In her explanation about Curriki, Kurshan stated:

We harness the collaborative knowledge of the K-12 education community and the power of next-generation Web 2.0 technologies to transform education. With Curriki teachers can, find, create, and share free and open resources, find targeted curricula, and collaborate with professional colleagues. In addition, schools can spend less on instructional materials and save or reallocate financial resources.

Just how much can schools save? Kurshan stated that If only 10% of the United States' 3.1 million teachers were to reduce instructional spend by 50%, US school systems would save $700M/year.

Beyond dollars, she underscored that the traditional curricula creation and dissemination model is top-down, passive and static. In contrast, the open and shared education movement is a bottom-up, collaborative, and continuously improving, empowering teachers to take a more active role in what goes on within their classrooms and beyond.

To close her presentation, Kurshan discussed the exciting changes happening at the policy level in California, Texas, Illinois, Indiana and Pennsylvania with regards to widening acceptance and momentum around the open education movement.

Stay tuned to the Curriki blog for additional news and updates, as Curriki continues to work with states and countries around the globe on open education initiatives.

To see Dr. Kurshan's full presentation, click here or take a look at the slides below.

Curriki

P.S. The Curriki team would like to thank Sun Microsystem's for hosting the June 30th NECC event. In addition to Dr. Kurshan's presentation, audience members learned from Jack Scherer (Sun Microsystems) how Chicago Public Schools was able to improve its network operations, performance, and availability through E-Rate funds and Sun Microsystems solutions and free online IT training services.