IS IT TIME FOR TEACHER-CREATED E-TEXTBOOKS?

PRESENTED BY:Mark A. Van HeckeInstructional Designer and Digital Text ConsultantEast China, Michiganmvanhecke@comcast.net

E-TEXTBOOKS in K-12 EDUCATION The Way Things Are and the Way Things Ought to Be

The Way Things AreStudents are issued a pile of textbooks for most if not all courses they are taking

The books are often several years old and their content may even be outdated before their first use

Keeping track of hundreds of textbooks, their condition, who has them and where they are is a logistical nightmare for most school districts that never seems to end

The Way Things ArePerhaps the biggest argument against continuing to use printed textbooks and the need to convert to a digital text format is the cost of traditional textbook packages

Let’s do the math:

If a single textbook costs $100 and you need 500 of them for one of your high schools that’s $50,000

If your district has two high schools each needing 500 books that’s $100,000

The Way Things AreStudents in most cases are not allowed to write in or highlight in their textbooks, so interactivity is limited. Is the product really that great to begin with?

The prose is often bland and unexciting and written with little emotion

The content of the textbook may- or may not comport with your state’s content standards- even if it does comport with those of California and Texas

The Way Things AreBut for all of these shortcomings, there ARE some good things about printed textbooks

You don’t need batteries or some kind of device to read them anytime/anywhere

People have been using printed textbooks since the 1400s- so we’re familiar with them

The Way Things AreAnd textbook packages were designed as a ‘cookbook’ solution for teachers who were directed to teach a class outside of their subject area. If you had a pulse, could read and follow directions, then the textbook package would provide everything you needed to teach the course with some rudimentary framework and make you look like a hero- even if you had no idea what you were doing

The Way Things AreBut does this nostalgia for the way things have always been mean that we should always do things the same way?

The Way Things AreDo we keep using many of the same methods that were used back in the 1400s to teach students?

Whether or not these methods are the best for student learning

The Way Things Ought to BeIn deciding whether or not we want to write and use teacher-created e-textbooks in our classrooms, there are a few questions we might want to ask

How might contemporary education theory support and justify the design of dynamic and interactive digital text created for a variety of different devices including PCs, Macs, tablets and mobile technologies?

The Way Things Ought to BeHow can the use of digital text enhance the student learning experience and foster academic growth in ways that printed text cannot?

The Way Things Ought to BeIn what ways does the role of technology in the classroom need to change to help students access the resources, information and people that they need to live beyond a sustainable lifestyle in the 21st Century?

What role can the use of digital text and e-textbooks play?