Forget Printed Textbooks, Let’s Embrace Digital Textbooks

The exam period is fast approaching, it is at times like this that we want as much information as possible at our fingertips. We might have to forget our printed textbooks and embrace digital textbooks. You may think this is a crazy idea, but wait a minute. How about if you could touch a screen and download all the lesson materials you need?

Not just any broadly relevant, generic materials, but the actual classes you have studied, video and text, put together specifically by your own teachers. I believe this to be possible if not already implemented in many high schools, universities, university colleges and institutes in the western world.

 In two years' time we may have to make decisions about whether we have printed textbooks says Tricia Kelleher, Stephen Perse Foundation principal.  

This clearly proves to us that students in the western world are already using digital textbooks. This digital textbook for us, will include lessons for each subject, including those we missed or forgotten. For good measure, every teacher and student should be provided with an iPad.

This way, the teacher can generate contents for the students, who could use the content on their own individual iPad. I believe this is possible and will boost education in Africa.

For example, teachers at the independent school are making their own online library of lessons and course materials for GCSE, A-levels and International Baccalaureates. These are interactive resources, with video links and lesson notes, customized for the specific needs and speeds of their classes. There are extension exercises and links to further reading and ideas.

They are made to share on iTunes U, the academic version of Apple's iTunes download service, so pupils can access them at school or at home or anywhere else.

Pupils at the Stephen Perse Foundation use technology across their lessons

“There has been a huge amount of hype about online university courses - the so-called Moocs (massive online open courses). But here in this ancient university city, it's a school that is really putting the idea of online courses into practice.

It still requires excellent teachers - to make them and to make sense of them - but you can see the far-reaching possibilities of creating the exam course equivalent of a box set of a TV series. The pioneering and innovative principal of this high-achieving school is Tricia Kelleher. She emphasises that  online courses depend on the quality and the skill of the teacher, it's not a plug-and-play education.

"The credibility of online learning depends on the teachers who have made the materials," she says. "An iPad on its own isn't inspiring, it's the way it's used that's inspiring." "Education should be a mixed economy, there should be technology, but it is only there to support what a living, breathing teacher is doing."

But she sees how online technology is about to change the traditional textbook. "You're getting beyond the one-size-fits-all textbook. As a resource, I can't see it being bettered. You might buy a textbook, but half of it might not be relevant to your school."

BBC News:  Textbooks replaced by iTunes U downloads  Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26249041(Accessed: 18th March 2014).

There have been more than a billion downloads from iTunes U

Mobile learning is a great idea, even better than the traditional way of learning we are already used. The iTunes U service reached a billion downloads last year, with free course material on offer from more than 2,400 universities, colleges and schools. It's pumping out courses and information at an unprecedented rate.

We can take advantage of this technology and access the vast number of content available for us on iTunes U. We have moved from the era where things were written on a stone to the age of smart tablets (iPad). Change is not easy, but our world is changing and is going digital. If we don’t change with it, we will be left behind.

What do you think? Do you believe that one day, digital textbooks will replace printed textbooks?