Will Educators Opt to Publish Their Own Textbooks?

Jeff Jarvis has an interesting post in his continuing series on the value of owning content. The following quoute got me thinking about what teachers and professors could do if they teamed up to create their own textbooks, and how publishers are losing their grip on the means of publication.

?We need to create our own texts, because we can. Our students need to help us, because they can. We need to ask relevant, diverse, living sources to participate, because they can.? - Will Richardson

It sounds like Mr. Richardson and the teachers of New Jersey should start a Wiki to create their own curriculum content. It would be a great alternative to relying on textbooks. Print on demand could turn the final product into a ?textbook? very easily, or they could just buy laptops for all their students with the money that they would save.

Once teachers and professor start making the texts for their classes, the textbook industry will be in serious trouble. If states and academic institutions begin approving these texts, thereby giving them an official status, it will be the dawn of something completely new.