E-Textbooks in a digital ecosystem for learning

Abstract

Abstract: The ISO/IEC project has so far used an online survey to discover what stakeholders across the world perceive to be the particular challenges that will be faced when technologies originally developed for commercial e-Books are transferred for use in formal education. This paper reflects on some of the key findings of this ISO/IEC work.
Mr Weston argues that education is fundamentally about interactivity and not just about the dissemination of information. If follows that while commercial e-Books are viable as stand-alone products, e-Textbooks need to be embedded within a wider digital ecosystem for learning, an ecosystem that will comprise many different forms of software, delivering interactivity, reporting on the outcomes of that interactivity, profiling the capabilities of individual students and managing their progression. For e-Textbooks to play a full part in such an ecosystem, it is vital that they support open standards for interoperability.

Key words: digital ecosystem for learning, e-Textbook, ISO/IEC

CLC Number:

G436

C. WESTON. E-Textbooks in a digital ecosystem for learning[J]. Journal of East China Normal University(Natural Sc, 2014, 2014(2): 98-115.

References

［1］ http://www.adlnet.gov/scorm/scorm-2004-4th/

［2］ http://www.adlnet.org/

［3］ http://www.letsi.org/ 

［4］ Although no formal announcement has been made, Aaron Silvers, a contractor for ADL, has announced on the ADL website that "ADL is embracing a definite future with what we're currently calling the next generation of SCORM…expressed through the Tin Can API". In other words, the Tin Can API (which represents a significant break from traditional SCORM) is being presented as "the next generation of SCORM). See http://www.adlnet.gov/the-definite-indefinite-future-of-scorm/.

［5］ An explanation of the RTWS project is provided by Rustici Software at http://scorm.com/rtws/.

［6］ http://tincanapi.com/

［7］ California's high-profile Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has promoted the use of digital textbooks in the state's schools, launching a scheme to provide free maths and science textbooks in 2009 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8090450.stm) and passing a law to establish a California Digital Open Source Library for school textbooks in 2012 (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/california-takes-a-big-step-forward-free-digital-open-source-textbooks/263047/).

［8］ In 2010, the Shanghai Municipal government announced a five year programme to move their K12 provision entirely to digital textbooks. See http://publishingperspectives.com/2010/06/shanghai-hopes-for-all-e-textbook-campus-in-five-years/. 

［9］ In his dialogue Phaedrus, Socrates argues that "Writing has this strange quality, and is very like painting; for the creatures of painting stand like living beings, but if one asks them a question, they preserve a solemn silence. And so it is with written words; you might think they spoke as if they had intelligence, but if you question them, wishing to know about their sayings, they always say only one and the same thing." In other words, written text cannot participate in the sort of active, rational discourse that Socrates referred to as the dialectic. See http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html.

［10］ Quoted in Resources for Learning, by L C Taylor, Penguin Education, 1971, p. 22. L C Taylor takes the quotation from Anthony Chevenix-Trench, the Public Schools, in Peter Blander (ed.), Looking Forward to the Seventies. Smythe, 1968, p. 76.

［11］ The complement was paid in a lecture by President Garfield given in 1871 at Williams College, where Mark Hopkins was president. Quoted by Clifford E Swartz, Cliff's Nodes - Editorials from The Physics Teacher, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2006, p.68.

［12］ Mazur, E., Peer Instruction: A User's Manual, Addison Wesley, 1996. See also Professor Mazur's lecture to the UK-based Specialist Schools and Academies Trust at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5qRyf34v3Q.

［13］ Downes, Stephen, "Connectivism and Connective Knowledge: Essays on meaning and learning networks" at http://www.downes.ca/files/Connective_Knowledge-19May2012.pdf.

［14］ The final draft of IEEE 1484.12.1 is available at http://ltsc.ieee.org/wg12/files/LOM_1484_12_1_v1_Final_Draft.pdf. 

［15］ IMS Learning Tools Interoperability provides a means of embedding a signed widget in a web-page. Means of reporting on the use of the embedded tool are still at an early, experimental stage. Full details of LTI are available at http://www.imsglobal.org/lti/. 

［16］ http://idpf.org/

［17］ http://www.adlnet.gov/scorm/scorm-2004-4th/

［18］ http://www.adlnet.org/

［19］ http://www.letsi.org/

［20］ Although no formal announcement has been made, Aaron Silvers, a contractor for ADL, has announced on the ADL website that "ADL is embracing a definite future with what we're currently calling the next generation of SCORM…expressed through the Tin Can API". In other words, the Tin Can API (which represents a significant break from traditional SCORM) is being presented as "the next generation of SCORM). See http://www.adlnet.gov/the-definite-indefinite-future-of-scorm/.

［21］ An explanation of the RTWS project is provided by Rustici Software at http://scorm.com/rtws/.

［22］ http://tincanapi.com/

［23］ California's high-profile Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has promoted the use of digital textbooks in the state's schools, launching a scheme to provide free maths and science textbooks in 2009 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8090450.stm) and passing a law to establish a California Digital Open Source Library for school textbooks in 2012 (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/california-takes-a-big-step-forward-free-digital-open-source-textbooks/263047/).

［24］ In 2010, the Shanghai Municipal government announced a five year programme to move their K12 provision entirely to digital textbooks. See http://publishingperspectives.com/2010/06/shanghai-hopes-for-all-e-textbook-campus-in-five-years/.

［25］ In his dialogue Phaedrus, Socrates argues that "Writing has this strange quality, and is very like painting; for the creatures of painting stand like living beings, but if one asks them a question, they preserve a solemn silence. And so it is with written words; you might think they spoke as if they had intelligence, but if you question them, wishing to know about their sayings, they always say only one and the same thing." In other words, written text cannot participate in the sort of active, rational discourse that Socrates referred to as the dialectic. See http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html.

［26］ Quoted in Resources for Learning, by L C Taylor, Penguin Education, 1971, p. 22. L C Taylor takes the quotation from Anthony Chevenix-Trench, the Public Schools, in Peter Blander (ed.), Looking Forward to the Seventies. Smythe, 1968, p. 76.

［27］ The complement was paid in a lecture by President Garfield given in 1871 at Williams College, where Mark Hopkins was president. Quoted by Clifford E Swartz, Cliff's Nodes - Editorials from The Physics Teacher, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2006, p.68.

［28］ Mazur, E., Peer Instruction: A User's Manual, Addison Wesley, 1996. See also Professor Mazur's lecture to the UK-based Specialist Schools and Academies Trust at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5qRyf34v3Q.

［29］ Downes, Stephen, "Connectivism and Connective Knowledge: Essays on meaning and learning networks" at http://www.downes.ca/files/Connective_Knowledge-19May2012.pdf.

［30］ The final draft of IEEE 1484.12.1 is available at http://ltsc.ieee.org/wg12/files/LOM_1484_12_1_v1_Final_Draft.pdf.

［31］ IMS Learning Tools Interoperability provides a means of embedding a signed widget in a web-page. Means of reporting on the use of the embedded tool are still at an early, experimental stage. Full details of LTI are available at http://www.imsglobal.org/lti/.

［32］ http://idpf.org/

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