As classes get ready to start up again I couldn’t help but notice the plethora of alternatives to traditional textbooks that have hit my radar screen. For example, I received an email from my McGraw-Hill rep telling me that students could buy an online copy of their textbook for around $90, online textbook rental businesses where, purportedly, students can save over 60% on their textbooks (just Google “textbook rental websites” for a list of them), eBook and smart phone editions, a number of aggregator sites which offer free textbooks (Google “free textbooks online” for examples) and, of course, books available for free on the Global Text site. There is an interesting article in the September 2009 issue of Fast Company discussing the variety of approaches and initiatives going on in the Open Educational Resources (OER) space. By Anya Kamenetz, its title is “How Web-Savvy Edupunks Are Transforming American Higher Education” The article is sub-titled “Free online courses, Wiki universities, Facebook-style tutoring networks -- American higher education is being transformed by a cadre of Web-savvy edupunks”. Three reactions: (1) Clearly, there are many lower-cost options for the traditional textbook. (2) The array of IT-enabled educational resources available will help professors migrate from the “sage on the stage” to the “guide on the side”. I’m going to experiment with this in my class in the fall. (3) Finally, should Rick and I and the rest of you in the Global Text community start calling ourselves “edupunks”?