Central source of free electronic schoolbooks

Leckywest

We have a 2-3 foot high stack of school books in the corner of a room after my eldest daughters first year in secondary school. I have to wonder if there is potential for a central source of electronic educational materials governed by, and freely downloadable annually from, the Dept of Education website. It would, by subject, be a core minimum requirements/expectations document and several supporting documents where a teacher wants to explore a little deeper in a particular direction. The free materials would be created and maintained/revised annually by a limited number of subject experts on a donated effort basis – no cost – no royalties etc… there must be some people out there willing to contribute to our kids’ education? Am thinking pdf files (with links / embedded content etc..) as it should be platform neutral. So other than initial hardware (whole other topic) cost – there will be a hugely reduced cost for parents each year, our kids posture would improve, environmental model/example, high quality materials would consistently align to curricula countrywide and teachers could influence material content. Admittedly not popular with book providers – but change is one of life’s realities! Would not underestimate change management required for our educators either! Thoughts anyone?

mtoutlemonde

Leckywest wrote: »

We have a 2-3 foot high stack of school books in the corner of a room after my eldest daughters first year in secondary school. I have to wonder if there is potential for a central source of electronic educational materials governed by, and freely downloadable annually from, the Dept of Education website. It would, by subject, be a core minimum requirements/expectations document and several supporting documents where a teacher wants to explore a little deeper in a particular direction. The free materials would be created and maintained/revised annually by a limited number of subject experts on a donated effort basis – no cost – no royalties etc… there must be some people out there willing to contribute to our kids’ education? Am thinking pdf files (with links / embedded content etc..) as it should be platform neutral. So other than initial hardware (whole other topic) cost – there will be a hugely reduced cost for parents each year, our kids posture would improve, environmental model/example, high quality materials would consistently align to curricula countrywide and teachers could influence material content. Admittedly not popular with book providers – but change is one of life’s realities! Would not underestimate change management required for our educators either! Thoughts anyone?

All books are electronically available but most schools offer a book rental scheme so they would not be used. I use them myself for handiness but I always have to supplement. I actually like students using books - they have their heads in computers/phones most of the time so it's a break for them. You must also remember that some households can have financial problems i.e. unemployment / one-parent families and the cost of buying a computer can be crippling and puts families under pressure. I totally agree with the book rental scheme because everyone pays the same. Also, you mention a central source - that would never work - there is no one size fits all in teaching - we all have different styles and ideas about resources.

rainbowtrout

Leckywest wrote: »

We have a 2-3 foot high stack of school books in the corner of a room after my eldest daughters first year in secondary school. I have to wonder if there is potential for a central source of electronic educational materials governed by, and freely downloadable annually from, the Dept of Education website. It would, by subject, be a core minimum requirements/expectations document and several supporting documents where a teacher wants to explore a little deeper in a particular direction. The free materials would be created and maintained/revised annually by a limited number of subject experts on a donated effort basis – no cost – no royalties etc… there must be some people out there willing to contribute to our kids’ education? Am thinking pdf files (with links / embedded content etc..) as it should be platform neutral. So other than initial hardware (whole other topic) cost – there will be a hugely reduced cost for parents each year, our kids posture would improve, environmental model/example, high quality materials would consistently align to curricula countrywide and teachers could influence material content. Admittedly not popular with book providers – but change is one of life’s realities! Would not underestimate change management required for our educators either! Thoughts anyone?

Can I ask why you value teachers so little? In no other profession would you ask an expert to provide work for free, so why would you ask teachers to do it? I presume when you say subject experts, that they would be teachers.

If you value an experts work, pay them. They can't live on fresh air.

mirrorwall14

I agree with everything you say except not bothering to pay people.

There is nothing to stop the department putting money aside to create and maintain these resources. In fact if done properly it could reduce the need for book scheme support and back to school allowances

Grab All Association

The state/DOE should have no involvement with the publication of school books/material (especially history and CSPE). Potential for propaganda/political bias.

bpmurray

There is actually a global effort called Open Textbook based on the idea of Open Source for software, whereby textbooks are created and updated by experts and teachers for free. Critical for its success is that the department should NOT get involved: it's a teacher thing rather than a government thing. There is absolutely no reason why Irish curricula should not be represented in these books - it just needs a few folk who are willing to put in the time.

It's especially annoying when I see minor changes in a subject requiring a completely new 4-colour printed book when such minor changes could be incorporated in minutes into an electronic book. For those worrying about the undue burden of cost of a computer on families, this has come about because of the lunatics who have insisted on standardising on the most expensive solution, i.e. an iPad for €600+ when an Android tablet could be purchased for €50. Or, better still, an E-reader for even less. As for those who want to see kids with physical rather than electronic books - you're living in the '80s while the kids are more comfortable with an electronic device than a dead tree :-)

evolving_doors

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

I agree with everything you say except not bothering to pay people.

There is nothing to stop the department putting money aside to create and maintain these resources. In fact if done properly it could reduce the need for book scheme support and back to school allowances

I think they did try and pay people with scoilnet.... but the resources there are minimal.

Ain't nobody got time for that.

Leckywest

I have no aversion to people being paid for their work once it would be covered by DOE funds and not passed on to parents (I subscribe to the Wikipedia model and have made contributions). I believe there is people out there who would like to make an unpaid contribution – all voluntary – not expected as part of day job.
I like the idea of the Open Textbook – wonderful idea! - And agree completely with bpmurray. The vast majority of people only read books for pleasure (which is great and may be part of studying) but we are on a path of rich media and interactives services where people learn by doing with engaging content on multiple devices - and there is (or should be) no going back to dull static uninspiring pages of thick books and forcing kids to read them.
On costs, per Wikipedia, “Overall, open textbooks have been found by the Student PIRGs to offer 80% or more savings to higher education students over traditional textbook publishers.[10][11][12] Research commissioned by the Florida State Legislature found similarly high savings and the state has since implemented a system to facilitate adoption of open textbooks.”
Book rentals schemes seem to have varying degrees of success and only address the costs argument to a degree. Am inclined to agree about not including DOE – but a central governance would be required somehow.

rainbowtrout

Leckywest wrote: »

I have no aversion to people being paid for their work once it would be covered by DOE funds and not passed on to parents (I subscribe to the Wikipedia model and have made contributions). I believe there is people out there who would like to make an unpaid contribution – all voluntary – not expected as part of day job.
I like the idea of the Open Textbook – wonderful idea! - And agree completely with bpmurray. The vast majority of people only read books for pleasure (which is great and may be part of studying) but we are on a path of rich media and interactives services where people learn by doing with engaging content on multiple devices - and there is (or should be) no going back to dull static uninspiring pages of thick books and forcing kids to read them.
On costs, per Wikipedia, “Overall, open textbooks have been found by the Student PIRGs to offer 80% or more savings to higher education students over traditional textbook publishers.[10][11][12] Research commissioned by the Florida State Legislature found similarly high savings and the state has since implemented a system to facilitate adoption of open textbooks.”
Book rentals schemes seem to have varying degrees of success and only address the costs argument to a degree. Am inclined to agree about not including DOE – but a central governance would be required somehow.

You have a very negative view of books, which is disappointing. There are plenty of books out there that are not dull and uninspiring. I think the books still has it's place in education and ramming tech driven education down people's throats all the time isn't much better. I know a lot of students who when asked prefer to work from books than from a tablet. Books allow them to make notes, to view a page/information in detail rather than scrolling up and down all the time, doesn't strain their eyes from viewing a screen all day. As said in an earlier post, they spend enough time looking at screens.


There are people out there who are willing to do work for free, but they are not always the best people for the job. In my subject area I've seen resources put together and uploaded to the PDST website and it is obviously a collaboration of a number of teachers; some of it is very good, some of it is very poor and some of it is cut and paste straight from a book.

mtoutlemonde

bpmurray wrote: »

There is actually a global effort called Open Textbook based on the idea of Open Source for software, whereby textbooks are created and updated by experts and teachers for free. Critical for its success is that the department should NOT get involved: it's a teacher thing rather than a government thing. There is absolutely no reason why Irish curricula should not be represented in these books - it just needs a few folk who are willing to put in the time.

It's especially annoying when I see minor changes in a subject requiring a completely new 4-colour printed book when such minor changes could be incorporated in minutes into an electronic book. For those worrying about the undue burden of cost of a computer on families, this has come about because of the lunatics who have insisted on standardising on the most expensive solution, i.e. an iPad for €600+ when an Android tablet could be purchased for €50. Or, better still, an E-reader for even less. As for those who want to see kids with physical rather than electronic books - you're living in the '80s while the kids are more comfortable with an electronic device than a dead tree :-)

I'm not living in the 80s - I was encouraged to read when I was at school and it is a love that no electronic device can or ever will replace. As a teacher I would like to encourage my students to read books and can't understand the anti-book brigade that are commenting here.

With relation to teaching, the primary source of information/subject matter is the teacher, the secondary source is the book and in my opinion websites/use of computers are tertiary. As bp states, one can pick up an e-reader for €50 - that can be the food allowance for some families. When I was training as a teacher, I set homework online one night but some kids couldn't do it due to lack of WiFi/computer. I remember saying it to my cooperating teacher at the time, saying I assumed WiFi would be available in every house and she told me not to assume anything. I have never set online/web research homework since and that has been a few years ago. If I want the kids to do project work/typing - I book the computer room.

As I stated before, kids are constantly using IT devices - they are controlled by Facebook/Snapshot or whatever they are into these days and it is good for them to have a break from these devices. With the use of technology nowadays, this has led to a major problem with literacy and numeric - read an essay (even from a LC student) and it can be littered with spelling errors because they are so used to typing a few letters into google and it finishes the word for them. Ask a kid nowadays to add up a few things and the first thing they reach for is their phone to use their calculator.

Now the OP who has a two foot stack of books/copies - obviously there is no book rental scheme in the school as the stack of books would be gone. The JC is a three year course and obviously the books are being supplemented with notes etc. If there was no stack, people would still be giving out as the teachers don't put any effort into their classes because notes are expected or again the teacher is not good enough.

Again with relation to resources, I spend time creating my own resources for my own classes and am quite protective of them as I put a lot of effort into making them. Why should I upload (either paid or unpaid) to a website for use by teachers who don't bother. I have seen posters here and on voice for teachers looking for resources for their classes and my opinion is lazy teacher. We were all shown when training how to create resources.

Again just to point out, I do agree that IT plays an important part in education but can't see the use of a central source of resources as being productive. If you want additional information about something, google it and thousands/millions of websites with answers will be returned and with a little effort, you should be able to find the answers you require.

Leckywest

rainbowtrout wrote: »

You have a very negative view of books, which is disappointing.

Admit my comments were a bit harsh as regards the printed word - and hypocritical given my personally owned number of books. For me its just about using the best possible resources (the best of which is the actual teacher) available in whatever form they come in that educates and engages the pupil best. Where we can set an example environmentally, reduce costs for parents and ease the weight that the child has to carry around - we should do everything possible to achieve this.

mick kk

This would be great in LC Irish were the dept have about 5 stories and 5 poems but do not provide copies of these - the book companies gather them and print them. The poems can all be found by googling but the stories are harder to find....so parents fork out around 30euro for a book just so these stories and poems can be accessed....they take up about 25 - 30 pages in total - a pdf of these would eliminate the need for the book as some teachers just use the book for these stories and poems.

rainbowtrout

mick kk wrote: »

This would be great in LC Irish were the dept have about 5 stories and 5 poems but do not provide copies of these - the book companies gather them and print them. The poems can all be found by googling but the stories are harder to find....so parents fork out around 30euro for a book just so these stories and poems can be accessed....they take up about 25 - 30 pages in total - a pdf of these would eliminate the need for the book as some teachers just use the book for these stories and poems.

Copyright of those stories and poems belongs to the authors of those works. Copyrighted work cannot be reproduced without their permission. I presume they get a fee for their work being reproduced in whatever LC textbooks are available, and again I don't expect writers and poets to give their work away for free.

What is it that makes people think nobody should get paid for their work?

As for the price of a book: the book will be used for 2 years of the students life, up to 5 days a week during the school year. That represents good value to me. On the other hand parents spend a huge amount of money on items for their teenage kids that could be classified as disposable/not good value/ cheap tat. That never seems to be an issue. I never hear complaints about the €75 cost for a new playstation game....

mirrorwall14

rainbowtrout wrote: »

Copyright of those stories and poems belongs to the authors of those works. Copyrighted work cannot be reproduced without their permission. I presume they get a fee for their work being reproduced in whatever LC textbooks are available, and again I don't expect writers and poets to give their work away for free.

What is it that makes people think nobody should get paid for their work?

As for the price of a book: the book will be used for 2 years of the students life, up to 5 days a week during the school year. That represents good value to me. On the other hand parents spend a huge amount of money on items for their teenage kids that could be classified as disposable/not good value/ cheap tat. That never seems to be an issue. I never hear complaints about the €75 cost for a new playstation game....

While I agree with you in principle rainbowtrout things can be outrageously expensive when neither the dept/publishers are interested in actually pricing or publishing materials before putting them on the syllabus.

In music for example, just to purchase the four scores for LC (never mind an actual book containing the rest of the content for the course) costs 80-100. This is for a section of the course that is worth 55/400 marks-that's nuts. The only official book published costs 55e on top of that. So if a teacher was to use the material legally it would cost parents well north of 100e.

Now there are ways and means to reduce that cost but the free scores are not as well produced as the paid ones and I had to create all my notes from scratch hoping they are good enough and that I didn't accidentally plagiarise because I rote learned for LC

mick kk

1. As far as I am aware, the book companies give nothing to those poets/authors
2. Authors, poets and teachers should all be paid for their work - maybe the Department should pay the poets/authors for allowing them to use their poems/stories but I am almost certain that they get nothing for their work being selected.
2. I still believe that a printable 30 page pdf available online would be much better than 50,000 students x €30 each, buying a book that is used mainly for these documents.
4. If the poems/stories are changed then the online pdf can change - no need for purchase of new books.

Tom Dunne

Any discussion around eBooks/tablet devices needs to be tempered with the research that suggests such devices are actually detrimental to the learning and retention processes.

Leaving the discussion on who creates the content aside, electronic devices are shown to engender a sense of cursory, fragmented reading styles, not to mention the ergonomic issues in relation to posture and eye strain that would not be encountered with regular books.

byhookorbycrook

Some schools seem to feel that being able to say they use I Pads is a good reflection on the school . In many cases the I Pads are used as glorified Kindles. Electronic doesn't always mean better .

Leckywest

Leaving the hardware choice debate aside, there seems little conclusive 'evidence' that e-readers are worse that books except that they have the flexibility to branch to other applications impacting retention if the user decides to do that - something that could be controlled in a classroom! Anything bright is not a good idea in trying to get to sleep at night either.
Retention of information (such as lists) anyway should be less important in a world of infinitely available, on-tap, information. Kids should be thought principles of how things (physical/scientific...etc..) work, logical and mathematical concepts, reasoning and social skills etc... rather than being asked to remember information which can be obtained with a quick google search from any device any time. It is enough to know what the periodic table is (application/principle) for example rather than list all the elements.
Not aware of any posture problems other than lugging around heavy schoolbags full of books.

rainbowtrout

Leckywest wrote: »

Leaving the hardware choice debate aside, there seems little conclusive 'evidence' that e-readers are worse that books except that they have the flexibility to branch to other applications impacting retention if the user decides to do that - something that could be controlled in a classroom! Anything bright is not a good idea in trying to get to sleep at night either.
Retention of information (such as lists) anyway should be less important in a world of infinitely available, on-tap, information. Kids should be thought principles of how things (physical/scientific...etc..) work, logical and mathematical concepts, reasoning and social skills etc... rather than being asked to remember information which can be obtained with a quick google search from any device any time. It is enough to know what the periodic table is (application/principle) for example rather than list all the elements.
Not aware of any posture problems other than lugging around heavy schoolbags full of books.

From my classroom experience I would disagree with this. Rote learning seems to be a term no one wants to use anymore, but being able to recall information quickly, because someone has learned it off, frees up a student to be able to focus on those complex ideas that you are talking about such as the principal of how things work.

What I see in my fifth year maths class, is students who don't know their times tables, so I have to stop and wait for them to pull out their calculators to work out 7 x 9 instead of being able to move on to why I'm doing whatever it is I'm doing. They are still trying to work out the basics, and their time is consumed with these tasks, because they have to look up answers to information they would have known off the top of their heads 20 years ago. It's harder to teach complex concepts when they don't have the foundations.

I would also see similar situations in chemistry and physics. If I'm writing a chemical equation on the board, I don't want to spend time pissing about with questions such as 'what's the Li in the equation' and 'what does the Cl stand for?' If they know the names of the first 20 elements those questions are eliminated and I can get on with explaining how to balance the equation.

Leckywest

It is disappointing to hear that some fifth year students don't have that basic level of maths / chemistry which is really essential basics. There is of course a minimum level that must be met... I just thought we might be further ahead than that however.