Digital Textbooks-Examining Myths & Realities

South Carolina, along with other states, is looking for innovative solutions for improving public education. Often maligned for its industrial model, education policies and practices are usually considered behind the times. Since education is often viewed as an economic engine, states are seeking to find creative ways to increase the number of high school graduates who are well prepared for either college or a job after high school. Coupled with the economic woes of the country resulting in less monies available for education, policymakers are taking a closer look at what is arguably one of the largest budget items for K-12 education--textbooks. States such as California, Florida, and Georgia have either passed legislation or written legislation that would require all or some of their textbooks and other instructional materials be bought in digital format. On the surface, this seems like an easy fix to address not only budget woes but also to move education into the 21st century. As with most ideas that seem too good to be true, this one needs much closer examination.

Technology, in its broadest definition, means entities, both material and immaterial, created by applying mental and physical effort to achieve some value. The usage of these entities--whether a crow bar or a particle accelerator--should solve a problem or serve a purpose. Even as more and more funds are spent to buy technology tools for classrooms, the true purpose of those tools has become murky, if not completely lost. Teachers in classrooms today are faced with Googled learners who have grown up with virtual reality games and can find anything with a few taps of their fingers. In response, the goal of integrating technology into teaching and learning has overshadowed the importance of the fundamental elements of teaching. Technology alone has become the initiative, the newest program to “fix” education, more often than not engaging students in activities rather than being a tool that engages students with core content ideas. Digital textbooks and other digital instructional materials implemented without adherence to clear and focused priorities on effective instruction will not perpetuate what is needed--support for teachers to teach in ways that children learn.  

Teaching is a highly complex activity that draws on many types of knowledge. Besides content knowledge, a teacher must also have pedagogical knowledge such as how brains learn and transfer learning. For example, a fundamental element of teaching is checking for understanding. In other words, a teacher asking questions throughout a lesson to gauge who is learning the content, at what level, and using this data to make instructional decisions such as adjusting instruction to reteach or move on. It is an effective instructional strategy validated by decades of research, made even more powerful when coupled with recent brain research on how children learn. It forms the basis for a teacher’s pedagogical knowledge of formative assessment. Without this knowledge, the use of “clickers”--a student response system used in conjunction with many interactive white boards--becomes less effective. Knowledge about technology cannot be treated as context-free. Good teaching requires an understanding of how technology relates to the pedagogy and content.