What is the new textbook?
Posted on: April 29, 2014
Thought leaders in the area of journalism started declaring that “video is the new text” in 2012 and 2013.
At a conference in Kuala Lumpur last year, I heard Marc Prensky say the same thing in the realm of education. This was one reason for our CeL-Ed video channel experiment.
If video is the new text, what is the new textbook? I do not think that it is a YouTube video playlist.
Instead, I think that the new textbook is rich experiences. Experiences that not only include the consumption of rich and timely media, but also interacting socially with peers and more knowledgeable others, creating and sharing content, and learning outside silos of books, subject areas, and classrooms.
Now this is obviously not what the Open Textbook movement is about. However, I think that my suggestion is another way of acting on the issue of over-priced, paper-based, and limited-use textbooks.
I walk this talk in the two courses that I facilitate. I only provide one PDF chapter in one course and five videos in another. I have a host of curated resources online, but I expect my learners to find and/or create their own.
This gives them greater ownership of the learning because they are more involved. They write in order to read. Their textbooks are based on their experiences, that of their peers, and the ones I provide for them. These textbooks make for riveting reading!
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