Digital Textbooks And Online Learning

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Abstract

The World Digital Library provides free and universal access to primary source content that documents the histories and cultural achievements of all countries. This content includes rare books, journals, manuscripts, maps, prints and photographs, films, and sound recordings.

Introduction

Today compuers are used  in creating machines automatically and they are a household appliance for everyone. computers are used to aid scientists with experiments and a lot of the math they do for their theories. Computers are basically used everywhere with everything. The World Digital Library provides free and universal access to primary source content that documents the histories and cultural achievements of all countries. This content includes rare books, journals, manuscripts, maps, prints and photographs, films, and sound recordings.

The objectives of the WDL are to:

Promote international and intercultural understanding .

Expand multilingual and culturally diverse content on the Internet

Provide resources to students, teachers, and scholars

Build knowledge and capacity in the developing world; help narrow the "digital divide"

Digital Textbooks and Online Learning

Growing movement by students, parents, and professors against high price and weight of traditional textbooks Retirement of baby-boom teachers and full emergence of digital natives—younger teachers who have always grown up among computers and integrate them seamlessly into their lives—fueling use of digital textbooks and other digital content "A Kindle in Every Backpack" policy paper recommends public funding for student e-book devices

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger launched an initiative in May 2009 to provide schools with free, open-source digital textbooks for high school students

President Obama announced an initiative to invest in creating online community college courses for job training programs, improvements in basic skills education, and free online education

Evolution in Learning and Communication

Lines are becoming blurred between online learning and digital textbooks, and between producers and consumers of content Estimates for total digital revenue in the higher education market are less than $100 million, with e-book sales contributing ~5 percent; digital revenue in K–12 has been lower due to focus on core reading and mathematics standards, standardized testing, and budget crisis Interactive learning on the Internet offers a mix of free and fee-based models, for public good and private profit Trade-offs exist between open access and publisher controlled Issues of access among different socioeconomic groups for digital textbooks—and e-book devices—may create a new digital divide Self-assessment is one of the key factors that can be automated in digital texts and help students, professors, and authors

Trends Today and on the Horizon

The Horizon Report 2010, published recently by the New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiative, identified four trends as key drivers of technology adoptions for 2010 through 2015:

Abundance: Volume of resources and relationships accessible on the Internet changes the role of educators in sense-making, coaching, and validating the credibility of information

Just in Time Learning: People want and expect to be able to work, learn, and study at any time and wherever they want to do so

In the Cloud: Technologies are increasingly cloud-based and IT support is becoming increasing decentralized

Collaboration: Students output is increasingly collaborative, and there is more cross-campus collaboration between departments.

Flat World Knowledge

Flat World Knowledge Offers an Innovative Model to Provide Digital Textbooks Flat World Knowledge, a start-up company backed by over $11 million in venture capital, offers expert-authored and peer-reviewed textbooks, openly licensed, available free online and affordably offline Business model is to provide content for textbook adoption that is as good as or better than current textbook, offer content for free, encourage purchase of add-on and convenience products Students can buy a PDF download of book or chapter, ~$30 black and white printed version, ~$60 color print version

PDF download includes print-your-own capability

Creative Commons (open source) license and tools to modify and remix encourage new derivatives and adaptation Professors can create custom books, edit at sentence level, deliver unique books and print-on-demand versions to students

Thus Far, Flat World’s Model

Seems to Be Working

Adoption has increased from 1,000 students at ~30 schools in Spring 2009 to 40,000 students at ~470 schools in Fall 2009 Every chapter, every book, includes digital study guides such as flashcards, practice quizzes, audio guides Approximately 65 percent of students make some kind of purchase, most ~$30 Incentives for authors include faster time to publication, ease of creating and updating texts, 20 percent royalty on any sale, royalties more consistent over time Going forward, Flat World Knowledge plans to integrate more assessment

Performance data will help professors teach and aggregated, anonymous performance data will help authors develop better texts

CourseSmart

CourseSmart Provides Affordable College Textbooks in Digital Format

CourseSmart is a for-profit electronic textbook company founded in 2007 as a joint venture by five of the largest higher-education textbook publishers—Pearson, Cengage Learning, McGraw-Hill Education, John Wiley & Sons Inc., and Bedford Freeman Worth Also distributes electronic textbooks for other publishers Offers more than 9,200 digital titles or over 1,000 courses across most academic disciplines Benefits include lower prices for students (50% less than printed textbooks) as well as convenience for professors and students Students chose between an online version available on any computer, download (partnering with VitalSource), and iPhone/iPod touch app Student’s access to the book ends after a set period, usually the semester end, and students can not resell the textbook

Benefits of CourseSmart Texts

Allows instructors to review and compare textbooks as well as other course materials faster, cheaper, and with less environmental impact than print exam copies Instant delivery allows students to wait until materials are actually needed for homework assignments and test preparation Features include hyperlinked table of contents; search; copy and paste; ability for students to highlight text or add notes to texts Electronic pages correspond exactly to pages in the paper textbook—allowing students and professors to stay in synch whether using print or digital texts Some CourseSmart texts also include multimedia features, such as YouTube-style videos Safari Books Online is a Popular Resource for Technical Professionals Safari Books Online capitalizes on the need for "just in time" learning Founded by O’Reilly Media, Inc. and Pearson Technology Group in July 2001 to provide online content to IT, programming, and design professionals Offers depth and breadth of technical content and is an essential resource in technical fields and among other professionals seeking to improve technical skills "Rough Cuts" allows authors to publish their manuscript drafts, providing customers with access to pre-published information; reader feedback provides editors and authors with information to improve the manuscript "Short Cuts" series of concise, digital-only reports sometimes become full-length titles when popularity and need are proven Electronic Textbook We’ll read it on a device that combines facets of the cell phone, iPod, Kindle, Flip camera, and laptop, with a color touch screen and multimedia capabilities

Placing the cursor next to a term brings up its definition; clicking on a place-name deploys Google Earth Maps, charts, and graphs, instead of static, depict the spread and flow over time while providing interactivity Instead of a single picture for a particular item, site, or artifact, a gallery of photos is embedded in the e-text Augmented reality shows models and concepts in 3-D

Users can instantly contribute comments, photos, and videos to the book’s gallery

Conclusion

There is still a large task ahead in many countries

The funding environment is difficult

Political sensitivities persist but seem to be less of a problem than in the recent past

Cooperation among libraries within countries and within a region is very difficult

Dedicated staff are important

Sustaining high levels of production is not easy