A Digital Textbook Should be More Than A Textbook

By Steve Katz
The other place I blog.

My students have digital textbooks for several of their classes, including my social studies class. These texts are basically pdf files of the book, with a much more confusing navigation. I'm not a big fan of textbooks, and we rarely use them in class. I prefer to have my students doing their own research, or creating a product, rather than reading a textbook.

Today I asked them what they think a digital text should include. These were some of their ideas:

• Video
• Links to sources (My students want the author's sources so they can check the reliability of the textbook, or do further investigation.)
• Activities they can download
• Intuitive navigation (like a web page)
  
• Loads quickly
• Customizable fonts
• Adjustable page size
• Colorful
• Searchable
• Links to sites of experts on the topic
• Question and answer section where they can post and respond
  
• Live chat with other students and recognized experts
  
• Rollover of terms to see the definition
• Linked table of contents
• Printable pages
• Voice controls (They are 7th graders.)
  

These ideas would make the text more of an interactive web site than a text book.
Note to publishers: That is a good thing.