Education 2.0 & 3.0

FOR SEVERAL DECADES, textbook publishers followed the same basic model: Pitch a hefty tome of knowledge to faculty for inclusion in lesson plans; charge students an equally hefty sum; revise and update its content as needed every few years. Repeat. But the last several years have seen a shift at colleges and universities—one that has more recently turned tectonic.

Free resource of educational web tools, 21st century skills, tips and tutorials on how teachers and students integrate technology into education

Of all of the aspects of the student experience currently under scrutiny, you’d maybe think that academic textbooks were uncontroversial and their efficacy clearly understood. You’d think that the academic benefits of textbooks would be incontestable, and that both students and staff were clear on how textbooks are used to support learning. You’d be wrong.

Textbooks have been the backbone of teaching methods for centuries, and possibly they will remain like that for a long time. But there are valid concerns about their current effectiveness. The Digital Revolution brought a fundamental change in the way we produce and consume content. Digital media like newspapers, blogs and websites generate vast volumes of information daily, and social media keep us in a continuous conversation.

Methods and sources of learning cannot be rigid anymore. They need to be flexible, adaptable and connected with knowledge production in real time. Do textbooks check all the boxes of these new requirements?

Student PIRGs’ 2014 study “Fixing the Broken Textbook Market” found that 65% of students do not buy all the educational material required by professors for reasons of cost. In a 2016, they discovered that $3 billion in financial aid had gone toward paying for textbooks in that year.

For decades, textbooks were seen as the foundation for instruction in American schools. These discipline-specific tomes were a fundamental part of the educational infrastructure, assigned to students for each subject and carried in heavy backpacks every day – from home to school and back again.

The experience of students is much different today.

As a scholar of learning technologies and a director for outreach and engagement at Ohio State’s College of Education and Human Ecology, we’ve seen how technological advances and an increase in digital curriculum materials have hastened the move away from textbooks.

Does all of this technology spell the end of traditional textbooks? And if so, is that actually a good thing for students and teachers?