The idea of having digital textbooks is not new. Now one publisher has come up with software that will allow college instructors to edit digital editions of textbooks that they use in their classes. Go to the link below and read the article. Write a reflective comment that shows you have read the article, expresses your views, and addresses my questions.
What advantages do you see in having digital textbooks that the instructor can customize? What concerns would you have? Use your imagination and describe a couple changes that could be made to a digital textbook to make it more interesting. What do you think about the price difference between printed textbooks and the DynamicBooks version? If you were the publisher for DynamicBooks, how would you ensure that offensive things and plagiarism are kept out of your digital textbooks?
7 comments:
The advantages of having digital textbooks are that students won't have to carry heavy textbooks because they will have everything digitally on their computers. I think that's the main advantage. I think it would really help me if our classes provided digital textbooks so we wouldn't have to carry any more heavy loaded bags. If anything was to be changed in this, they should develop something so that we don't have to depend on the internet to use it, because in Amman, what I have experienced, the internet usually faces problems and is completely shut down sometimes. I don't really know about the prices of printed textbooks, but according to the what is said in the article, a textbook of 134$ is sold for 48.76$ in DynamicBooks version. It is quiet convenient and is cheaper than the printed ones. So, I think that's a good thing. The thing I would do to ensure plagiarism is kept out of digital textbooks, I would lock copying any text from the digital books. I would also put a note for teachers to use turnitin.com to ensure any plagiarism is kept out. I think that's all I can do to keep plagiarism out or any other offensive things.
The advantages of having digital textbooks is that the instructor can have the information renewed electronically without any trouble. The concern I would have is the accuracy of the information, because the technology is not safe. The digital textbook should be able to speak, and read the text to you out loud if the student is like me, and hates reading the textbook. The electronic textbook would be cheaper, and would also be better method because we save paper. I would have the main database be secured, and some where in the ministry of education.
I think that the advantage would be that all students need to bring is a good laptop to school. The problem though is that students might use the internet for other things such as Face book. I think it would be a cheaper way and for different students who despise reading a textbook, it may be easier for them to learn in this way. It would be a lot more safe with the ozone layer as well as we would be saving trees in the process. To keep bad things out, i wpould suggest turnitin.com
Having a digital textbook that the teacher can customize will let students use sources referring purely on what they have learnt in class so students wouldn't have to read through a heap of pages to find small amounts of relevant information. My main concern about digital textbooks is that students may not be able to do homework during electricity breakdowns and technology is very easy to blame for not doing homework. A digital textbook could probably be downloadable in different sizes so they are easier to download. The DynamicBooks version of textbooks are only cheaper because little or no money is being spent to manufacture them. If I were the owner of DynamicBooks, I would not put the books on a secure website because I believe that education should not cost a cent.
I think that a customizable digital textbook would, first of all, be much more convenient in the sense that a student would not have to break their back every day bringing their textbook back and forth. Furthermore, it would allow the student to focus in on the important material, and would not have to bother himself or herself with material not necessary to the course. However, some aspects are somewhat concerning for me. I feel that there would need to be significant oversight over what content can be added to these textbooks. Furthermore, some type of backup measures in case the textbook file gets corrupted would be very useful. Lastly, I prefer to read physical copies of my school texts, largely because I find that a digital screen tends to induce eye strain after a period of use. I think that a digital textbook could include illustrative programs in Flash or Java to demonstrate different scientific principles, for example, or interactive activities to show the progression of material. As for the price difference, I think it makes a lot of sense, because a digital textbook requires much less costs in distribution and material. If I was a publisher for DynamicBooks, I would probably require that teachers make their intended edits a month or two before the school year, and then have oversight teams go through their material by comparing the changes made to the original, and have the oversight teams notify the professors or college of any serious problems or suggestions.
Some advantages that you can see in having a digital textbook that teachers can customize is that you can change things to make things more clear and change things to help with learning. I couple changes that I would want to change is to just be able to specify on things and make things more clear. I think that the price for the online book would be much more cheaper and affordable and you wouldn't have to carry around big heavy textbooks. To keep plagiarism out of my digital textbooks I would install passwords and make sure that you would have to log in to see the textbook, so you would know who changed the book.
The advantages of digital textbook is that they can easily adjust the content for their class, which could include many additional information. But I am concerned that the information might be false. If they have tablet that can mark inside the text, that will be helpful for notes. The price of the digital textbook is amazingly cheap wit same content. However, device for viewing digital textbook will be expensive. For plagiarism, I think you should have community for teachers so that can have copyright for their information, and make sure they marked the copyright when they are using the content.
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