Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

Collaborative authoring is the essence of the wiki. I believe the concept, the process, and the product deserve to be embraced by educators at all levels. If not, it is our students who lose out. Today’s resource from the Wikimedia Foundation is a great example of what can be done. I’m filing Wikijunior under Content & Curriculum.

Wikijunior (online resource) Wikijunior is a “child” of Wikibooks, which describes itself as “a collection of free content textbooks you can edit.” The parent site boasts 23,402 modules in over 1000 books. This is a truly amazing free resource with incredible potential.

Wikijunior is targeting children aged 8 to 11 for a series of open content books under three main headings: The Natural World; Our World of People; A World of Discovery and Innovation. So far, Wikijunior has completed and published one title–Big Cats as part of The Natural World series. If this book is a sign of things to come, Wikijunior has a promising future. Big Cats is beautifully illustrated and offers a wealth of well organized and carefully written information.

Big Cats is available in three formats, pdf, html, and hard copy. Although the print version of Big Cats costs $10 to download and the bound paperback is $20.53, the pdf version is a free download and the html version is freely available online. For individuals with reading challenges, the pdf and html versions work well with the reading aids and study tools offered by such programs as Kurzweil 3000.

Wikijunior says a second title is currently being “readied for publication”. Solar System will be part of A World of Discovery and Innovation. Eight other titles have been approved and are in process: How Things Work; The Elements; Dinosaurs; Bugs; South America; Languages; Kings and Queens of England; Ancient Civilizations.

As the Wikibooks community creates educational resources for children to use, it also offers exciting opportunities for educators and their students to be involved in the creation of the books. Be sure to check out “How to Help” at the Wikijunior website.

Here are a few screen shots from the pdf version of Big Cats. (Click to enlarge and use your browser’s back button if you wish to return to the blog. You may get a clearer view of the enlarged screenshot if you click on it again in the enlarged view.)