Week 10: The Newstand
Respond to and/or join in the discussion of one of the following articles:
- B.C. to lead Canada in offering students free, open textbooks
- Ebook Publisher Inkling Launches Its Own Online Store: An Amazon For Illustrated Learning Content
- 7 Questions for McGraw-Hill’s Brian Kibby
tomwhyte1 9:51 am on November 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
B.C. OER Textbooks:
First let me begin by saying, for myself, and my experiences within the MET course and my professional experiences, at exploring a reality with no textbooks, that I believe the traditional textbook is dead, however, that is only my opinion, and I realize I am in the minority.
Therefore, after having read this article, I felt, it is about time that a service like this was provided to both faculty members, and students. For this free’s up significant resources for students, for some faculties (such as engineering, textbooks can easily cost several hundred dollars), allowing students, in some cases, to use that money for much needed food. I wonder however, what the technology requirement or continual requirements might be to support this?
As for faculty members, this is where I am a little concerned. For in my undergrad experience, I purchased a lot of books written by the prof. I am unaware if they made money on this, or how much money, but I am going to assume that money was made. Therefore, might they be a little reluctant to give up this extra and continual revenue stream?
Thoughts?
kstackhouse 9:13 am on November 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Tom,
I agree with your statements. I think the old textbook form will not be able to compete in a digital environment if it plans to stay the same. On a side note I always hated it when I saw that the Prof. was also the author of the text. I can think of at least 5 courses over my university career where this happened and in one course in particular the text wasn’t even referenced once. I was pretty annoyed and felt at the time that it was both an ego booster for the Prof. and a money grab. I could be wrong, but that is how I felt.
I see your concern about the technology requirements in relation to the costs of accessing books. In my first year of a B.Sc. I spent over a $1000 in new text books. (Of course as a Freshman you never think of buying used…). At this time in the market that could buy you a top end tablet with money left over.
Eva Ziemsen 8:05 am on November 11, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I think this is interesting, as I’ve often struggled with the idea of making a text of mine mandatory. Not that I have written a book yet, but I have 50% of it. I thought about a blog that is monetized with ads as another dilemma. What about having students buy and app that you have created? I feel less torn about asking them to do this.
tomwhyte1 10:00 am on November 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Inkling:
After reading the article which focussed on Inkling, one specific quote made me very intrigued:
“The average price of the titles is about $9.99, with the option to purchase chapters for $0.99 and up.” (Empson, 2012)
For when I read this, I think great for the consumer. Instead of myself purchasing an entire book for the one or two chapters that the prof is going to use, I can just select those portions.
However, this sounds very similar to iTunes, and people’s belief that the ability to purchase individual songs, instead of entire albums, has wrecked the album for the music industry. I do not believe this, for before iTunes, most albums were simply a way to sell one or two songs if a group was lucky.
Regardless, might this piecemeal approach be another nail into the coffin of textbooks?
Thoughts?
References:
Empson, R. (2012). Ebook Publisher Inkling Launches Its Own Online Store: An Amazon For Illustrated Learning Content. Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/01/ebook-publisher-inkling-launches-its-own-online-store-an-amazon-for-illustrated-learning-content/
rebeccaharrison 12:04 am on November 7, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hey Tom,
As usual, very good points ;). Although I like the analogy between chapters/songs vs. books/albums. I, however, do feel that the “piecemeal” approach looses something in the transmission. Without the context of the other songs on an album, you do not get the clear picture of the artist (like seeing one corner of the Mona Lisa).
Books, I feel, are similar to this. If this is the way that we value purchasing, then will people begin to write or compose in this way? I absolutely “get” the idea behind it, and don’t discount that (particularly with textbooks) I would be tempted to buy this way. Here is a concern though: I, personally, have read a “non-required” opening, or chapter, paragraph, section, etc. from every single textbook I have ever purchased. If I were to purchase only chapters, I can almost guarantee that I would never have spent additional money to browse non-required information. Does cost-saving strip students of that important opportunity to understand information within its context, or be exposed to information they would not normally have sought out. Are we then setting up a situation where we provide a financial incentive to limit the amount of information students seek?
I certainly see the positives. Do these concerns outweigh them, or can they be addressed somehow?
pcollins 10:03 am on November 7, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Rebecca,
And to further your idea – what does this mean for the author? Are they consenting to this dissection of their material? Do they even get a choice – or does the publishing company get to decide?
I can see the affordances of this practice with certain academic texts that I have purchased which have numerous chapters authored by seperate people and simply edited together in a book.
However, in other situations segregating a chapter out would certainly devalue the author’s message. Does the author lose control of their academic property once they sign it over to a publisher?
PC
tomwhyte1 5:37 am on November 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Disagree-agreeably regarding Songs versus Albums. Yes many artists claim, that their collection of mismatched tunes, is a collective statement. I believe that they think this, and in a small amount of cases, this may actually be true. But the music landscape is not filled with artists anymore, it is filled with corporate money-making machines. Therefore, is it more important to Sony Music have a hit single, or an entire album speaking to a generation?
As for the using of a textbook to have students understand the entire picture, that thought does have merit, but that would then require courses to be built specifically to the application of an entire textbook. With that amount of time devoted to a specific task, it would leave students such as ourselves, spending more and more time, reading a book, and less time, working with the information, discussing the information, and most importantly reflecting on the information.
Thoughts?
Peggy Lawson 8:25 pm on November 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I may be misunderstanding your meaning, Tom, but I don’t know if I’d agree that courses are built around textbooks, as opposed to courses using textbooks. Rarely, if ever, have I ever been taught, or taught, based on an entire textbook. Usually it’s fairly selective use of the text (but that varies considerably). However, a textbook often has a flow, and builds upon it’s content and direction. You can’t always just pick up a textbook and jump around. Sometimes you do need to complete Chapter 1 before Chapter 2 has any meaning.
tomwhyte1 9:49 pm on November 9, 2012 Permalink
Have you taken ETEC 531…
Great course, built around 1 book…
tomwhyte1 9:52 pm on November 9, 2012 Permalink
As for my comment about the entire course to be built around a textbook, I myself have rarely seen it, other than the class I am just taking. However, what I was getting at, was I would purchase select chapters from a book – the ones I need. The ones I do not, I would never read unless personally interested, or if the instructor built the entire course around a textbook – forcing us to read and use the entire book… ugghh….
Thoughts?
jenniferschubertubc 11:55 am on November 9, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I can see the rationale between both Tom and Peggy’s responses. I cannot recall a single incident where a professor has used an entire textbook over the entirety of a course. In fact, I have found it common practice that chapters are addressed out of the order in which they originally appear. That said, I find it very helpful to have the “extra” material at hand and easily referenced through an index just in case I need further clarification of points which may not have been addressed in the required readings/assignments.
I do find it hard to take an active part in an extremely text heavy class. Of course, that may because I am a kinesthetic as opposed to a visual learner. That is one aspect of digital textbooks, especially interactive ones, that I am most interested in. I think they open up brand new avenues to learning for those students who may get frustrated with large amounts of reading without other activity.
P.S. I totally agree on your points about the music industry today, Tom! In fact, there is a musical (“We Will Rock You”) which addresses this very subject. Funny enough, it is based on the songs of Queen and talks of the music of the future, or Corporate Remixed Autotuned Pop… you can work out what that boils down to. 😉
Pat A Son 1:10 am on November 7, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Tom the ‘what you need is what you buy (WYNIWYB) ;-)’ model has certainly given the consumer a lot of power and authors would just have to get with the program. At the end of the day despite the concern expressed by the music industry about the demise about albums the industry is benefiting greatly from online sales (Jones.2011). The problem is that the digital format has changed the way business is done and the world is now getting used to it as both consumer and producer. For example I came across an article on how the in game purchasing can be abused by game producers to make customers pay much more than they would have if they had simply purchased the game. This goes to show as educators we need to know what is happening around us and how we can best leverage the opportunities that are available to us.
Reference
Editorial: Eternity Warriors 2 takes in-game purchases way too far. (2012, August 24). DroidGamers. Retrieved November 7, 2012, from http://www.droidgamers.com/index.php/game-news/site-news-rants/4474-eternity-warriors-2-takes-in-game-purchases-way-too-far
Jones, S. (2011, June 7). Music industry’s sales are up, up, up this year – USATODAY.com. USA TODAY: Latest World and US News – USATODAY.com. Retrieved November 7, 2012, from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2011-07-06-music-sales-jump-this-year_n.htm
tomwhyte1 5:38 am on November 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
A reason why Apple has removed many apps that require purchasing extras within the program that was originally advertised as free – one of the reasons why you cannot purchase ebooks through the Kobo app anymore.
Pat A Son 11:08 pm on November 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
It just goes to show how new technologies brings new issues that we have to cope with. I applaud Apple for the position they have take. On this note I have become wary of commercially produced free product. If it does not have an open source license I try to stay away from it but this is easier said than done with penetration that “free” has had on the internet. For example my free android yahoo mail reader on my smartphone has advertisements on it which is something I never anticipated.
jenniferschubertubc 12:00 pm on November 9, 2012 Permalink
It’s a prime case of “nothing in life is truly free,” I’m afraid. Many parents, and even adults for that matter, do not have the money to constantly be buying apps. The availability of free versions is fantastic… until they become so ad heavy that they actually become hard to use! It is frustrating, to be sure, but corporations also cannot afford to give away product. It’s when a fine balance is struck where everyone wins. Unfortunately, I don’t think we are fully there just yet.
Pat A Son 5:36 pm on November 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
B.C. OER Textbooks:
I have always been a fan of the open source movement because of the potential it has for changing education in ways that no other model of distributing software based technologies can. I have also come to realize the limitless capacity e-books have in terms of enhancing the learning process. So to “marry” them in the way that is done here is a win win situation. The fact that one can be modified to suit ones needs makes e-books appealing. This in conjunction with the savings in cost to students and trees should encourage anyone in to look in this direction.
By publicly funding this effort shows that the people in BC that are involved in charting the course for education are in tune with times. Efforts like these coupled with open course ware will certainly go a long way in changing the face of education by making a more level playing field.
I just wish that it was done at the k-12 level also.
jhodi 8:13 am on November 9, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I have also been a large fan of open source content and I think that it has huge potential when combined with e-texts. Not only is this a cost-efficient alternative for many schools and teachers, but it also opens the potential door to the best teachers and experts in a field collaborating on one project!
Mike Rae 8:46 pm on November 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hey Pat, I agree that it would be nice to see the OER textbooks make the jump from higher education to K-12, but I think it will be a while before that happens.
It looks like the ‘families first’ initiative is a large part of the motivation for the OER textbooks. Saving a student or his/her parents around 1000 dollars a year is pretty great, and because of that, there will be a lot of public support.
In K-12 though, the printed textbooks are not purchased (directly) by the students or parents. They are borrowed and re-used year after year until they become out of date (and often times used after that) or are falling apart. K-12 books get a lot more miles out of them than the average college textbook. The savings of the OER textbooks isn’t as direct in this setting, however I totally agree that it would be great in the long run to save schools money, allowing them to allocate those funds elsewhere (perhaps into a BYOD program, ensuring the students had devices to use the eTextbooks).
I liked your comparison Tom of textbooks/chapters to albums/songs. I would love it if I could purchase a chapter for 99 cents rather than buy a whole book and I think most people would as well. I agree that the printed textbook is on its way to becoming extinct, but I don’t think it will kill the textbook industry. Forward thinking companies, like Mcgraw-Hill, will have to jump out in front of this movement to create other revenue streams. People will always want/need textbooks, music and movies, its just a matter of how they are delivered to us that is changing (changed).
pcollins 10:14 am on November 7, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
And what about the School Board’s role in all of this? Do they sign some kind of exclusivity contract with publishing companies that determine the textbooks that are put on our resources list? I did try once to get an additional resource for my Geology 12 class put on the list and it was refused – with no response as to why.
I can’t help but feel that most first year proffs will gravitate towards whichever free digital text is being offered to them in BC because they know that the savings to the student will be significant. But is this imposing upon their ability to choose resources that they feel would be best for their class?
PC
PC
rebeccaharrison 12:52 pm on November 7, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Interesting point, PC. Another prospect within your example: If teachers use the “free” resource and give the option of having another, perhaps better, “paid” resource, we create “haves” and “have nots” with respect to information.
Pat A Son 10:45 pm on November 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I think the power of choice is the most important tool you can give anyone in our position and this is where I have an affinity to the open source model of doing things. From experience I have found that the exclusivity that PC spoke about comes from commercial vendors. However since it is unlikely that any one resource will meet all our needs then then it is necessary to allow teachers and students alike to choose their material with the open textbooks being an option. I think in the long run free open source anything will not replace their commercial counterparts because after all is said and done they are just new alternatives that brings afordances that were not available before.
melissaayers 1:34 pm on November 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Just looking at the pros & cons from an environmental perspective I find the statement/fact you highlight “The carbon emissions needed to create one e-book reader equal the carbon emissions from generating 40-50 textbooks “ quite amazing & significant.
I am not sure what others think about this but personally I think only a minority of eReader owners are likely to read 40-50 books before they end up upgrading their eReaders. New products and hardware and better screen technology is currently being released each year. I would imagine only a very few hard working/reading individuals would get an environmental benefit from switching to using an eReader from actual real books.
For the purpose of this point of course I am choosing to ignore all the other benefits brought about by using eReaders such as portability, books price reductions etc and looking at it purely as an environmental impact.
melissaayers 5:35 am on November 9, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
sorry this was meant to be posted to the reading circle post!
teacherben 7:14 pm on November 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Dan Meyer, former math teacher, now phd candidate, blogs regularly about the future of the math textbook. He have come up with some pretty innovative ideas to change the way we teach math and he is regularly invited to speak at various workshops and conferences. He was hired by a major textbook publisher to help them supposedly reinvent the math textbook (I think it may have been McGraw Hill, which is why I thought of it here). he wrote in his blog that it was a frustrating experience and after a conflict of opinion, they parted ways. He recently posted some new ideas he had about leveraging the potential for interactivity in digital textbooks and another math blogger with some programming skills decided to help make his idea a reality. It’s pretty cool.
Here the post:
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=15536
Here’s one of the activities:
http://testing.davemajor.net/tacocart/
(try to click and drag the dots and you will see how it works)
Here’s another one:
http://testing.davemajor.net/triangles/
It certainly isn’t revolutionary and the programming isn’t that tricky, but to try to imagine a textbook where this sort of manipulation of objects is possible is pretty exciting. Most of the big textbook publishers that are doing a lot of talking these days about the future of electronic textbooks have, for the most part, only offered their existing, boring books as pdf’s with a little bit of click here to go there functionality. I certainly haven’t seen anything like what this fellow has done in the above examples and we probably should have by now if they were truly committed to the idea rather than being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the future.
jenniferschubertubc 12:12 pm on November 9, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
This is exactly what I was talking about above! The promise of truly interactive textbooks on the horizon makes me truly excited to be a part of this industry. I think of all the students out there who have a really tough time in school for the simple reason that the written word does not reach them as experience does, and I cannot help but see more success on the horizon for differentiated learners as a whole. The use of more and varied modalities can only work to enhance the learning experience for a larger population; watching students make connections and use their learning to move along in life is what makes teaching exciting… for me anyway!
ETEC BYOD 6:17 pm on November 9, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Having toyed with the Apple iBooks Author App a bit myself, I’d say this level of interactivity has arrived.
I couldn’t agree more with the notion that a PDF on its own, is not an electronic textbook. This fits with the logic that an LCD projection of a scanned overhead is nothing more than a plain old overhead, in a new disguise.
What etextbooks really need now, is top notch content and design to make the most of the technology.
ETEC BYOD 6:38 pm on November 9, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
In general, there are a few features of Inklings technology, which I feel are steps in the right direction for etextbooks.
– It’s platform independent, which is critical for BYOD models and ultimately more flexible, though a likely a nightmare for content developers
– The curation component of its Library store is very wise and will likely become more important as an increasing numbers of textbooks become available
– Fractional book purchases of select chapters makes complete sense
– I think its a shame that their Habitat publishing environment is focused on professional developers, which denies small or individual publishers access to their quality publishing tools
Most encouraging is their desire to move etextbooks beyond simple text-to-digital ports.
As much as I love Apple, it seems Inkling has a compelling product here.
Ebook Publisher Inkling Launches Its Own Online Store: An Amazon For Illustrated Learning Content
http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/01/ebook-publisher-inkling-launches-its-own-online-store-an-amazon-for-illustrated-learning-content/
visramn 6:48 pm on November 9, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I thought the article “7 Questions for McGraw-Hill’s Brian Kibby” was interesting. Kibby defiantly has a very optimistic perspective about the adoption of digital textbooks. He has some very good points about why digital textbooks are beneficial and makes digital textbooks sound appealing. Althought I free that digital textbooks are going to be the main means of textbooks in the future I do not think that this evolution will occur so quickly and I also do not think that print textbooks will be replaced totally. In the article they mentioned that some people simply do not like reading on a screen and prefer paper. Kibby retorted by saying that technology will evolve some more and this will combat the problem. I disagree. No matter how much technology evolves it can not replicate a piece of paper. Hence ,those who do not like reading on a digital screen may have to do so even thought they do not want to but that does not mean the issue is solved that just means they had to adapt against their will. I think issues such as these will result in paper textbooks remaining in print.
Nureen
sophiabb 11:05 am on November 10, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Re: B.C. OER textbooks
I think the idea of OER textbooks has a lot of merit. Easy access for students, costs savings for the students (families) and definitely for the B.C. government – no printing cost and no need to purchase thousand of hard copies of books. Of course consideration must be given to cost spent to purchase devices (families and the government) and to upgrade same the ecological impact of this decision.
I am an avid reader. I love nothing better than to curl up with a book (hard copy) and read to my heart’s and mind’s content. I am the owner of a kindle and have downloaded the kindle, kobo and nook apps to my laptop. I have purchased many ebooks. Yet, I still prefer to interact with the hard copy. However, I am now curling up with my kindle. However, my sight is taking a beating: at work I am almost always using the computer; and at home its MET work on the computer. Okay, it could be due to the natural aging process but I think this has hastened it along. Reports already indicate that there is a direct correlation between sight and computer usage [including ereader] http://www.aoa.org/documents/EffectsComputerUse.pdf . What will be medical impact of this decision?
Sophia