Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kathy Malaska on August 19, 2010 at 7:08am

I believe NOW is where schools need to be when it comes to digital textbooks. Yes there is a valid point for the expense of going digital, but it's the trade-off you must make when contemplating any change, especially in education. Looking back at chalk boards and chalk, to paper and ink pens. How about slide rules and calculators. I could go on and on. The fact that Amazon sold more ebooks than standard hard cover and paperback books should be the wake up call. Not to mention how many forests have fell to books that become outdated faster than we can imagine. What a novel idea it would be if books could be updated as soon as an event happens. Why is education always falling so much further behind than what is going on in the real world. We are teaching digital natives who really do not have any problems with pretty much any technology we give them. Our students keep falling further down that list in the world community rankings which makes no sense. Let's make them productive citizens in the world they will have to work in.

Permalink Reply by Yancy Unger on August 19, 2010 at 9:21am

Textbook alternatives are a way to free teachers up from a script and bring in more worthwhile models of pedagogy. Access to information and knowledge, in combination, with the ability to collaborate and create is the tenor of student voice.

A Stack of Textbooks

Permalink Reply by Christina M Hoffmann on August 19, 2010 at 9:41am

The time for digital text books is now. There are many, many reasons why this is true, but for the purposes of brevity and space constraints, I will touch upon the only following in this argument: legitimacy, collaborative learning, cost-effectiveness, and student interest. First, by legitimizing the digital world, we begin to work as collaborators with our students and drag our troubled and aging educational system into the Twenty-first century. Instead of focusing on why students should not bring their electronics into the classrooms, perhaps we should focus on why they do, and further, how we can use that knowledge to our advantage. There are obvious problems with texting and internet use during class and, arguably, outside class as well. Technology is a major part of our lives. School is a major part of our lives. These two major areas of our lives should not be in direct opposition to each other. By using the educational system to legitimize digital textbooks, and thereby technology in general, we legitimize a previously taboo subject: the use of electronic media in the classroom.
Additionally, as we legitimize technology, we begin an ascent towards an idea of collaborative learning inside and outside the classroom that is actually viable and ‘legal.’ If students are told they can use their device, whatever type it might be, in the classroom as part of the classroom experience, we might begin to put a dent in the text/email/Facebook action that goes on whether we want it to or not. If students are using a medium with which they are very familiar, they would assumedly be more open to reading about a subject with which they are not particularly familiar. And, moving into the idea of actual coursework, the additional functions included in digital textbooks make learning about research and references and then undertaking research, writing, and whatever other assigned work more approachable, and dare I say, more interesting.
In some ways, educators need to get with the times. In some schools across the country, there are still typewriters, word processors and dot-matrix printers, for whatever reasons. If we have a company, like Apple, that is ready to hand out iPads, whatever it’s actual motive, why not at least test them out? While the initial equipment and setup may, emphasis on may, initially increase costs, we will ultimately save money, trees and time. We would save money and trees because digital textbook processing is much less expensive than the paper kind. And saving trees kind of goes into the pro column without much explanation.
So, why not embrace technology and move forward with it? Publishing houses have cornered the textbook, and content, market for many, many years. It is time for them to move over and let the digital market emerge. For the record, this argument comes from a person who is technologically literate, but by no means ready to give up my worn out, written-all-over paperback editions of Faulkner and George Eliot any time soon. It’s just that while I like to learn about literature and history and all my other school subjects, I actually like, at the same time, to learn from them as well.

Chris Hoffmann
cgahoff@gmail.com

Permalink Reply by Yancy Unger on August 19, 2010 at 11:13am

Yancy Unger
Learning Technologies
Indiana Department of Education
Bedford, IN


A Stack of Textbooks

Permalink Reply by Elayne Kuletz (Evans) on August 19, 2010 at 11:58am

The real beauty of an electronic book is versatility. It can be read on desktops, laptops, mobile phones, and e-readers. By trading in our heavy textbooks, we encourage publishers to commit to the transition and we expose our students to new forms of media and technology. Yes! It's time to switch to digital textbooks.

Elayne Evans
Graduate Research Assistant
Western Oregon University
Monmouth, OR

Permalink Reply by Meg Griffin on August 19, 2010 at 6:09pm

Every day, educators must choose which tools with which to teach students. Pencils, highlighters, Animoto, Glogster, etc. The options seem endless. Should we use e-texts or traditional texts? The question seems simple and straightforward. Which tool makes the most sense? However, the larger unasked question is how will our students be writing and reading in their future. What tools will they use? What tools most closely resemble the tools they are likely to use? Are we educating students for their futures or our pasts? When the question is thus framed, the answer becomes clear. Education most definitely should be making the move to digital texts now.
The number one reason for moving to e-texts now rather than later is student engagement and buy-in. Getting some students to open a text or even remember to bring it home can often be more than half the battle. Students are however accustomed to traveling with their digital appendages. Cell phones, cameras, iPods, mp3 players, video cameras are tools that most students (certainly secondary students) carry everywhere. Connecting texts to students’ everyday digital tools can only be good. Imagine students having their textbooks with them wherever they go. Digital readers will engage today’s students and connect education to their everyday lives.
An additional reason, and perhaps one more educationally compelling is the opportunity for differentiation with digital texts. Do you have students who are reading below grade level? A digital text can easily allow for text to speech, pronunciation guides, and vocabulary support. How about the English language learners? Again, a digital text can easily couple translations or language support along with English text. Although often overlooked, what of the gifted student in need of enrichment? Again, a digital text provides opportunities for enrichment and self-extension. E-texts support differentiation and move us closer to individualized education. In all of these examples, student learning is increased as well as the student ownership of their learning. How can we better achieve the goal of inspiring life-long learners than by instilling pride and self-determination for one’s learning?
Finally, a text that is interactive and up-to-date is infinitely more appealing than a dusty old tome. Traditional texts are necessarily linear even with graphics. For many of our students, this type of text means difficulties in reading, comprehension, and motivation. Interactive text however allows for more chunking of information and greater graphic scaffolding of comprehension as well as active audio and visual support. Digital texts can also be updated as needed and new editions are as close as the next upload. No longer do districts have to wait until the next edition is available. Who out there has a science text that still counts Pluto as a planet? Changes in science and history occur in seconds. Changes in traditional texts take years.
Obviously, digital texts are closer to our students’ future than not. Are there concerns with moving to digital texts? Of course! However, there are legitimate issues with traditional texts as well. Instead of using these concerns as reasons for not moving forward, let us discover the solutions. It is time to move forward and adapt. If not now, when?

Meg Griffin megbg60@gmail.com

Permalink Reply by Steve Covello on August 19, 2010 at 8:50pm

There are at least two reasons why people read: (a) to gain information; (b) to enjoy the experience. I submit that, of the latter, the value of it is well known – of the former, quite less. There is no such thing as a scarce or rare PDF. Books, on the other hand, are finite, subject to misplacement. The book experience is deliberate – a speedbump, relative to other hypertext activity. As educators, should we simply forfeit the book experience, as we might relegate teaching culinary appreciation, as something children acquire a taste for on their own later in life? What harm could that do? The information is the same? I say that the value of reading a book is as useful as learning to hand-write thank you notes, sent through regular mail. It's inefficient, feels archaic, and costs money, yet redeems the both writer and reader by what is implicit in the medium. Our mission, in education, should be reflected by which choice of medium we choose.

Permalink Reply by Michael Cady on August 23, 2010 at 6:11pm

Is it time to switch to digital textbooks?

No, but I believe it is time to reexamine our thinking about our student’s needs and how we can best serve them. I don’t believe that our student’s needs are best met by spending a semester reading through a commercially produced, politically correct, static, printed textbook - so putting the same textbook in a digital form in not an improvement.
Digital books are excellent resources, online data bases and authoritative information sites are as well, but digital textbooks are another matter. A digital text is only an improvement over the standard text, in that it can help save students from having to lug around a heavy backpack, but in terms of the most efficient delivery of education, they are a weak answer indeed.

A major criticism of the standard classroom textbook is that it seldom provides fascinating reading; in fact, it usually provides a very uninspiring experience, for the student. I have never heard students suggest that the textbooks gave a passion for the subject, or encouraged them to become life-time learners of history, literature, or science. Sadly, the textbook is often the learner’s first contact with our subject, and if it is not engaging, it also becomes the last.
Textbooks are commercial products. They are designed to be sold to large school districts. There are lots of fascinating non-textbook books in any bookstore (and on-line) but would any history-buff pay over a hundred-dollars, to buy our typical high school American History text, when faced with numerous alternatives? I don’t think so. We need to do better. We need to give students the best of what we have, and I don’t believe the textbook is the best we have, especially for today’s student.

Using more online data bases and resources may require some changes on our part. I began my career in a world where about the most technologically advanced tool we had, in the classroom, was the slide projector (that beeped when it was time to move ahead on the film roll.) We have much better tools available to us today, and we should use them. It’s time to move into the digital world but restricting this huge resource to the use of a digital textbook is, at best, only a half way measure.

How can I teach without a textbook? How will I know what to teach? How will the students do their homework? My view is that anything that can be done with a text can be accomplished in a more engaging and efficient manner with online resources.

The question we need to ask is, “are we using textbooks – digital or paper – because they are the most efficient way we have to help our students learn, or are we using them because we are most comfortable with them?” I think we need to change and what do we ask of our students each day? We ask them to learn something new – and that is what we should be doing right along with them.

Permalink Reply by Betsy Burgess on August 30, 2010 at 6:10pm

Sunrise or Tsunami – The Rise of Digital Books in the Classroom

As surely as the sun rises every day, digital books are steadily, daily finding their way into classrooms. Their arrival will not flood our classrooms like a tsunami; rather they will appear because of the foresight and talent of leading educators who recognize the many benefits of digital books and know how to incorporate them into teaching strategies.

If, when, why, and how digital books will appear in classrooms are all good questions for discussion; however, a less common, extremely important question is the format of these digital books. Ideally, digital books will be “accessible” books from the beginning, with no barriers, so that all students can read and learn from them. The more educators understand about what makes a book accessible, the better all children will be served, regardless of reading style. Now, the beginning of the rise, is the best time to understand, ask about, and require accessibility, hoping that as this digital book movement evolves it will incorporate equal access for all.

Digital books have text, so what are the barriers to text learned from the print world that can be overcome if text is handled correctly from the beginning? Print text presents a tremendous barrier for students with “print disabilities,” who represent ten- to twenty-percent of all students.
For example, students who are blind or have low vision use assistive technology to read; will the new digital books work with assistive technology? Will a screen reader read the text on a web page, and provide a blind student with same ability to navigate the sections of text and link to new URLs? Will these digital books work on braille devices?* If the content is in PDF, as some digital books are, can a screen reader or a braille device read PDF content without conversion?

Many students with severe learning disabilities cannot read or process print. Some of these students are discovering that they learn better with simultaneous highlighting and reading words out loud, using multiple modalities to reinforce reading and learning. Software reading tools, often called DAISY (Digital Accessible Information SYstem) readers, exist that offer multimodal reading. Will a student with learning disabilities be able to use this kind of tool to access the digital content on a website or in a PDF?

Furthermore, will the digital content work on the augmentative communication devices used by many students with physical disabilities?

Going beyond text, digital content often incorporates more of media types, such as images and video. Yet not all students can see the images and video or hear the accompanying audio. Can content developers include description and subtitling automatically?

The discussion of digital books is incomplete without considering one type of digital accessible book, available now, that general educators can use with students with print disabilities who are included in their classrooms. Picture a classroom with some students reading from a print textbook and others reading the same book, in an accessible format, on a computer. All students on the same page. All engaged in the material and reading in the format that works best. The teacher using the same lesson plans for the entire class. These digital accessible books are fairly well known in special education, but their greatest benefit may be in their capability to empower students with print disabilities to thrive in general education classrooms.

For informational rather than commercial purposes – because the books are completely free - educators can find and download these digital accessible books from Bookshare (www.bookshare.org), a federally funded library for students with print disabilities. An online library, Bookshare offers over 85,000 digital accessible books and free software for those reading the books.

As educators explore the world of digital content and learn about accessibility, an easy starting place is the digital accessible books from Bookshare. Bringing these books into all classrooms will bring light to all students, rather than leaving some drowning in content they can’t read.

*Links:
www.bookshare.org

http://www.bookshare.org/_/aboutUs/2009/11/openContentTextbooks U.S. Dept of Education Grants Funding to Bookshare to Convert Open Content Textbooks to Accessible Formats

http://www.bookshare.org/_/aboutUs/2010/03/diagram (another federally funded initiative to make graphic content accessible)

Permalink Reply by Andra Brichacek on October 21, 2010 at 2:13pm

The E.O. Wilson Foundation announced that it's working on a fully interactive digital life sciences textbook for K-12 and university that it plans to make available for free. They plan to have the 59-chapter book completed within 2.5 years, but they'll release each chapter for free as they are completed. Far from being just an online version of a typical text, the digital book will include animations and videos that are integral to the content and interviews with the actual scientists who did the work. Check out this blog post and videos from Wired.

Permalink Reply by Sean Jordan on October 28, 2010 at 10:07am

I think that schools do need to take the leap and switch to digital textbooks. A lot of the new features that are coming out accompanying digital textbooks lately have made great progress in helping the students. In math specifically, many of the textbook companies are accompanying their textbooks with online homework, activities, and manipulatives that assist the students in understanding the homework that goes beyond what just the textbook or the teacher can provide. Sometimes a different perspective on things will help clear up a concept to all students for their understanding. Admittedly I am currently a preservice teacher, but I have noticed already in the school that I am placed in that there have been times when the school does not have enough books, especially when a student moves up or down from the honor's track. So when my cooperating teacher or myself try to assign homework out of the book, it creates a dilemma for the students who do not have book to work from. The existence of the digital texts would enable them to work on assignments where they would not need their book to solve the problems.

Permalink Reply by Theodore Bogar on October 30, 2010 at 11:26am

Trading in textbooks for e-books is a great idea but, for the most part, not a reality. There are far too many other needs of schools than digital textbooks. If a district has the money now, I would certainly say invest, but for the most part, we cannot afford them. Money needs to be going into better facilities, classroom supplies, more teachers and higher-paying salaries, and other, less costly, technologies that can enhance education for the entire class. There are just too many problems with school funding that makes digital textbooks an unnecessary cost. Students should have hot lunches and a ceiling that won't leak over their heads before e-books that do just the same thing as the textbooks already in circulation.

Ted Bogar, Preservice Teacher, Bowling Green, OH, USA

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