Every school is (or should be) talking about the future of digital textbooks. When I meet wi textbook company representatives, my second question (after “how are you today?”) is, “What is your company’s digital strategy and roadmap?” So I’d like to talk about this subject for a couple of posts. Today I’m going to talk about the benefits and possibilities of moving to a digital format for textbooks, and tomorrow I’ll talk about some of the challenges schools will face moving in this direction. I don’t like writing in this order; I like to finish on the positive, but I tried writing the posts in that order and they didn’t make sense. So I’ll start by saying that I support the move to digital texts (or whatever they will be called), but I am aware of the difficulties.
Let’s start with the most obvious and important point, a textbook is not a course. I’m not sure whether this is universally agreed. I still hear joking comments of teachers staying one chapter ahead in the text, and not joking concerns about not “finishing the book” by June. Textbook companies, understandably, do nothing to disparage this idea. A textbook is sold not as a book alone but as a “course in a box,” with assignments and tests and PowerPoint lectures and online resources in the package (ironically, many schools are now having trouble with students acquiring teachers’ versions of texts, undermining this structure) . Effective instruction requires a teacher to map out material to be learned and use resources to effect this learning.
One of the strongest arguments for digital texts is the possibility of reducing the tyranny of the textbooks. Textbooks loom massively in a class. Physically they are large, the main prop of the classroom. They are expensive, putting pressure on a teacher to justify student expense. One of the arguments for a teacher finishing the book is to get the students’ money worth. They also have the weight of authority, suggesting in every way that this is the subject, not a means to it. Parents cite not completing the text as evidence of teacher incompetence. The suggestion that a teacher would not use a textbook would be viewed with skepticism. A combination of traditional thinking and persuasive marketing by textbook companies have convinced the world of academia that the textbook is king. As with many other fields, digital distribution can break the hold of old monopolies, which will also cause many of the challenges I’ll talk about tomorrow.
Textbooks weigh a ton!
A textbook is an inherently limited medium. In most subjects, textbooks are out of date as soon as they are published. A digital textbook has the capability of regular updates. Textbooks contain the contents that are intended for the broadest audience possible while a digital textbook could be customized by a teacher, a school, or a student. Many textbooks today offer “digital extras,” but these are broadly underused because they require moving away from the book. The same digital features could be seamlessly integrated into the digital text. The paper and printing resources used in creating a textbook are huge, and often used for a short period of time. A perfect example of this wasteful is the literature anthology. All students have carried these bricks monetarily and physically back and forth to class only to use less than a third of the contents. A digital anthology can easily be limited to only the selections that are needed for a course.
Efficiency, flexibility, reduced cost and weight all argue for the implementation of digital texts. Just as in the transformation of music and film to digital distribution models, this change is an inevitability. However, just as with music and film, inevitability does not mean that the change will be a smooth one. There a clear challenges to this move, and clear interests that will fight to maintain old models.
And I’ll talk about these tomorrow.
As always, I welcome your comments.
I must disagree about the prospects of reduced costs. An MP3 album costs the same as a physical album. An eBook many time is more than its paperbound version. Why? Because the owners of the media control the pricing.
Given how education seems to bloat itself with the un-needed, I can see a poetry text with videos, audios, anime,edit The Wasteland better than Ezra sections all adding to the cost of texts. (An eText of The wasteland is a good example.)
Talk with librarians about the publishers have a strangle hold on books. Try to check out a text in e-form from your library. It’s next to impossible.
Teachers have had the opportunity to customize texts since xerographics came into being. A teacher can pick and choose and use only what he wishes. Are texts cheaper? No. Permissions are expensive and texts most often cost more than the old anthologies.
Plus anthologies done by others bring us into material –as teachers– we may not know. How many of your students have stated they did not know a writer until you introduced them?
While I personally use e-texts and endorse them for study and research, I do not see them as a one size fits all.
You are anticipating part 2