e-edukacja w kraju - E-mentor

Virtuous Circles, Vicious Circlesand Virtual BooksHarriet E. BaberLike most of us who teach courses where thereadings are primarily journal articles, I used touse a textbook anthology. Every year I picked theleast-worst anthology. I assigned about a third of thereadings in the textbook to justify making studentsbuy it and supplemented the textbook readings withbooks on library reserve, Xeroxes and online articles.I was fed up.In Spring 2008 I went textbook-free. I linked alland only the readings for my Contemporary AnalyticPhilosophy course to the class website, along withpower point presentations, handouts and externallinks to online resources.Many of the texts that we, as instructors, needfor a wide range of courses are available online. Forsome courses, those in which the primary readingsare journal articles and historical texts in the publicdomain, it is currently feasible and, arguably, desirableto build online “books” for classroom use in lieuof traditional textbooks. For other classes, includingundergraduate courses in mathematics, logic and theempirical sciences, where readings are not journal articlesor historical readings, online textbooks providean alternative to traditional hardcopy texts.The feasibility of using online material for classesvaries by course and discipline. For some courses, includingmost in my, going textbook-free is unproblematicand, as I shall argue, is not only cheaper but betterpedagogically than using traditional hardcopy texts. Forothers, the textbook-free approach may not (yet?) becost effective or even feasible. I suggest however thatmost instructors can and should be making better useof online resources that are free to end-users.In this discussion I shall consider the benefits ofmaking more use of these online resources and makesome practical suggestions about where to find onlinematerials, how to incorporate them into courses andhow to easily create high quality online “books”.Finally, I shall consider the beneficial effects of morewidespread use of online materials on the market fortraditional hardcopy textbooks.The Problem with Traditional TextbooksOne problem with traditional textbooks is obvious:they are expensive. The cost of books for courses atsome public community colleges is often substantiallyhigher than the cost of tuition and therefore is outof reach for many community college students, mostof whom are from low-income families. To addressthis issue community college instructors have madestrenuous efforts to find ways of creating more affordablealternatives 1 .Faculty in universities and professional schools, ina range of disciplines are also concerned about thehigh cost of textbooks. A number have committedto supporting the Student Public Interest ResearchGroups’ 2 initiative promoting the use of free, onlineand open source textbooks to reduce college textbookcosts. “Professors Gone Paperless” 3 includes discussionby an information scientist teaching at the graduatelevel, an economist at a top tier engineering schooland a mathematician as well as useful comments byreaders concerning the rationale and mechanics ofusing online texts, and objections.Skeptics worry that online books are not subjectto the quality control that the Market imposes oncommercial products: prima facie, you get what youpay for and, notoriously, the Internet is a repositoryfor enormous quantities of useless junk. In fact, thereare a number of high quality texts available online anduniversity faculties are quite capable of distinguish-1So, for example, the Community College Consortium for Open Education (http://cccoer.wordpress.com/) is a jointeffort by a number of community colleges and other organizations in Southern California to create and disseminate“open educational resources”. The site includes a number of additional useful links. “Online Texts for CommunityCollege Students” (http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/04/29/textbooks) at Inside Higher Ed includes a discussionof issues facing community college instructors and this program, [02.02.2009].2http://www.maketextbooksaffordable.org/statement.asp?id2=37614, [02.02.2009].3http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/04/16/textbooks, [02.02.2009].luty 2009 95