Textbook Alternatives for Online Teaching
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Print textbooks have been a mainstay in education, yet there are alternatives to the traditional textbook. Learning objects, digital course packs and ebooks are options that can enhance your courses, decrease textbook costs, and even ensure the most up-to-date information is available to your students.
In this presentation, you will get an overview of the many alternatives available to you and your students. You will also have an opportunity to learn about, share, and discuss strategies for effectively incorporating these alternatives in your distance coursess.
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Presentation Slides (ppt show format, download)
Key Ideas
- Challenges
- Textbooks are expensive - college students avg. $700-1000 for textbooks and prices of texts keep going up at about 12% per year; textbook costs to K12 school or district are high - from $40 - $120 per text per child
- Textbook publishing process takes about 18 months which means that, for rapidly changing fields, texts are practically out of date by the time they hit the shelves
- For fields in which an older text would be relevant, it is often difficult to find and buy previous editions
- For online teaching in K12 it's difficult to teach from one text when you have online students from many districts
- Benefits to Alternatives
- Costs are generally less
- digital content is searchable (full text search in ebooks plus note taking and annotations/highlighting are generally available features)
- health risks related to lugging around tons of books are minimized - especially a concern in K12 where it has been noted that 4th graders carry about 25-30 pounds of books in their backpacks.
- potentially more eco-friendly if you go digital (fewer trees felled, less bleach used to whiten paper, etc.)
See the Make Textbooks Affordable Organization for more info.
Learning Objects
Small, stand-alone digital content pieces that teach a discrete concept or skill.
- Connections - repository for k12 and higher ed, many fields, find an object or create your own.
- Wisc-Online - repository for K12 and higher ed, many fields, find an object or submit your own
- iTunesU - primarily higher ed content but also K12, over 200,000 lectures in various fields
- Merlot - repository for K12 and higher ed, many fields, find an object or submit your own
- FlexBook - middle and high school STEM content, find an object or create your own
Why should I use Learning Objects?
Because learning objects can be re-used in and re-purposed for a variety of contexts, they save development time and reduce your workload. Additionally, they come in handy when you need to provide extra study materials to students.
How do I create Learning Objects?
You can create learning objects in just about any program you choose (i.e. PPT, Word, Movie Maker, Garage Band, etc.). However there are several strategies you should keep in mind:
- Do not include any dates/times in your materials - otherwise you will have to revise them every time you use them. This defeats the purpose and creates extra work for you.
- Address only one concept or skill in each learning object - this will ensure you can use and re-use the materials in the greatest number of ways.
- Use a format that can be viewed by everyone - html, pdf, mp3, mp4, and flash are just a few formats that can be considered universal because they can be viewed by any person regardless of operating system or browser.
Digital Course Packs
A collection of news articles, book chapters, case studies, research reports, and other copyrighted materials brought together into one comprehensive, specialty 'book' just for your course.
- XanEdu - create your course pack online and provide link to your students for purchase, download, print. XanEdu does all the work to ensure copyrights are adhered to.
Digital Texts and eBooks
Entire books are available to read online or for download to your computer. Benefits of digital texts include full-text search and digital note taking (also searchable). Digital texts are also generally less expensive.
Using Course Packs and eBooks
Create your course pack or search for books in the repositories. Provide links to materials in your syllabus and in units, modules, lessons, or assignments similar to how you'd assign readings in your assignment directions. Create directions for your students on how to access and effectively use the materials and post those directions along with links to the materials. Important considerations include knowing when your students will have access to this information (e.g. prior to course beginning or in the first week of course) and then structuring your assignments to take advantage of when the materials can be accessed.
Other Options
Using Other Options
Time is an important factor when selecting these options because it could take about a week for students to receive books. Determine how and when students will be able to learn about their options and then structure your assignments accordingly. For example, if students won't know about these options until class begins, then don't assign readings from their books the first or second weeks of the course.
Things to Consider
- Be aware of all your options - browse through learning object and book repositories to discover what is available; be prepared to think outside the book! :)
- Know your learners. Technology ability and access as well as age are important considerations.
- If possible, choose the option that gives your students the widest possible range of choices (keeping in mind their age and technical abilities). For example, choose a textbook that can be rented, purchased, or accessed online.
- Aim for multimedia rich content if possible. A combination of learning objects, course packs and book chapters will provide your students with an enriched learning experience.
- Determine how and when your students will be able to learn of their options. If you have the ability to disseminate the information prior to the beginning of the school year or semester, your options are likely wider than if you have to wait until class begins to provide them with the information.
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