Not your mama’s textbook

Students will receive a username and password in place of a textbook in Cristy York’s geography class this month. This combination of letters and numbers will grant them entry into a new online “tech book.”

Once logged in, these seventh-graders can study the relationship between population density and climate in a certain continent through an interactive world atlas. With a click, they can uncover both primary and secondary sources or find an encyclopedia-like entry for a word. 

They can also highlight text, make a note, change the text into a different reading level or hear it read aloud in Spanish.

Once a week, they can watch a new current events video that is posted to the “book.”

“It provides a lot of types of sources and a lot more rich material than just a straight textbook page,” York said.

All fifth- through eighth-grade students in Homewood City Schools will use these Discovery Education Tech Books for social studies starting this fall.

In the past, gaps between new textbook adoptions have meant that students don’t have easy access to the latest maps and interpretation of history. But with tech books, the text will be constantly updated. If a map is redrawn, students will have access to it in real time.

HCS Director of Instructional Support Patrick Chappell believes it will make students want to click around and learn more.

Chappell further explained the role these books will play in social studies classrooms starting this month.

Why these tech books? Why now?

Every year Alabama schools adopt a new curriculum for one subject and then adopt a new textbook for the subject the next year. With the recession in the past decade, adoption in some subject areas was delayed, so it’s been a decade since new social studies books arrived in classrooms. 

Chappell said HCS has long been interested in making the transition into digital textbooks and felt that social studies is a good subject with which to begin. Traditional textbook publishers’ digital products tend to be an adapted version of the print text that doesn’t change the way students learn, but Discovery produces its content to be digital from the outset. As it turned out, the subject levels the company had available were appropriate for fifth to eighth grades.

“It’s an ideal time when kids are struggling with introduction to content and reading,” Chappell said. “This gives them something more engaging and inviting.”

How will students use the tech book?

Students will access the tech book from computers, iPads and other digital devices. In the classroom, they can use devices supplied by the school or one they bring with them, and at home they will use whatever computer or device they have access to. Chappell noted that teachers will need to be sensitive to availability of devices students have at home.

Are there are any other advantages to the tech books?

Another advantage is its cost. Textbooks run $80-100, but the six-year subscription to the tech book runs about half that cost. Plus, the subscription is based on current student population, but even if the number of students grows, the system will not have to pay an additional per-student fee.

“[With the tech books,] you feel like you are being a better steward of money and provide better quality of instruction,” Chappell said.

Chappell further noted that HCS will invest extra funds in devices but that the schools would plan to use the devices regardless of the tech book adoption, and funds have already been marked for devices.

How is the tech book part of a broader evolution in education?

Teachers are increasingly using textbooks as only one of their instructional materials. Tech books are a natural complement to that teaching technique.

Tech books also allow for a departure from the traditional fact-learning, question-answering textbook interaction. According to Chappell, there is a certain baseline of factual information and skills (such as times tables) kids need to learn, but beyond that, they need to acquire skills that will stay with them.

“Questions [with the tech book] might ask you to evaluate and synthesize information, which makes you think more like a historian,” Chappell said. “The variety of information promotes a deeper level of investigation and conversation.”

This interaction also invites students to solve problems — a skill that the business community is telling educators they would like to see in future workers.

“These are the kind of learners we need to produce for the jobs that don’t yet exist,” Chappell said.

What’s next in the textbook adoption process?

The next content area up for a new textbook is science. Although Chappell said it is unclear what year it will be adopted, he believes the subject will similarly lend itself to tech book learning.

“I hope it’s just the first tip of the iceberg,” he said of this year’s tech book adoption.