Upcycling & Rescaping: Reconceptualizing the Textbook The affordances of digital textbooks have allowed for a dramatic alteration of what textbooks can offer. Many applications (“apps”), however, can compete with the digital textbook. In fact, one could consider digital textbooks one star in the constellation of learning applications and tools. The modern learner will cultivate a repertoire of learning applications which will assist in learning (Educause). This is a departure from the traditional view of the textbook as the monolithic content provider.
This evolution into a learning ecosystem can hold great value for a learner.
What does that mean for the future market of digital textbooks?
Emerging Technologies Digital textbooks face challenges in terms of maintaining a strong foothold in the education sector. If we expand upon the metaphor of an ecosystem, it might be said educational apps may be an invasive species; while some of perished, unable to survive in the harsh realities of their brave new world, others have persevered and nicely established themselves in the new environment. In any self-sustaining ecosystem, the arrival of new species can spell big trouble. For the digital textbook, these new technologies might be a serious threat to their relevancy, survival, and/or former dominance over the ecosystem. In typical Darwinian fashion, they must adapt to the new environment and evolve to survive.
Threats / Invaders: Learning Management Systems (LMS): probably the largest current threat to the textbook industry. LMSs include content curated by course designers, often published articles, web videos, etc. and no longer rely on content in the monolithic textbook.
Apps: Many apps can provide learning support equivalent or beyond what might be embedded in a digital textbook. (examples?) Copyright Law Modifications: While a complex issue, in Canada, Fair Dealing and Bill C-11 allow for reproduction of content (with limitations) for purposes of study and analysis. This allows for a certain amount of a published textbook to, for example, be scanned or photographed and uploaded into an LMS or digital binder, like Microsoft OneNote, for study purposes, eliminating the need to purchase full texts or replacement texts again. Creative Commons licensing has also made digital content sharing quite accessible.
Open Access Digital Textbooks and Course Content: Teachers have begun curating their own content to teach a course, much like curated content on an LMS. School boards, unwilling or unable to pay for recurring costs of expensive textbooks and replacements, can place onus on teachers to design courses based on Open Access content, such as using Google Books whose copyrights have expired, free academic and popular articles, and other freely available content, or even culling these elements together to create the teacher's own "digital" content collection. This does not contain the same interactive capabilities as a digital textbook, put paired with clever instructional design and learning applications, it may be enough to mute digital textbook's appeal.
Subscription Services: Services like DeepDyve ("like Spotify for academic articles") support the use of content curation with more ease.
Ownership: Digital textbook rentals, which attractive for price, end access to content after a specific period of time and thus is an unattractive feature for users and potential consumers.
eTextbooks: Open access to free textbooks.
Survival of the Species / Innovations: Value-Added Services: data mining in the form of student engagement information is now gathered during the use of digital textbooks. The details of student reading habits can be monitored and reported on; this type of service provides incentive to use a digital textbook vs. content in LMS. Another added service is the relative newcomer - Beacons and Proximity Based Learning. Beacons push content to the learner based on time, location and application. They are a low cost solution for implementing context-aware engagement and providing real-world interaction in a variety of learning settings.
Value-Added Features: Publishers often offer features to educators which allow them to modify a published digital textbook by deleting or adding chapters and other content to personalize a textbook for their instructional goals.
eTextbooks: While cited as a potential threat, several large eTextbook publishers, such as Flat World Knowledge, who used to provide free high quality eTextbooks, now charge for these. Continued Evolution / Futuristic Innovations:
Augmented Reality Features / Fusion: for an interesting glimpse of how augmented reality could be included in a digital textbook, take a look at the video below that demonstrates how augmented reality has been embedded in a children's book. Think of the possibilities for the future!
References Edsys. (n.d.) [digital image]. Untitled. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/educational-apps-education-773651/
Educause. (2012, May). “7 things you should know about navigating the new learning ecosystem.” Educause. Retrieved from https://library.educause.edu/resources/2012/5/7-things-you-should-know-about-navigating-the-new-learning-ecosystem
Fekete, Szabolcs. (2016, April 14). Children’s book - augmented reality. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zXZY-uSVmA
Guest, I. (2009, November 11). [digital image]. My learning ecosystem. Retrieved from http://url.ie/zkyj
Ldorfman. (2012, September 30). [digital image]. Evolution-des-wissens - Blue. September 30, 2012. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Evolution-des-wissens_-_Blue.png
Parsons, J. J. (2015, June 28). [digital image]. The digital textbook report 2015. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/junejamrichparsons/book-report2015