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Can textbook publishers learn from television’s history?

In the early days of television, broadcasters turned to vaudeville and theater producers to create their programming. These producers simply created vaudeville and theater shows, and stuck a camera in the audience as an afterthought. They didn’t understand the capabilities of the new medium, and so did a minimal job incorporating it into their more familiar works. Eventually, it took an outside industry – Hollywood – to produce shows specifically for television, introducing techniques familiar to today’s viewers that made for a more effective medium.

College textbook publishers are experiencing a similar situation regarding the Internet. Like the early TV producers, today’s publishers continue to make textbooks, and convert them in some fashion into Internet components as an afterthought – vaudeville and theater are replaced by E-books and web sites that offer static illustrations and text. None of these are specifically produced for the Internet, and deviate only slightly from the traditional publishing paradigm.

By its very nature, the Internet is capable of providing far better (and less expensive) learning tools than those currently provided. College students are clamoring for these tools, but the textbook publishers have been inadequate to this task. Clearly it is up to someone else to deliver on the Internet’s promise.

So what would "more effective learning tools" look like? They would need most (if not all) of these characteristics:

• Significantly lower cost – College students spend $120 or more on each new textbook. Publishers, who get no revenue from “used” book sales, regularly publish new editions every three years to force more “new” book purchases; often these new editions are little changed from the preceding edition. New learning tools must be low cost (or no cost in order to effectively compete.



• Focused learning – New learning tools should focus on a single concept, such as calculating sales tax or the structure of the human heart. Students know which concepts they need to study, and need a way to get to them quickly without slogging through other concepts that they already understand. A focused approach is more time-efficient for students, and more effective as a learning methodology.



• Effective teaching techniques – Rather than cookie-cutter presentations, new learning tools should be presented in ways that best convey the intended concept. They should address multiple learning styles (where possible) to ensure the best learning experience. For example, a tool focused on a single math concept should include a labeled illustration (for the visual learner), two different ways to work the formula (for the hands-on learner), and a glossary of terms (for reading-oriented learners).
  
  In addition, resources that are typically static should be presented more effectively. The Periodic Table and Logarithm Tables are great examples -- why don't they come with instructions on how to use them? Why don't financial statements provide explanations for each line item (explanation that are usually buried within the textbook, if provided at all)?



• True interactivity – Clicking "Next" to turn the page on an E-book is not interactive. Math tools, for example, should accept numbers from the student and walk them through the steps required to find solutions. Similarly, financial ratio solvers show the steps and also where to find the proper values on financial statements. Science tools should let the student choose where they want to explore, not present a over-structured slide show.

Article Source: http://www.content.onlypunjab.com

Rudy Lopes is Vice President of Content Development for The Smartacus Corporation and college-cram.com College-Cram is a Free 24/7 interactive tutorial library for college students covering math, business, science, and foreign languages.

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