Philanthropy has ignored a simple, but effective, technological way to improve education worldwide, writes Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia and editor-in-chief of Citizendium, an online encyclopedia.

On Citizendium’s blog, Mr. Sanger writes that donors should pay to have textbooks, school videos, and other educational material distributed free online to students in elementary and secondary schools. He has made an online petition to generate public support for the idea.

“Back in 1960, if a billionaire wanted to give the best possible textbook to every child in the world, that would have been too costly even for the richest billionaire. But no longer. Even those with small fortunes can provide a textbook (etc.) to everyone with Internet access –- hundreds of millions of children. Philanthropists, you could do this,” he writes.

“You have been spending millions of dollars annually to improve education, but we believe you have largely ignored this key opportunity,” he writes in the petition, which so far has 30 signatures.

What do you think of Mr. Sanger’s idea? Would it improve education around the world? Or does it rely too much on technology to solve a social problem?