richard Baraniuk [autostarting Flash video], founder of Connexions. From the TED site:
"Rice University professor Richard Baraniuk has a giant vision: to create a free global online education system that puts the power of creation and collaboration in the hands of teachers worldwide. He's realizing that vision with Connexions, a website that allows teachers to quickly "create, rip, mix and burn" coursework -- without fear of copyright violations. Think of it as Napster for education.
Connexions' open-source system cuts out the textbook, allowing teachers to share course materials, modify existing work and disseminate it to their students -- all for free, thanks to Creative Commons licensing. Baraniuk envisions Connexions as a repository where the most up-to-date material can be shared and reviewed (it's far more efficient than waiting for a textbook to be printed); it could become a powerful force in leveling the education playing field. Currently encompassing hundreds of online courses and used by a million people worldwide, Baraniuk's virtual educational system is revolutionizing the way people teach and learn."
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