Week 5 Death of the Textbook

I've been in a position to observe and think about textbook trends from 4 perspectives, seeing as I'm a textbook author, a student, a teacher, and a parent of a kid who's about to start college.  Here are some of my thoughts, see if you agree:

• Holy mackerel, textbooks cost a LOT of money (and the costs are growing).
• Lots of courses are using open (free) resources (and sometimes even entire programs - smile UOIT Masters program).  This is a draw for students to register in these courses/programs.
• The internet resources available to support certain types of curriculum are seemingly endless; in some cases these internet resources not only replace the textbook but are in fact better resources (than the textbook).
• The textbook as a teaching tool is one of the worst on the engagement spectrum (you have to actually READ, and most students prefer to avoid it).  "OK, class everyone start reading chapter 5 now".
• More and more college students won't even purchase the textbook at all, sometimes because they're broke, but often because they see no value in the purchase.  These students focus on in-class learning, notes, PowerPoints and other teaching materials their teachers make freely available on their LMSs.  Students are willing to take the hit on their grades if necessary rather than buy the book.  
• Think about it - how much of curriculum content do students (in any grade) have to actually READ in their textbook, aren't the teachers covering that content in class anyways in lectures, activities, PowerPoints, etc.?  Ask yourself, as a teacher, what material do students have to go to their textbook for, because there's no other source for the material?
• If your curriculum is within a field where innovation and updates are frequent, new editions of textbooks struggle (and sometimes fail) to keep up.  One example:  computer-related curriculum textbooks are typically on a 3-year new edition cycle, keeping pace with the MS Office suite and Windows new version releases.  There's a new Office suite and usually Windows every 3 years in case you haven't kept track.
• Digital textbooks and textbook software (designed to teach/practice/grade) are growing markets for publishers.
• According to one article I read (see DIY textbook article below), less than 60% of students actually buy all of their required texts, and of those who buy the number of students actually reading the textbook is far lower (Borden, 2015).
• Common student complaints:  I bought an expensive textbook and we barely used it; I bought the textbook and now it's sitting on a shelf, never to be used again (and now I have to dust it! LOL);  I can't resell this textbook because there's a new edition;  I can't buy this textbook second-hand because there's a new edition.
• Textbook sales are taking a beating because of these trends.
• New editions seem to be coming out faster as publishers struggle with lost sales due to used book sales; teachers struggle to keep up with revisions from new editions.
• These are systemic issues.

Ok, so how many of those bullets do you agree with? :)

This brings to mind some questions to think about...

• When are textbooks invaluable and necessary to learning?  
• What are textbooks adding to learning (value-adds)?
• Why is reading a textbook important?
• Is the value of a textbook dependent on the curriculum content, the learner, the teacher?
• Is the death of the textbook imminent (for some curriculum)?
• Why are students paying so much for textbooks?
• As a society, do we read less?  Is this a scary trend, a generation of non-readers?
• Knowing students don't actually read, are teachers pandering to non-readers to cover our curriculum (from necessity)?
• With our evolving technology, are paper books a thing of the past?

Here are some digital innovative initiatives and ideas to combat textbook trauma...you may want to READ these (smile)...

• From Jeff Borden's Advancing Learning Conference 2015 presentation, here's an interesting article about a DIY Textbook Initiative at Saint Leo's University (Florida).  This is a pragmatic approach to DIY textbook creation, including:  approaches (students write their own book, students contribute chapters, groups create their own book, groups contribute chapters); suggestions for which textbook creation digital tools to use; and the learning advantages of DIY textbook creation.  (FYI, Jeff  has a really interesting blog called The Innovation Incubator). 
• From Vicki Ellis here's an interesting article How Teachers Can Self Publish Books where Vicki describes David Hopkins' new book describing his process and lessons learned.
• Check out what's going on at Algonquin College where they've embraced the digital textbook adopting a mandatory standard cost per student and all students get all textbooks in ebook format (no paper!).  Read more in this article eTextbooks at Algonquin College to Reach 10,000 Students and 120 Programs Next School Year.
• Follow the Twitter hashtag #ditchthetextbook, lots of interesting articles, thoughts, and feedback there.
• Check out this Twitter post (from UOIT EduGrad Studies @uoitmed):  The Periodic Table of iPad Apps (pictured below, sorry it's a bit grainy, you may have to click on the link), and reference the textbook and storytelling creation and collaboration tools.
• Read this article The Death of Textbooks, curated from the UOIT EduGrad studies account.  The article is about digitized materials (and there's an interesting graph depicting tuition and textbook increases over time).

Week 5 - Reply to Melissa

Hi Melissa,

My PLN is really important to me...other than taking UOIT Masters courses I just don't have time (or funding) to take a lot of formal courses.  I might get to two conferences per year, so the rest of my learning has to be self-taught.  One of the fastest ways to gather information is to look to my PLN, mostly experts who have no idea I'm alive :)  For one thing, I like to follow the "right people" on Twitter and use that as a curation tool.  By following the right people, and seeing what they're up to, I can take a huge shortcut - they've already figured out the best innovative stuff, and filtered down the enormous world of Google for me.  I don't always get to my PLN (and it's often when I have insomnia LOL).  I find the most useful links posted by my PLN people, then I email those to myself, and place them in a to-do folder for follow-up within my email (and organize the ideas and information from there).  Honestly, I can't tell you how much I've learned and how many valuable items I have discovered within my PLN.

Here's a snip of a slide (from my other course)...using Twitter to curate.  I mention in this slide the "snowball effect" - once you find someone or something great to add to your PLN, check out their PLN (see who they're following, or check out their hangouts)...it's kind of like when you're researching and you find a really relevant and great article, you can skip to the references to find more of the same.

Week 5 - Reply to Janet

Hi Janet, the tools of the educational trade have changed a lot (especially in the last 5 years)!  Collaboration in education (through technology) is one of the positives for sure.  Today's college students are MUCH better at collaborating.  Not only are they quite comfortable with technology and devices, they're already using these tools to stay connected every day.  Connection and collaboration is seamless and learning new collaborative tools is "no big deal".  Often students enjoy utilizing their devices in new innovative ways.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about GAFE (Google Apps For Education) and how I can utilize these tools within my asynchronous courses.  I love how students can contribute simultaneously, and see when others are online and working (collaboratively).  All the tools within GAFE are free (who doesn't love free?).  Here's an excellent Google Slides document GAFE for beginners, created by Sylvia Duckworth, a french teacher from Toronto.  Google Slides is just like PowerPoint btw.  Here's one of Sylvia's Sketchnotes (she's big on visual notetaking too, check out her archive of awesome pictures).

Week 4 Futurity

I plan to develop a new General Education course FUTURITY (within the science and technology theme).  Here's the course description from my proposal:

What will our future lives look like?  Students examine past predictions (and their accuracy) and then move forward to glimpses of our future.  A diverse range of topics are introduced, including medical breakthroughs and research such as gene therapy and personalization of medication, scientific and technological advancements such as the digital evolution and driver-less cars, the future of crime, evolving privacy standards, demographic and population trends, and environmental and climate change.

Critical thinking will be a major theme threaded throughout the entire course.  Students will analyze a wide variety of source materials and evaluate information and categorize data into fact, fiction, or exaggeration.  Media, cultural, and technological influences will be examined.

Futurity topics will be discussed at an introductory level, designed for an audience of cross-disciplinary students.  These topics include:

• Medical breakthroughs and research such as gene therapy and personalization of medication, global pandemics, evolving diseases and human evolution;
• Scientific and technological advancements such as the digital evolution and driver-less cars, travel, food supply and distribution;
• Sociological trends, including demographic, population, religion, crime, evolving privacy standards;
• Environment and climate change.

I'm not a science major.  So why do I want to develop a FUTURITY course?  And how will I manage such a broad range of topics (not being an expert)?  Good questions, for sure.

I want to create this course for two reasons.  First reason:  these topics really interest me (which makes my prep way more enjoyable).  But what about college students, are they interested?  I didn't know...so I polled students on a few ideas for courses to see what they liked best, and FUTURITY was the winner (by a landslide).  Job one accomplished - I have (implicit) engagement, this won't be a course they "have to take".  So that's my second reason:  student engagement.  My job engaging students is a whole lot easier when they're interested in the content from the start (I've just gotta keep their interest piqued and the enthusiasm going).  Believe me when I say this is important to me - I taught Accounting for 10 years (it's REALLY hard to make Accounting exciting!)

Next question:  how will I manage such a broad range of topics, not being an expert?   Futurity will be the third Gen Ed course I've developed, I've also developed Paranormal and Pseudoscience and World Mysteries (these courses were also developed based on a popular interest poll - when you don't know - ask!).  All three courses have critical thinking themes, and for all three courses I don't consider myself a content "expert".  I should re-state from the description above that the course topics are taught at an introductory level, meant for a wide (diverse) audience, all college students.  Seeing as General Education elective courses are taken by every college student, my classes are an interesting mix of students from every discipline, from nursing students to engineers to early childhood education students.  So what's ideal about the FUTURITY course is that students will have a varied level of expertise and education depending on the topic of the week.  For example, the health sciences majors will be able to contribute a lot about medical breakthroughs during those weeks of instruction, and the computer tech and engineer majors can bring knowledge in weeks where we are covering the digital evolution and driver-less cars.  What's my role?  I do teach a short lecture, introducing the topic content and covering the basics (and I'm well prepared).  But then I make it clear - I'm NOT an expert.  We go to the Internet, we look at sources (some provided by me, some provided by students both on the spot and for homework), we evaluate content, students have a highly interactive role in the selection of source content, the evaluation process, and they learn to critically analyze information.  Is it fact?  Is it fiction?  Is it exaggeration?  What are the underlying motivations?  Sources? What are the media, cultural, sociological, and technological influences at play?  So not only are they learning about the topic itself (interesting stuff!), they are also learning how to research and gather information, analyze veracity, synthesize a variety of information, evaluate, and make informed decisions.  Win, win, win.  

And now, the futurity of education.  The role of teacher has changed.  Dramatically.  I have strategies for facilitating my classes instead of straight up teaching.  I do teach them some science, straight up, but I also teach students how to research on the Internet, how to create artifacts of their learning, how to use tools for collaboration, how to think critically.  Along the way we all learn about the topic content, and keeping up with new trends and innovations is much easier when there's 201 people "keeping up" instead of 1!  What also interests me is that most students really enjoy learning about digital tools too, this feedback is positive.  They learn collaborative ways to work, and cool tools they can use in other courses and other presentations, they appreciate it.

Here's a couple of links about the future of education, if you're interested:

Edutopia: Education Trends

A 2016 Look at the Future of Online Learning Part 1

Week 4 Response #2 to Melissa

Reply to:  Melissa's blog

Hi Melissa,

Thanks for quoting our group presentation, it was cool to open your blog and see that :)

I love your insights - you're so right, technology maintenance time is extremely time-consuming!  The digital tools are always "updated" with new features, formats, and sometimes even entirely new tools/trends.  It's very, very time-consuming.

I literally just read an article about our college graduates missing important soft skills (time management and organization skills) immediately before I read your blog...talk about timing!  The article To Solve the Skills Gap in Hiring, Create Expectations in the Classroom discusses critical EESOs (essential employability skills and outcomes).

To learn more about EESOs, here's a checklist we have to complete for all course outlines and course proposals (this checklist comes from the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities):

Back to the article...we are trying to prepare college students for the workplace (hence the application of EESOs), so the article argues we need to establish some guidelines that are similar to the workplace, such as NO DO-OVERS!  If you're late you're marked ABSENT, and so on, the article is a good read.  Actually, it's a GREAT read, and so totally relevant to college professors.

The skills gaps identified in the article are personal accountability for work, self-motivation, strong work ethic, punctuality, time management, professionalism, and adaptability (Kent, 2016). I personally think of these as "get your act together" skills or "reality check". The article is absolutely correct:  college students are shocked every time I tell them there isn't a second chance. There isn't extra credit to make up for late or missing work, and as the article states "there are no extra credits" in real life.

Bottom line:  our college students, like ourselves, have to be able to show initiative, learn on their own, manage their time, their work, and their responsibilities, all by themselves.  That's a life lesson for an 18-yr-old who has only experienced endless do-overs and in some school districts no due dates whatsoever.  I'm happy I read your blog, because it helps me remember that we're all challenged too, and reinforces that we need to keep the reality check going, it's "tough love" in the classroom.

Week 4 Response #1 to Rachel's blog

Response to Rachel's blog


Hi Rachel, I totally agree, the new technology we already have available is really exciting. I'm not sure if I can even visualize what education might look like in 20 or even 30 years! 

I'm going to check out Google Cardboard and Google Expeditions, thanks for the tips. 

I'm also interested in how you use Twitter - it sounds like you use it as a research tool. I've started doing that as well. To build up content in my courses I follow people/accounts that are "in the know" - experts in the fields. Their tweets are so valuable - since their tweet content is already "vetted" it's an easy way to narrow my internet research into useful items...they've already found items that are good. I'm really interested about how people use the internet to research, what tools they are using, and how. Thanks for your post, I really enjoyed it.

Week 3 Blog - responses to Rob's week 3 blog questions

Week 3 EDUC5101G Blog

Responses to:  http://robpower74.blogspot.ca/2016/01/analyzing-and-categorizing-online.html

1.  What types of tools do you think are missing?

Student assistance tools (tutors, test prep, student study tools), digital textbooks, e-portfolios (career search and planning, resumes), digital marketplaces, financial tools (corporate, public, personal).  These are all specific examples that may fit into one of your listed categories.

2.  What types of tools from the list have you used as a teacher? As a student? (Can you provide examples?)

Honestly, there is an enormous list.  

From my blog, last week in two days I used the following tools:  Wikispaces, Weebly, Padlet, Word, Google Docs, Excel, Chrome, Explorer, Realtime Boards (MindMaps), Videoscribe, Adobe Connect and Adobe Connect plug-in for Word Clouds, Outlook, PowerPoint, Prezi, D2L, Camtasia, SnagIt, Blogger, YouTube, Socrative.

3.  Which of those tools have you found most (and least) useful as a teacher? As a student? Why?

BEST

Teacher:  SnagIt to screencast to YouTube for online lecture and demonstration recordings.  Providing the PowerPoint files and accompanying videos means the content is UDL compliant.  Plus for students with challenges (learning disabilities, ESL, other), they can re-watch as many times as they want.  It's an advantage within asynchronous teaching (I also post the videos for my face-to-face students who miss class, they can catch up).  My student feedback has been very positive about the screencast lectures.  Demos of software (tools, LMS), or explanations of assignment expectations with accompanying exemplars are exceptionally helpful for clarity in the asynchronous learning network.

Student:  I enjoy tools that engage my interactive participation, such as polling tools, and visual tools such as Word Clouds and Padlet (I love visuals).  I think the breakout rooms in Adobe Connect are excellent for collaborative work.

WORST

Teacher:  poorly designed textbook software (example:  to teach how to use Microsoft Office).  These are packaged with textbooks and students complete exercises within the platform which mimics the real Office products (and marks the students' work).  They are often far from intuitive and detract from the learning of the real software (MS Office), a lot of time is spent assisting students within the functionality and limitations of the textbook "mimic software"  i.e. how to advance to next instructions/exercise, save your work, fix an error you catch (and sometimes it grades them wrong).  Makes for a frustrating learning experience for everyone and wastes valuable time.

Student:  LMSs that are hard to navigate.  In some courses I feel like I'm always spending time trying to figure out where things are or what is expected of me.  The functionality of some LMSs (and organization) can be counter-intuitive, which is one reason why some teachers decide to use other tools of their own creation.  Although the self-made teacher LMS replacements are almost always better and my own preference too, the problem with using other tools such as wikis and websites - every teacher has their own system, so it's back to figuring out where things are.  My own student feedback when I was using a wiki was "Why aren't you using the LMS like my other teachers?" - college students don't like the variation.  They also don't like putting things in more than one location (I've taken courses myself where the teacher is using 3 different tools to house course content, work, etc.)  To combat this in my teaching I created a video that demos the LMS and where to find things, how to submit work, etc.

4.  Which types of tools from the list have you NOT personally used as a teacher or student? Why?

I don't use any of the K-12 tools (obviously), and I don't use curriculum specific tools (such as science or math sites designed to match up with curriculum).  For my courses there just isn't anything available that I'm aware of (but I would love to find one!)

5.  Find an example of that type of tool that might be useful in your personal teaching / learning context.

Personal (for something different):  I want a smartphone app that shows me pictures of recipes  based on what's on sale that week in multiple store flyers (or allows me to create/add and choose my own recipes), then I pick the ones I want for the week, it creates my grocery list, includes nutritional information, and matches up within the rewards point for my store.  LOL!  I have lots of ideas for apps, if only I ruled the world :)

Teaching/learning:  I want a tool that helps me teach critical thinking.  I'm not sure how this would work or look, but it's such an important skill...maybe there's one out there already I haven't been able to find yet.

6.  What would be your first questions / steps when evaluating how (or if) you would use such an online tool? (We’ll be looking at more formal assessment strategies for digital tools over the next few weeks!)

How hard is it to teach my students how to use it (perceived difficulty).

How much does it add to the learning experience (perceived value).


Here's an interesting video about the SAMR model for technology adoption, Introduction to the SAMR Model. The video length is 4:22 and provides real samples of applications of transforming your learning design using technology at a higher level (analyzing, evaluating and creating - there are linkages to Bloom's taxonomy).