On the way in to work recently, I listened to an interview with Vint Cerf, a foremost Internet pioneer turned Google's Chief Internet Evangelist (how great would that job be?). You can listen to it below. I was struck by many of the things he said in response to questions from Andrea Seabrook, formerly of NPR and now the creator of her own podcast, DecodeDC. Chief among them was the way he talked about current business models and how they are not accurately monetizing given the current technoscape.

As an educational technologist, this rings true for me in the arena of digital access to curriculum in the classroom. The traditional textbook publishers are trying to impose a scheme upon schools and districts that requires an annual fee per student for their content. In reality, this does not seem feasible for schools when they have been used to purchasing a set of texts and recycling them for a certain period of time among many users.

If the traditional textbook companies want to remain relevant, they must evolve and adjust, otherwise, the OER movement may gain enough traction to force them out.