No name, no game: Challenges to use of collaborative digital textbooks

Abstract

Collaborative digital textbooks -comprehensive materials covering entire curriculums -are developing from being books in pdf format to becoming collaborative digital environments where teachers and students can communicate, engage in feedback and discussions, share and manipulate materials, test knowledge, and monitor results. This study investigates how these digital environments are used in school practice: How are the collaborative tools used to improve learning? Thirteen seventh-and eighth-grade classes, 370 students and 30 teachers in five Swedish secondary schools, were investigated over 1,5 years by means of questionnaires, classroom observations and interviews with teachers and students. Here, questionnaire results are presented, while observations and interviews serve to provide contextual insights. Collaborative tools were very little used; often teachers and students were not even aware of their existence. Most use was individual, students were left alone with the digital material. Students read or listened to the text and did not actively engage in learning by e.g. making notes or marking text. Most teachers did not use the material actively to help students understand and learn, most did not even check student results on automated tests. We conclude that the teachers have not incorporated the new, collaborative design of the digital textbook into their thinking regarding tools for teaching and learning and still regard it as a static book. This suggests that making full use of digital tools requires new ways of thinking of teaching, and that it takes more than providing digital tools to achieve this end.

Collaborative digital textbooks – a comparison of five different designs shaping teaching and learning

“…In brief, "DTB refers to coherent (digital) material covering entire curriculums, and, if collaborative tools are included, they become collaborative, cDTB". (Grönlund et al 2018).…”

“…Unlike digital resources, which focus on limited areas, cDTB create the conditions for the entire learning environment and for how learners will engage with the curriculum content. Even though cDTB are much more up-to date than traditional books and accept inclusion of content and tools by the teacher, the fact that they provide both a comprehensive content and communication tools pertinent to creating a digital learning environmentthe rules and limitations for interaction among teachers and studentsgives them a prominent role in school, as they have the potential to serve as powerful tools for the teacher and learner (Rodríguez et al 2015;Grönlund et al 2018). In relation to other digital resources, such as websites "2.0" and learning management systems with various features and tools, digital textbooks are designed to provide pupils with some form of quality warranted content in relation to the set learning outcomes of a particular school subject.…”

“…A review of the current research (2009-2018) on "digital textbooks" as well as "collaborative" + "digital textbooks" was carried out in EBSCO and Google scholar and we did not find any comparative studies on how the design of different cDTB shape teaching and learning environments, knowledge/ content, agency and activities. There is however some international research describing the policy informing the use and development of cDTB /digital textbooks in different countries and educational sectors (Rodríguez et al 2015) and one article analyzing the use of cDTB in the Swedish context (Grönlund et al 2018).…”

“…Collaborative Digital Text Books are quite new artifacts that seem to be unique for the Swedish textbook market. In this paper collaborative Digital Text Books (cDTB) refers to coherent professionally produced educational material and learning activities covering content of entire courses in the Swedish national curriculum and with tools for communication and cooperation (Grönlund et al 2018). In this study, five Swedish cDTB brands we compared are intended for years 7-9 covering "social science" but there are other versions for all academic subjects and levels.…”

Organizational, Psychological and Pedagogical Conditions for the Use of E-Books and e-Textbooks at School

“…The use of digital tools requires new ways of thinking and teaching, advanced training programmes. Something more than digital tools is needed to implement e-textbooks (Gronlund, Wiklund & Boo, 2018). A professional development course has shown that e-textbooks allow a teacher to use digital instruments and new approaches and prompt creative reasoning and argumentation processes (Swidan, & Abu-Abdoon, 2018).…”