Imagine a world where science teachers in India could swap lesson plans with their counterparts in California, or where students in a rural high school in Nebraska could try their hand at mathematics problems written for an audience halfway across the globe--in China, or Germany, or Italy, for example.

Ten years ago, such academic collaborations would have seemed ridiculous to most classroom educators, many of whom hardly have enough time during a typical day to network with co-workers in their own school buildings, much less cultivate relationships with colleagues hundreds and even thousands of miles away.

Thanks to the internet and the evolution of web-based software programs in schools, however, many of those geographic barriers no longer exist. Now, a new online community has emerged that promises to democratize the process of curriculum development, giving educators the ability to tailor instructional content to the needs of their students, wherever they are, free of charge.

Dubbed the "Wikipedia of curriculum" by its creators, the online community known as Curriki -- accessible at www.curriki.org -- aims to provide a place online where educators from anywhere in the world can post curricula and lesson plans for review and use by fellow classroom teachers.

Like Wikipedia, the organic online encyclopedia that lets its users edit and update existing entries, Curriki employs a philosophy of open access, encouraging its members not only to use the content available on the site, but also to upgrade it, modify it, and tag it to suit the needs of their students, wherever they are.

The brainchild of Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, Curriki was founded as a way to provide disadvantaged teachers and students around the globe with open and unfettered access to high-quality educational content.

So enamored was McNealy with his vision that he decided to spin the company off from Sun into its own freestanding nonprofit organization. Based in Washington, D.C., the group is led by longtime educational software designer Bobbi Kurshan. In an interview with eSchool News, Kurshan, whose resume includes work with industry heavyweights Microsoft Corp. and Apple Computer, talked about the challenges associated with turning McNealy's vision into a reality, and particularly with applying the controversial notion of social networking to open curriculum.

In conversations about the project, Kurshan calls Curikki "a dangerous and exciting proposition" for education; exciting, she says, for its ability to revolutionize how educators approach and integrate new learning resources in their classrooms--and dangerous for its potential to shake up the current market for traditional, standards-based curricula in schools.

Because Curriki is a free resource based on an open platform, Kurshan says, the learning materials posted by members of the community to the web site will be accessible to educators anywhere in the world, regardless of their computer's operating system, as long as they have an internet connection.