Newest Open Textbooks
Yo puedo: segundos pasos
Contributors: Silvaggio-Adams and Vallejo-Alegre
Publisher: Milne Open Textbooks
Perhaps you remembered what the title of your book means from your previous experiences with Spanish. That is a great start! As you begin the equivalent of a second semester Spanish course with these materials, some of you might think about how long it has been since you studied Spanish while others may come to the class with some background knowledge. We want you to know this book has been designed with many types of learners in mind. Our goals were to address the need for students to achieve the ability to communicate in written and spoken form. We sought to address a common statement by students that may have previous experiences, be they from secondary school or another college that say, “I have studied Spanish for years and don’t know how to speak or write it.” We also sought to present a reasonable alternative to the expensive textbooks and online packages that don’t seem to be practical or relevant. We sought to enhance second language learning by creating our own materials that take a new approach, the flipped classroom model, to learning a second language based upon the skills that we deem most useful and that will enable our students to confidently express themselves in Spanish–tú puedes con Yo puedo 2.
(1 review)
Yo puedo: para empezar
Contributors: Silvaggio-Adams and Vallejo-Alegre
Publisher: Milne Open Textbooks
You have learned two words in a second language just by reading the title of the book. Think about that for a moment and reflect upon your prior foreign language experiences. Often, students enter language classes with previously acquired skills, be they from secondary school or another college. Many say, “I have studied Spanish for years and don’t know how to speak or write it,” while others are a bit anxious about taking a second language for the first time, but all are overwhelmed by the expensive textbooks and online packages that don’t seem to be practical or relevant. We sought to change these common complaints by creating materials that take a new approach to learning a second language based upon the skills that we deem most useful and that will enable our students to confidently express themselves in Spanish.The text is designed for beginning Spanish language students. The pedagogical approach incorporates the flipped classroom methodology.
(1 review)
Inanimate Life
Contributor: Briggs
Publisher: Milne Open Textbooks
Inanimate Life is an open textbook covering a very traditional biological topic, botany, in a non-traditional way. Rather than a phylogenetic approach, going group by group, the book considers what defines organisms and examines four general areas of their biology: structure (their composition and how it comes to be), reproduction (including sex), energy and material needs, and their interactions with conditions and with other organisms. Although much of the text is devoted to vascular plants, the book comparatively considers ‘EBA = everything but animals’ (hence the title): plants, photosynthetic organisms that are not plants (‘algae’, as well as some bacteria and archaebacteria), fungi, and ‘fungal-like’ organisms. The book includes brief ‘fact sheets’ of over fifty organisms/groups that biologists should be aware of, ranging from the very familiar (corn, yeast) to the unfamiliar (bracket fungi, late-blight of potato). These groups reflect the diversity of inanimate life.
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(0 reviews)
Writing for Change: An Advanced ELL Resource
Contributor: Poblet
Publisher: Whatcom Community College
This book has been a part of my pandemic journey with a goal of building English language learner resources, gathering up what I have learned about anti-racist, culturally responsive, and decolonization approaches. I know that I have not nearly met this goal in this single resource and that there is so much more to do. I am simply starting on the collective path and am so humbled to join fellow colleagues in the work of rewriting the myths and false narratives of our field. This goes well beyond one specific discipline. It is a call to all educators and all institutions to choose love in action, to choose change.
(1 review)
Stability of Ships and Other Bodies - ver 0.7.0
Contributor: Bar-Meir
Publisher: Potto Project
This book, Stability of Ships and Other Bodies, describes the fundamentals when and why floating bodies are stable. In addition, it describes steps that transforms un–stable bodies to stable. This book is designed to replace all the other books and inseminate that recent developed technology and advances. The material in standard books is so entrenched, old, and outdated material that one can be only amazed. For example, concept like potential stability is not discussed or even mentioned in any of all the books that this author review.
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Nursing Skills
Contributors: Ernstmeyer and Christman
Publisher: WI Technical Colleges Open Press
This open access Nursing Skills textbook includes physical assessments routinely performed by entry-level registered nurses and basic nursing skills performed by licensed practical nurses. It is based on the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) statewide nursing curriculum for the Nursing Skills course (543-102), the 2019 NCLEX-RN Test Plan, the 2020 NCLEX-PN Test Plan, and the Wisconsin Nurse Practice Act. Learning activities are included to encourage the student to engage in critical thinking and apply the nursing process while analyzing assessment findings.
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(0 reviews)
Nursing Fundamentals
Contributors: Ernstmeyer and Christman
Publisher: WI Technical Colleges Open Press
This Nursing Fundamentals textbook is an open educational resource with CC-BY licensing developed for entry-level nursing students. Content is based on the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) statewide nursing curriculum for the Nursing Fundamentals course (543-101), the 2019 NCLEX-RN Test Plan, the 2020 NCLEX-PN Test Plan, and the Wisconsin Nurse Practice Act.
(3 reviews)
History and Science of Cultivated Plants
Contributor: Naithani
Publisher: Oregon State University
History and Science of Cultivated Plants narrates how humans transitioned from foragers to farmers and have arrived at present-day industrial agriculture-based civilization. It entails myths, historical accounts, and scientific concepts to describe how human efforts have shaped and produced easier to grow, larger, tastier, and more nutritious fruits, vegetables, and grains from wild plants. Using examples of various economically and socially important crops central to human civilization, the book describes the origin of crop plants, the evolution of agricultural practices, fundamental concepts of natural selection vs. domestication, experimental and methodical plant breeding, and plant biotechnology.
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Marine Ecology Notes
Contributors: Dormann and Schroeder
Publisher: Carsten Dormann and Arne Schroeder
This books is a general introduction to Marine Ecology, accompanying a lecture and excursion. It targets students without prior knowledge of the subject. The content is taken largely from Wikipedia, but curated and augmented by the authors.
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Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom
Contributor: Hutchinson
Publisher: Robert Hutchinson
Music Theory for the 21st–Century Classroom is an openly–licensed online four–semester college music theory textbook. This text differs from other music theory textbooks by focusing less on four–part (SATB) voiceleading and more on relating harmony to the phrase. Also, in traditional music theory textbooks, there is little emphasis on motivic analysis and analysis of melodic units smaller than the phrase. In my opinion, this led to students having difficulty with creating melodies, since the training they are given is typically to write a “melody” in quarter notes in the soprano voice of part writing exercises. When the assignments in those texts ask students to do more than this, the majority of the students struggle to create a melody with continuity and with appropriate placement of harmonies within a phrase because the text had not prepared them to do so.
(1 review)