Tech-Savvy Teacher

GREAT first day at ISTE!  Mike and I attended some excellent sections and I met a number of acquaintances and friends alike.

I was inspired by my last sectional today on Universal Design for Learning.  They made a number of interesting arguments about refashioning materials to make them accessible to diverse populations.  Among their demonstrations was “UDL Editions” of some classic texts (for example, this version of the Gettysburg Address).

As I will be overseeing course development for my new job, I have tried to wrap my brain around this monumental task of constructing content in an accessible format for the purpose of teaching students with wide abilities.

Available for sale now from textbook companies!

At some point, my online school will ultimately adopt a number of courses from the 10 or so prominent national providers.  These courses are essentially a textbook, refashioned into an online course-friendly format, often with lessons built in for the purpose of creating engagement and learning opportunities.

Here is the question I have: why haven’t textbook manufacturers made any progress in this space at all?

The sad reality is that other than some CDs with PDFs of works, a PDF copy of the textbook and the occasional crossword puzzle creator and PowerPoint collection, textbook manufacturers aren’t moving into this digital space at all.

With all of the development that goes into a textbook, why can a textbook company stop with the awful online editions (PDF death) and CDs full of useless worksheets and instead sell me the textbook in objects that I can plug into my LMS or classroom website  that presents the content that:

• Reads the selected text to the student.
• Allows the text to be changed to different editions of the textbook based on reading level.  (Seriously… isn’t this a great idea?  Since textbook manufacturers usually have 4-5 editions aimed at different reading levels, why can we utilize that with our students?  If I have a US history student in the 11th grade that has a 6th grade reading level, shouldn’t we be able to seamlessly offer that text so s/he can continue to get content at their reading level while we work on getting that student up to par?  Seriously textbook companies… do this!)
• Offers definitions to all words or translations to other languages.
• Offers regular quizzing and understanding checks for complex passages.
• Offers additional resources at content partners, like the Smithsonian or National Geographic or PBS or the like.
• Offers video suppliants directed integrated into the text.

This would be a gamechanger for the textbook industry and make these classroom resources a lot more useful.

Instead, I get CDs full of useless worksheets, strange DVD-based games called “Mind Jigglers” or some nonsense and a book that just isn’t that flexible.

Something has to change!

(Image by Cowtools)

June 29th, 2010 | Tags: ISTE10 | Category: folks that don't get it, media authoring, paper and paperless world, textbooks | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL