Week 10: The Coffee Shoppe
The Coffee Shoppe offered several discussion topics based on what digital textbook(s) you chose to sample. Give us your views and findings about your personal experiences sampling digital textbooks.
You also had a chance to create your own eTextbooks with CK-12 and iBooks Author. We’d love to see your creations – please share, both your book and your reflections.
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jkotler 2:49 am on November 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Personally, I think the idea of using digital textbooks with students is great because it can make their learning experience that much more interactive and exciting while still just as informative from the mix of text, videos, activities and assessments; something I had already thought and found in my exploration. As such I was interested to test it out, but when I tried creating a Flexbook I was somewhat disappointed at the limited subjects offered since most of it covered science and math but not much else. In any case, I did still attempt to make one from the concepts available on the site and found the process easy, however it would have been more helpful to have the short descriptions given in the search menu as well as after. I also would have liked to share my Flexbook but honestly didn’t know how as it said I need to receive permission to publish it.
Peggy Lawson 7:51 am on November 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Jkotler you’re very right that many of the offerings for digital textbooks are for science & math. It’s a growing market and these subject areas seem to be the favourites, not just for CK12 but for a number of other sites as well.
The CK12 site is confusing at 1st, I agree. To share your test with us, rather than publish it back to the CK12 site you can instead download it in 1 of 3 formats – PDF, mobi, or ePub. PDF will lose any interactivity you’ve added to your book. ePub might be the best – you’ll receive an email when it’s ready for you to pick up. Then you’ll be able to share that file with us, although it could be a huge file.
Patti will likely be able to provide you with some more practical ways to share this out with students, as she loves to use it in her own classroom.
Peggy
pcollins 9:28 am on November 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
CK12 is still a bit heavy on the science and math isn’t it? After you have published your flexbook – you will also be emailed a link that you can hang on to to share with students or post to your class site for people to access. Here are a couple of example of my flexbooks and the link that was created and archived after it was published.
Biology 12 Textbook
http://archive.ck12.org/flexbook/viewer/45f282bc1b21fd1310eca22c012c9749/
Biology 12 Workbook
http://archive.ck12.org/flexbook/viewer/f9f4e896c8f9603fb6dccc306e9e0df2/
Suhayl Patel 9:30 am on November 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I recently created a interactive textbook with my class as a culminating activity for a science unit on heat and temperature. For obvious FOIP reasons I am unable to post it on this site. I used the idea of a digital textbook to create an interactive review package for the end of the unit. We matched the curriculum objectives with resources that we attained and inserted into the book. As I teacher, I didn’t have any say on what would be part of the book. The students went into various multimedia sites and picked what they wanted to include (YouTube, blogs, khan academy, etc)
I think it was a great experience because it was the opportunity for students to almost create their own learning experience collaboratively.
Lisa Nevoral 8:55 pm on November 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Suhayl,
That sounds like a great activity. What site did you use to create your interactive textbook? How many classes did you do this for? Had you used this site before so the students knew how to create the digital textbook?
Lisa
C. Ranson 12:14 pm on November 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Suhayl,
Thanks for sharing your interactive textbook learning activity. It sounds like it was a very engaging acitivity for a community of learners and a exceptional strategy to direct and create their own learning, making it interesting for them. What grade are these student in?
Catherine
Eva Ziemsen 7:44 pm on November 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for the intro so far. I am looking forward to making the textbook activity! I have often thought about creating my own textbooks and this may be the time for investigating.
I will report back once I have tried it.
Eva
Patrick Pichette 8:17 pm on November 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Digital textbooks present an interesting twist on the traditional learning methods. I definitely feel that the potential for knowledge construction can increase dramatically through the use of digital textbooks as slideshows, podcasts, and Youtube videos can be embedded in the book to help narrow the learning gap for students. The only true barrier is the hardware. Until schools reach a 1:1 ratio on digital devices to students, this technology isn’t really feasible in education other than for students looking to improve their own learning outcomes as part of the digital devices they own themselves. The other possibility lies in teachers who look to implement the inverted classroom. If that approach takes greater grasp on education then digital textbooks become a real possibility since most students have access to a digital device at home. Needless to say that this would be an area I would be heavily interested in as a content publisher.
Peggy Lawson 4:18 pm on November 7, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Very good point Patrick about the digital divide. Digital textbooks would go well with a BYOD program, freeing up classroom devices for those without their own laptop or tablet.
Jenny Brown 10:14 pm on November 7, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I quickly made a Flexbook on food safety adding a couple of chapters and then adding in a chapter that was already made by someone else. It was fairly easy to use but I couldn’t figure out how to create a quiz, even searching through their site I still couldn’t find any information on this. I am still awaiting publication, but honestly it should be rejected as there is hardly anything in my book. It will be interesting to see what the publishing controls are. I don’t see me using this tool in my workplace as I am not a school teacher but the concept is good.
What I was most impressed by was iBook Author – WOW. At work, we have just started using Adobe InDesign to create pdfs that can be published online and the newer version does have many of the interactive features of iBook Author but the video made iBook Author look so easy to use (as long as you have all the content already) and the fact that it is a free tool is even more appealing, although I do have to admit that I won’t be trying it as I don’t have a Mac. Apple certainly gets it right – make an amazing tool that even surpasses other software that people pay quite a bit of money for and then make your money by having it all connected to the iTunes. It works for education too – teachers and educators can create great books easily that can be downloaded for free from the iTunes store.
Peggy Lawson 7:41 pm on November 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
My 1st Flexbook experience was also a little confusing, too, Jen. I found that you can download without having to publish, but it still took awhile to receive confirmation. And like you I am Mac-less but would love to give iBook Author a try. As you say, you need the premier content first – and it’s that content that is a key reason why paper textbooks are expensive. Those textbook authors, whether paper or digital, deserve to eat, too.
But it is just amazing what tools are available now.
teacherben 1:11 am on November 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I worked with a group for another MET class to create a sort of digital textbook (http://wiki.teacherben.net/home-2/edutech) in the form of a wiki. Our take was that, particularly with regard to technology, by the time textbooks come out, they are often already out-of-date. The costs are typically exorbitant and in the Constructivist classroom, where the focus is on contextualized learning situated in rich-tasks, we rarely ever use one textbooks, but rather a combination of resources. Educational technologists are there on the front lines, often introducing software into the classroom that has no accompanying textbooks in any case. So, we figured that a wiki was the best tool for the job, where a community of educators would collaborate on units and share ideas with one another. It seemed like the perfect solution. But then, we looked online to see if anyone else had thought of it and sure enough, there were myriad similar projects out there. All of them, however, seemed to suffer from the same problem. There was no actual collaboration on the units. People would join up, upload a few units and move on. One could safely assume that if these teachers were still teaching these units, they were doing so from another copy someplace else. Any more recent tweaks never made it back to the wiki. So you would see a bunch of units, many of them already a little long in the tooth, all with a single editor and none of which had ever been updated since the initial posting. So, we thought, here is where we can develop a product that will be different! We will leverage the power of social media etc… to ensure that there was a strong sense of community that would keep people coming back. We would target a specific audience (tech integrators) so that there was some common sense of purpose. We would use a ‘Design Cycle’ approach, where a project would form the focus for cross-curricular units. But, sadly, even 5 of us in a single group couldn’t agree on much. We were unable to achieve any true collaboration on a single unit. The result was a hodge-podge of ideas that never really came together. Since the course ended, I still use the wiki to post my own units and anyone who is interested is welcome to share and Google Analytics tells me that once in a while, people do visit and poke around for a while, but I never get comments back. It seems to me that this may be a direction that things take in the future. I couldn’t imagine myself monetizing my work in any way, even when the units are properly tweaked, but I can certainly see using them to earn a little social credit and this may someday get me a job someplace because of a connection I made with someone who I was sharing lessons with (In fact, I am on the hunt now, if anyone knows of any tech teaching jobs coming up in Canada next year, I would be much obliged if you would drop me a line.. 😉
kstackhouse 9:28 am on November 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Great points. I agree that textbooks can have a tough time staying current by the time they reach the hands of the student. Our district has a wiki style portal where we can upload, edit and view lessons, projects and rubrics from teachers that chose to post there. It is an interesting collection of information. It is also great to think that it is peer reviewed. We only upload the ones that we are excited and proud of. So, while this is not a “text” it is a collection of the materials and lessons that fit with the curriculum and objectives of the course. It is housed in an internal wiki space though, as technically the IPR and work created while under contract belongs to the employer.
kstackhouse 9:49 am on November 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Replying to myself here because I forgot to talk about the Connexions TED Talk. While at first I thought this sounded too utopian to be true…I then started to think of Wikipedia and other open courseware and software movements. The idea of ripping and remixing text and then being able to burn it is really amazing. I hope this movement or others like it continue to grow.
teacherben 5:14 pm on November 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Some people are more comfortable editing text written by other people and some people struggle with it. Throughout the MET, for example, I have participated in quite a few projects where wikis were used and most of the time people prefer to leave comments and ask you to fix up your text yourself. It may be a teacher thing, or a generational thing but there does seem to be a strong sense of authorship that is tough to crack. Has your experience with wikis in your district suffered from this? Do you see people going in there and modifying existing units or is it mostly functioning like a repository?
kstackhouse 5:47 pm on November 8, 2012 Permalink
For the most part it has been a repository of lessons. Although this source has only been up and running for a short time. I think that as more people join in and participate there might be more tweaking of the works loaded. I know what you mean about editing the work of others or seeing that your work has been edited. This takes some getting used to. I think as it is practiced more people will become more comfortable with it.
Jenny Brown 9:28 am on November 10, 2012 Permalink
You both have brought up interesting points about true collaboration. I would agree that for most people, including myself, this is still a somewhat daunting and uncomfortable task. I feel that in group work (both for courses and in the workplace) there is still always a primary author (be it for a section or for the entire document) and many don’t want to offend others by changing their text, even minoring editing, which is often needed. But with the push towards more collaboration within schools, workplaces and even online with Web 2.0 tools, I think this is changing. With collaboration, a better product can be produced but only when there is a very open, supportive and constructive environment – an environment that is in stark contrast to competing with your classmates and colleagues to produce the best product and receive personalized praise.
teacherben 6:22 pm on November 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
iBooks author is a great resource since it resembles software that people are already pretty familiar with (powerpoint) and it enables the user to create textbooks that resemble the world wide web more than they do a traditional textbook. Unfortunately, it uses proprietary formats that are a pain and everyone has to import a file and drag it into iTunes and install it on an iPad in order to be able to read it. I am currently trying to find a way to read it on a desktop and/or convert it to a more user-friendly format. For those who are implementing a BYOD program, iBooks is currently not an option while a format like ePub would be fine. Unfortunately, there is nothing quite as slick as this for making ebooks for other platforms. I’m sure there will be in time.
manny 7:30 pm on November 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I believe iBooks author came out around the same time as iTunesU and there is no doubt that it is a fun way to assemble your own digital books. As Ben mentioned above, the cross compatibility is always an issue when working with and apple based product. For those of us who are ok with using Wikipedia in the classroom, it also has a neat option in which you can create your own book that will show up in your iBooks catalogue. Upon opening wikipedia, you will notice that there are some links on the left hand column. If you click on the print/export link you will see a section that says ‘create book.’ Just follow the instructions for the book creator and you will have a compilation ready within minutes. A really cool feature that has been around for a while but not too many people are aware of.
Manny
Peggy Lawson 8:06 pm on November 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for that neat Wikipedia tip Manny – I did not know that. I see that it only produces essentially noninteractive formats – PDF and OpenDocument – but still a nice option.
jhodi 7:50 am on November 9, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I noticed last year when I signed out a math textbook to each of my students as well as gave them a PDF code so that they could download the e-text version of the textbook, students were a little bit heasitant at first to use the PDF version. This was until they realized that this meant that they would not need to carry their textbooks home with them every night anymore. Several students downloaded the PDF version of the textbook onto their iPads or personal devices and used this exclusively in and out of class. I found that students really liked being able to have it with them whenever they needed it so that they could work on their math homework in their down time, whenever and wherever that may happen be.
I downloaded a PDF from CK-12 onto my iPad dealing with midpoints and segment bisectors. I did like the resource in its compatibility and ability to include multimedia links to the Internet (some of which did not work for me though). It was also nice to see that one specific topic in math was broken down into several small sections for download. This makes it easier to align with my curriculum because I can pick and choose which resources fit my curriculum specifically. I have looked at other e-texts in the past and I have found good and bad resources. E-texts that are very large in file size and take a long time to load reduces the convenience of the resource. I would like to see more open resource e-texts that could be manipulated by the teacher first, then published for a specific course.
Lisa Nevoral 9:05 am on November 10, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Jhodi,
That’s great that several of your students downloaded the PDF version of the math textbook. I had the opposite at my school. We didn’t get textbooks for all students, but instead all the math classes had a class set and students had access to the online version at home. Many of my students would come in at lunch or before school to finish their work because they didn’t like using the online math text, but instead the physical one.
Lisa
Eva Ziemsen 9:44 am on November 9, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I signed up to Course Smart and reviewed many film-related books, which is the area I teach. I found that there was a good selection of books, including textbooks I used to read in my undergrad. It was interesting to see the digital versions of these. I think students would like these because they are easier to transport.
However, it forced me to think about how I would feel about buying a digital book as a student. I do know that I personally like having hard copy books from my film school days on my bookshelf and I estimate that students today would still wish to have a few key reads in hard copy. However, perhaps it depends on the subject and also the price point. I used to buy all my books used at a discount. I did not go to the effort to compare prices of hard copies of these books, but I assume there is some savings by buying digital.
As for my experience, I found it quite smooth once I had my account set up. I like the highlighting option, and notes as well. Very helpful for annotating. One thing that I was somewhat surprised to see missing from the film books is that there are no videos embedded in the books. Unless I did not look carefully enough, I did not see any with videos. This may be due to the fact that it would be very expensive to secure rights to videos. However, I do know that publishers pay quite a lot of money for alone the rights to the pictures from films. Perhaps, as ebooks progress, including videos is only a matter of time.
iBook Author will not install on my computer as I am not in charge of my OS (my tech dept is). I will have it updated very soon. I did watch the videos and I am very eager to try to make an ibook. From the look of it, I think this is very empowering and I would endeavor to create a book in this manner (instead of a hard copy).
joeltremblay 11:09 am on November 9, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Taxpayer funded e-texts: This model has potential but my opinion is biased because I currently exist within the B.C. system and know how strapped most districts are for cash.
E-textbooks with targeted ads: I’m not crazy about the data mining taking place, but most of us use Facebook and Google and they do the same sort of advertising. Depending on how invasive this is it might be a viable choice but because of privacy issues having to do with minors/students it could be too risky.
Foundation or grant-funded e-texts: The fact that this was a scam doesn’t bode well for it’s potential, especially considering the founders pedigree (one of them being a co-founder of Sun Microsys), because if they couldn’t make it work, with their considerable assets, who could?
I think that the most viable choice, IF we have only these three to choose from then the first one seems like the best option but I still think that we need to hold our various representatives accountable for continued funding of public education.
Lisa Nevoral 8:56 am on November 10, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
As I was going through CK-12, I thought that this would be a good site for students and teachers to use a resource and allow students a site that would allow them to create review material on their own. I could also see the value of being able to use the Flexbook option to create your own material to give to your classes, if current textbooks don’t do this for you. But as stated by many already, unless there is a 1:1 ratio of computers, I don’t know if this is feasible for many classrooms right now, unless they are online courses.
In saying that, I am only thinking at the K-12 level. At post-secondary institutes, I think online textbooks would be a good option. How many times had I bought a textbook, used it for a semester and then resold it right away? Some of the books I kept, just as you could keep an e-textbook (although at some point it may become incompatible with your computer as if it is upgraded or you buy a new one). When I first started this Master’s program, I would print off all the material, but now read from my laptop. I didn’t think I would ever get to the point where I would just read off the computer.
Lisa
C. Ranson 12:00 pm on November 10, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Lisa you share some interesting observations, first that your students prefer to use the hard copy version of the math textbook in class when they have access to the online version at home. I have similar observations with my students who are post-secondary and report they “just like to have the textbook in their hand”, they too mention the process of buying used and re-selling books as an advantage of paper text. The second observation about starting the MET course and printing all the articles, highlighting important points, making notes on the paper version for the first several courses and then making the transition to downloading the articles or book chapters to your computer and using the online version is the same experience that I have had. There is most definitely a transition period and once the student/learner is ready I do suspect that digital text is the way of the future. The publishing companies are moving in this direction, technology and media is driving the transition and I do believe education will follow. There are some interesting points about using additional resources and not necessarily a required textbook, I do think this is common in post- secondary education but curriculum outcomes are usually link to a subject textbook as the main resource. I do teach one course currently that does not have a required textbook, the resources are websites, journal articles, chapters in their main textbooks that are required for other courses and the student feedback is this creates more work for them as they have to navigate through various resources. I believe it promotes and improves their study and research skills as they have to read and find the relevant material.
Catherine
visramn 7:36 pm on November 11, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I personally do not have any other type of textbook reader than and iPad. I have looked at textbooks on my iPad and thought this was a neat tool but I struggle with reading on a screen and find it difficult to focus. I have had a look at other peoples readers. For example, I have looked at books on a Kindle. I personally found this very similar to an iPad and I also felt like it was better on the iPad. However, my exposure to using reading devices such as these is minimal so I do not think I have enough exposure to make an educated judgment. I do like the fact that these devices make textbook manufacturing more environmentally friendly by saving on the use of paper.
Nureen
visramn 7:51 pm on November 11, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I found Ck12 to be a fairly user friendly program for creating digital textbooks. I like that it had content in so many subject areas available that could be added and personalized. This is great because the content in a textbook can be curtailed to the class being taught. I am a visual learner and found it very helpful to watch the video that was provided that gave an intro on how to create a digital textbook on this site. Whenever I work with a new program or software I always google a video and watch it so that I have an idea of how to work with the program before actually exploring the program. In this case, I was able to navigate around the site and work on my own e-textbook more easily because I had been exposed to the procedure through the video.
I like that these textbooks can be accessed from different places and feel that students may be more likely to refer to their textbooks in other settings outside of school if they can access them from their devices. This makes it easier because they do not have to lug around heavy textbooks. However, I also am unsure of long term success of digital textbooks or of textbooks in general. I think learning is evolving and becoming more interactive and I feel that learning from textbooks is a way of the past that will eventually be pushed aside.
Here is a link to a beginning draft of a textbook I created:
http://www.ck12.org/user:dmlzcmFtbkBnbWFpbC5jb20./book/basic-geometry/r6
Nureen
frank 10:05 pm on November 11, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I’m curious what the cognitive differences are of learning from a text-book vs a tablet.
I imagine that this is different across cohorts. So an interesting area to research and develop on are the kind of skills people need to become effective learners from digital sources vs traditional pen and paper, and how to design digital textbooks with applications that facilitate improved learning and cognition.
My guess is that learning on tablets will become more interactive in the future, and what will facilitate how we evolve in this regard will be experimentation and the data that come from various approaches we try. Exciting new frontiers ahead in E-textbooks.
PS. what the heck visramn?