Jack West's List: Electronic Textbooks

• • Ooh, you can buy chapters of books for 0.99$.  Now that makes sense. Just like songs on iTunes. Chapters come with quizzes and self-assessment tools. audio and video included. Social with comments alongside the text from peers and professor.

• • Did two searches one for high school science, a second for middle school science. Meh. Lesson plans with links to websites and videos. Not impressed.

• • An interesting semi-open model, sponsored by the state, to keep textbooks affordable; riding the wave of all things going digital.

• • Wow. But not just wow. This is a great sharing tool that just might serve to undermine the stranglehold the Big 3 have on textbooks.
• • Free SAT Prep. Wow.

• • A digital science text that takes advantage of being digital.
• • Quote
    Most science e-books “are still PDFs of print books that are scanned and put online,” he said.

• • Looking for an author. Can't find one.
• • Students were randomly assigned to the pilot group. That's a plus.
• • Bold claim. Let's see if the study supports it..
    
    "The results of this case study at Amelia Earhart Middle School revealed that 
    instructional technology can have a substantial effect on student academic 
    achievement when that technology is strategically implemented and pairs 
    strong educational content with a robust technological platform"
• • Impact of technology in school section clearly reads like a brochure.
• • Earhart Middle School ethnic breakdown looks like a typical Ca school.
• • Study controlled for teacher. That is certainly better than the Envision Schools study in summer of 2011 on blended learning with Khan.
    "As part of the study in Riverside, two teachers would each have one of 
    their Algebra sections randomly selected to use the HMH Fuse: Algebra I
    app, while all other Algebra classes, taught by the same teachers, would 
    use the textbook version of the same program."
• • "Since the HMH Fuse app had never been used before and was part of an 
    experimental study, this meant more work and time required by the teachers. 
    Coleman approached his teachers about this opportunity and two teachers, 
    Jackie Davis and Dan Sbur, were ultimately chosen to take part in the study."
    
    This will probably be my most significant critique of the study. A set of shiny new toys for these teachers. Extra PD around their use. Students excited about being special. All of this makes it difficult to isolate the strongest effect.
• • Oops. another confound.
    
    " students were 
    allowed to take the devices home and “customize them,” adding their own 
    music, videos, and additional apps"
    
    More time on task could also have been a significant factor in success. This is an agnostic argument as it could be argued that the extra time on task was inspired by the device. On the other hand, will the extra time on task have a lasting effect?
• • Free wifi all day for the kids with iPads. That's an awfully nice reward for participating in the study.
    
    "The district also allowed students to use Wi-Fi features of the device 
    and access the internet during and after school for both educational and 
    personal pursuits."
• • Did the control classes use the same curriculum in paper version? Maybe Dr. Burger is just a curricular genius.
• • Now that is pretty damn cool. I am a big flipped classroom fan - even if it is inspired by HMH.
    
    "students were coming 
    to class explaining that they had watched the video multiple times at home. 
    “Students who were absent would come in with their homework done"
• • Data
    
    "The first sign that students were performing better than their 
    peers was on the district Algebra benchmark given in the second 
    trimester – students using HMH Fuse had average scores of about 10 
    percentage points better than other Algebra students at Earhart. "
• • Gotta love these bold claims of white papers, particularly promotional ones.
    
    "As students were randomly assigned to use HMH Fuse, the 
    results indicated that use of the app was the chief cause behind the 
    improvement in student test scores. "
• • The study does not report anything about the percentage of below basic and basic students. Did the study group also see fewer below basic scores than the control. Or was there a fall off for students that couldn't engage with the device for some reason? Also, if students were randomly assigned, did that control for the inevitable tracking that happens in many schools? In other words, was it the honors English students who were all "randomly" assigned to the experimental group because of the schedule? Propensity score matching? Student improvement year to year would have made more sense than a flat comparison study.

12 more annotations...

• • People are not hapy with iBooks author. It is most decidedly not an opportunity to flatten the textbook world.

• • A great call to arms for teachers to create their own texts. Even offers a three step process for getting there.

• • another blogger noted that downloading the free textbook might count for this count.