Tag: book

The Plan and the Strategy

This is the third in my series of posts describing what I propose as a new model for textbook publishing. The model was developed specifically to address the needs of courses intending to prepare teachers to make better use of technology in their classrooms, but some of the ideas may have broader value.


Four or so years ago we approached our publisher with a formal proposal for what we described as the $29 textbook project. I still have the proposal and the image that appears above was included in the proposal to identify some important components of the proposal. The core idea was to retain a traditional book (paper or online) in a significantly smaller and less expensive size and to offer more content online. This may sound unremarkable, but companies fail to follow through on such a model. The book is simply never downsized. Costs are never cut in a significant way.

The image identifies the three components – the Primer (book), closed web, and open web – we proposed to develop. At the time, the $29 model assumed students would pay for the Primer and the closed web content. The closed web implied the generation of resources that would be available online. The phrase “closed web” implied only that it would be necessary to operate a server to offer these resources. The open web implied the creation of examples available as “public” or “shared” content using services such as Flickr, YouTube, or Diigo. Instead of describing how such services could be useful, the intent was to demonstrate fully functional examples using the services of interest.

The one idea of general value from our plan may be that different delivery systems have unique advantages and disadvantages. While others may disagree with the issues I identify, I would argue that differentiating ways in which learning resources can be provided and considering which resources are best suited to which method of delivery would be a way for publishers to move beyond the traditional book.

Some ideas (from what I remember):

The book: The book should identify the content structure and the core concepts promoted by the author. These components are the message the author intends to promote. Your message should have some longevity over time so be willing to commit to core ideas for several years.

The closed web (The stuff available from the sponsored server. The phrase “closed web” probably made more sense when I was proposing that this be provided by the book company and available only to those who purchased the Primer.): The core message needs to be extended in multiple ways. First, what do key ideas look like in the present. If you have not written a large traditional book, you may not understand that the lag between some of the first things you write and when the finished product is available to a reader may be well over a year. We are discovering that the world moves too fast in many disciplines to offer a useful description in a product that takes a significant amount of time to develop and then is expected to remain static for an additional period of time. What research on important topics has become available in the past year? What tools might presently be available to implement classroom to classroom interaction? What are the present sources of inquity that frustrate the full potential applications of technology to learning? What legislation must be considered as students engage with technology?

Second, what experiences are best presented through multimedia. For example, tutorials for how to use specific tools make more sense as demonstrations than as text-based descriptions.

Finally, the closed web can offer resources to allow the instructor to customize the experience available to the students taking a particular course. Is the course a sophomore course provided to future teachers or a graduate course provided online to experienced teachers interested in new ideas for their classrooms? Is the course focused on teachers preparing to work in elementary or secondary classrooms? Does the instructor value a research perspective for the proposed activities or does the instructor believe the course should take a narrower focus? It is feels great to be able to develop a resource you realize will be highly valued by some but be irrelevant to others.

The open web: We will likely rely more and more on software as a service applications. Why not prepare and allow access to fully developed projects for students to explore? What does a Flickr site with several thousand photos look like? What does a social bookmarking site build to cover the topics explored in the Primer look like? What would a blog developed over 10 year years as a way to explore educational issues look like? Examples of projects offer a way to explore that support and extend general descriptions.

You might have noticed one other thing in the diagram. Some of the text and arrows appear in red. Once an author makes a real commitment to online resources, the online environment offers a very real opportunity to engage learners of all types in an interactive way. We can offer you a book, tutorials and summaries of relevant current issues. You can likely offer me and others creative ways to teach the content of a course that might use this book. Your students might generate interesting projects as a consequence of such courses. I have been enamored of the idea of the participatory web for years and believe that the potential is there for good ideas to flow from many different individuals. I see our responsibility as creating a structure within which this is possible.

Some might suggest that new ebooks allow the incorporation of multimedia and can be updated by the author as necessary. I know that. However, the multimedia infused book still has the problem of trying to be everything to everyone. As an alternative, I have been playing with the idea of an instructor “loaded” interactive syllabus. This is the idea that an instructor could select a set of resources from a collection within a self-defined structure embellished with instructor created resources. Maybe I can explore this idea in a future post.

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What goes where?

What goes where? This is my way of imagining the role of a textbook in the educational process and of reimagining the “textbook” within a collection of resources an “author” can offer the instructor and students. This post is one in a series based on our personal experiences creating a textbook and related resources and mostly attempting to describe the logic and process of our “project”. (see initial post in this series)

Our Kindle book was created out of the frustration of getting our previous publisher to allow us to move from a large and expensive product to a different and less expensive collection of resources. This proposed collection retained a book in a format we described as a Primer. Do not continue reading if you expect me to argue there is no longer great value in some form of a textbook. We tried for several years to make a transition because the textbook industry seemed befuddled by the obvious backlash against the cost and limitations of textbooks in the present form and because we thought we had an idea that happened to be centered in a content area (the course intending to prepare preservice and in-service teachers to make better use of technology) that would be as good as any for trying something different. Advocates for technology in learning should be interacting with learners in ways that incorporate learning with technology. Anyway, given the scale of the general problem of changing an industry, some experimentation is necessary if these companies hope to survive. Given the amount of money involved in the entire commercial textbook enterprise, some R&D seemed a wise investment even if some ventures did not generate a substantial return on investment.

From the beginning, I had no intention of ridding the world of textbooks. Some probably think this position is taken as a concession to the desire of most to comprimise rather than revolt and that the real visionaries would offer something completely different. Being different just to be different seems pointless. First, you would have to prove to me that a book was an unproductive way to learn.

My general premis was that one should  consider the tasks a textbook might be expected to accomplish and accept that the textbook as commonly designed is not appropriate to all tasks. The static, large, text-heavy book is not appropriate to all tasks. However, some form of a textbook is ideal for some tasks.

Why a book (digital or not)?
This is a question that is core and I think educators need to consider it seriously. Some have already reached the conclusion that a book is no longer nececessary and they can simply direct their students to various web resources – free and selected to meet the priorities of the class and the teacher. I read books, assign books, and write books and do not agree with a complete abandonment of the textbook.

The most important expertise of an educational author is the ability to externalize in a tangible and explorable format, a coherent model of a domain of study. This may sound abstract so allow a different explanation. Think of a book as an outline with context explaining how key ideas fit together. You have access to this explorable resource in a convenient form. Getting this outline out of the head of someone else is a complex process. This is what should be regarded as complex and abstract. Learning is clearly not transmission. Teachers do a different set of things associated with the same goal of assisting students in developing their own models of a domain of study. Providing experiences that are motivating and that illustrate important principles is a different goal. Getting up and talking with students day after day about a topic to encourage their building of a personal model is a different skill. However, organizing  knowledge in a tangible form is a very different contribution. What are the key ideas and how do these ideas relate to each other? The tangible attribute is important. The book is the trangible product. The tanglible product takes a great deal of time to create and more time than people typically understand to imagine and research.

Authors and teachers assist learners in building their own models of the world. Whether we do our jobs well or poorly or understand what we do in this way, this is really what it all amounts to in the end. Some educators like to throw the term “constructivism” around, but I think it is commonly misrepresented. Understanding that learning is the building of personal models of the world is what constructivism assumes. It is not the experiences or resources provided, but the mental behaviors of the learner involved in processing these experiences that construct understanding. This is how some seem confused by the process. It is not necessarily constructivism if the learner gets his hands wet or dirty or cuts something with a scissors or a scalpel. The thing constructed is not the dissected frog or the log fort, it is the abstract mental representation of circulation or frontier life.

Some students will constract a great model out of any experience – great minds have obviously been present in all historical periods often relying on listening and reading. These learners constructed their models using these inputs because the sources resulted in thinking. The personal motivation and the form of the inputs were sufficient. It seems simplistic to take a position that a given resource (e.g., a book) or experience (e.g., reading, listening) cannot result in meaningful learning. It makes more sense to examine multiple resources and experiences to evaluate potential strengths and weaknesses and to offer options.

We see learning from a book one of the more learner-centered and efficient ways to offer a conceptual model to others. We read far faster than we are allowed to listen or view. We control a book in ways we have no hope of applying to a presenter, video, or life experience. We can review a book to remediate without bogging down a group experience and do so by simply redirecting our eyes to the paragraph we could not understand. No need to waste time on the parts of the experience we understand. If we happen to be bored at the moment, the experience will still be at our disposal in a few minutes or tomorrow when we may feel more like attending. A book offered by someone from a given perspective is far easier and less expensive to replace with an alternative than is an assigned mentor. It is fun to think deeply about any resource – you discover that assumed strengths and weakness are quite debatable. I obviously struggle with what seem simplistic positions to me. This is a constuctivist problem – we see the world from our personal model of how things work. However, understanding we construct understanding is a great starting point because it encourages the comparison of models allowing possible advancement in our own. This is pretty much what Piaget claimed. Challenge me with your model. I can use it to contrast with my own.

My conclusion is that a book is perfectly useful as a learning resource. Rethinking the book is not about whether I can learn from one, but whether the resource I am provided is optimal in terms of recency (probably implying accuracy), cost, ease of conceptualizing, fit with other available resources, personalization, and probably a host of other variables I have not considered. I have given some thought to some of these things and with my coauthor attempted to generate a suite of resources given these considerations. This is not a mental exercise – the suite of resources has been generated (note – recency has been considered so the suite by definition is never in final form).  I will admit to another announce – those who offer advice or insight and cannot offer a product as an example. You learn a great deal trying to act on your advice. What I intend to outline in a few blog posts to follow is our thinking about what these resources should consist of and what we have found  practical to offer.

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Here is an example of how others feel limited by a textbook. I obviously see the instructor as operating somewhat independently and welcome a related perspective offered by a different individual. Our perspective also is intended to counter the static (for a 3 year period) resource by offering different resources in different ways.

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The book project

The Products

Cindy and I have just released the 6th edition of our book (Integrating Technology for Meaningful Learning) as a Kindle Book. The Kindle Book is available for $9 (Amazon Prime members can get it at no cost for the next 90 days if I understand the terms). This book was developed as a Primer (about half of the length of our earlier editions). We did this purposefully in order to move resources online. The online resources are available to educators (preservice and inservice) at no cost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Back Story

This may seem like self-promotion. I suppose it is. However, the backstory may put our project in perspective and be of interest to others whether or not they are interested in the product. By the way, the 5th edition is also still available from Amazon ($107). The price difference is part of the story.

Cindy and I began developing a textbook for preservice teachers in 1994. We published with Houghton-Mifflin in 1995 with a 1996 copyright (Note: The college division of HMCO has been sold and resold a couple of times since then. This is also another part of the story of the book business). We were the first, we think, to use the phrase “integrating technology” and “meaningful” in a book title (we think). If you are curious, check how many current books incorporate these words. I can’t claim the idea of technology integration as now understood was ours. I took the concept from a book called “Mindtools” authored by David Jonassen. I thought his ideas about the use of productivity software in educational settings made a lot of sense and my contribution was to “interpret” and provide classroom examples for educators. Many of the examples came from Cindy’s work as a technology facilitator.

The textbook business is struggling. Some of these problems have been self inflicted. Some are the result of public misunderstanding of what it takes to create a quality product. Sometimes you get what you deserve. Sometimes you find yourself dealing with circumstances and perceptions that you cannot control. We have obviously broken our association with a major publisher to go it on our own. Still, do not get me wrong – I am sympathetic and have friends in the business. The “textbook crisis” is not ALL the fault of the big companies (see Beer Money Ploy).

Anyway, we wanted to transition a book that was a commercial success through 5 editions to a different format. We believed it was the appropriate thing to do given the field we focus on (educational use of technology). If you truly believe that technology can play a meaningful role in learning, it seems disingenuous to make your point using only a book. Our proposal (once blocked after we had secured a commitment from a second publisher because it seemed we were duplicating our content in a way that would amount to competing with ourselves) was to create a Primer and online resources. The idea, which we labelled the $29 textbook, was intended to offer a hybrid product that allowed each components to do what each was best suited to do. We intend a Primer to organize the basic arguments – the more stable elements that benefit from a solid structure and elaboration. The online world is suited to the recent, the speculative, the examples, and the tutorials. It made no sense to incorporate all of these elements in a book. A single, static product did not allow learners to experience demonstrations as they should be experienced. It did not allow them to participate. It did not allow updates until three-years later when the company asked you if you wanted to do a new edition. It is a little more complicated than what I have described here, but I hope the general idea of the benefits of a hybrid approach is clear.

We finally decided enough was enough. We thought we had an agreement to do it our way, but the profit margin on a $29 book and concerns for permissions related to the content we wanted to offer online could not be overcome (lawyer costs must be included in the cost of a textbook). I do not blame the company for their decision. I blame them for the delay in making it. Many instructors looked for our content three years ago. We will have to see if they can find it now.

More as the experiment unfolds.

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New publishing model?

The promise of low price ($15) multimedia textbooks may seem right around the corner, but I wonder. My wife and I have been participants in the industry for 5 editions (Integrating Technology for Meaningful Learning). We have split from Cengage over what the book of the future might look like. We have been working for a couple of years on a concept that would drastically downsize the “book” book into a Primer and move content best provided on the web to the web. Seemed like a great idea to us – what sense does it make to argue that teachers should engage their students with technology from a book?

Here was a major concern. A good proportion of the online content was intended to be tutorials, project examples, etc. With so many great online tools available, why not generate tutorials for the tools and then encourage the future teachers to work with these tools. Locating such examples and tutorials online already is pretty easy. Why not offer something more and organize similar content and tie it together with a rationale and related issues teachers need to consider? It appears that one of the major issues is permissions. We expected the publisher to take care of this. How could we? It is not that companies producing the tools we describe would be concerned. You write about and explain how to use the products you want to convince teachers to use. Free promotion. You complain about things in blog posts. The issue is really the time to access the necessary parties. Lawyer time is expensive and the margin on what has long been a successful book in a small market is not enough.

We may still do the Primer – we wrote that material so we know the text is ours. We may offer the online material to any interested educator as a non-commercial resource like all of the other free online stuff. However, a “text” book full of text and a few images is certainly not what the Apple folks offered as a demo. For that, you need a large and expensive group generating the content or you have the lawyers to worry about the permissions.

Many who assume the Apple announcement is a dream for self-publishers and small publishing companies may think my reaction, while based on experience with a major publishing company, is unique or extreme. I quote a very similar description from another experienced writer below.

 But it is important to realise one thing: if you are going to make a textbook look pretty you need pictures and where are they going to come from? Take it from me, using a picture in a textbook is a big copyright deal and a big pain in the neck. How would a self-publisher organise the permissions? It really takes a big chunk out of the transaction efficiency Apple is providing. The publishers know that this alone will protect them from that competition unless, of course, an easy to access repository becomes available (and it may already be except I don’t know about it).

My concern is the bar for embedded video, interactive multimedia games and tasks, music, etc. will actually be too costly for most companies at the $15 price point. Note that Apple is not taking the risk here – they fund a couple of demo projects, but the publishing companies must meet this price point, pay for the embedded media, and give Apple a generous cut. Apple was able to position the music industry in a similar situation and they participated. I do see the price is creeping up to $1.29 now. Amazon provides a worthy counter weight, but new tunes are no longer 99 cents.

I think the $15 price point is great. It makes some sense that the cost should go down because the closed environment of the iPad means you cannot pass your $15 book on. Still I would think this would translate to about  $45 if I understand the resale frequency of college textbooks. There are few $45 textbooks now on the market and these books are the target because of lack of “informative” multimedia. If the $15 book of the type displayed works, it will have to be on volume and this will mean few publishers will remain. Companies such as Pearson are betting big and getting in early just like they did with standardized tests. Perhaps this is a stock recommendation – your call.

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Book Costs

The AERA conference offers us the opportunity to meet with our editor and to discuss issues related to our next book edition. Because we write about the use of technology in learning, we feel the need to push for a different kind of instructional content. We intend to generate a hybrid product that combines a scaled down book – we prefer to call it a Primer – and online resources. There are challenges in doing this. We are exploring what we think is the best way to offer content for our topic – the uses of technology in teaching and learning. However, separating content between a book and online can be tricky as it may appear the intent is to prevent resale of books. We certainly understand this issue as it applies to book resale, but what is the strategy when the online content is separated because some content really is not best experienced on the page.

The other issue we constantly encounter and we guess few consumers understand involves permissions. We all constantly encounter and may personally generate online instructional resources that involve screen captures or screencasts. YouTube, blogs, and web pages offer many resources containing such useful resources. The reality is that the screen captures and screencasts appearing within these resources are almost always used without permission and are a violation of copyright. When you purchase a commercial product the authors and developers cannot operate in this fashion. They must make the effort to secure permission to use the imagery. In our experience, payments have seldom been required, but the legal requirement requires time commitments from company personnel. Once you must involve lawyers, costs go up. So, to explain the situation in a simple way – it costs more to offer a resource that meets legal requirements. We intend to heavily focus our online resources on classroom examples and tutorials and so to offer what we believe to be most helpful we have the added burden of dealing with the issue of cost and permissions.

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Paywalls


 

As promised, my NY Times app stopped providing access to articles I might find interesting. I supposedly have access to 20 articles a month, but this does not work through the iPad app which is the way I would prefer to organize my reading. Time to delete the app. I will likely identify some number of articles I want to read through other means and 20 will be plenty, but so much for a general scan of the Times. See this LifeHacker analysis if you want more access. I did receive a “take 25% off” offer today, but this is not what I am looking for.

I have been thinking about “business models”. The situation with the NY Times got me started. Then, it looked like Audible had canceled out 10 unpurchased books because I had not selected books by the end of the year (this turned out not to be the case although my iPad Audible app will not let me purchase books even though I have credits via a browser). The point is not that I am unwilling to spend money on online services (we did our taxes last night, between Lynda, MobileMe, and pro versions of half a dozen services I spend between $500 and $600 dollars a year on online access). The frustration is that the business model is often not suited to my personal interests. I do not want to spend $180 for full access to the Times. I want to spend $50 to read the content that interests me. I do not want to purchase 10 Audible books a year. I probably purchase 30+ books a year, but Audible is not focused on what I would describe as “professional content” and often books they have that interest me I want to read carefully and annotate so I buy for the Kindle App or purchase the paper version from Amazon. So, there is this mismatch between the models that are available which likely are great for some people and the model that would appeal to my specific interests. I want to use multiple services and multiple formats. The providers seem to want you to focus exclusively on what they offer.

Do not get me wrong – free is not the answer. I am in complete disagreement with those who propose that information wants to be free. However, I do think we need more flexible plans for purchasing access to content.

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Open Source Textbooks

This is the video that started me thinking about about open source textbooks. In trying to determine if David Wiley had more concrete recommendations on this submit, I was able to locate his site. There I found links to several businesses focused on open source. Note – open source is not exactly the same as free. I was most interested in Flat World Knowledge. For purposes of evaluation, I looked for psychology and found an Intro Psychology book. I happen to be teaching this college course at this time.

It appears that this is a scribd publication – the pdf version bears this label.  The author makes some money if the book is printed or purchased, but not viewed online – I assume the same is true for the distributor. I was interested in cost – $2.50 to print a chapter, $25 to print the book, $35 to purchase a black and white version, $25 for the ebook version.

So, just some thoughts. I am assuming this resource is of equal quality to the text I am presently using – hard to say if this is true and I am betting the established authors are still going with publishers. I use a custom print from Cengage that contains 10 chapters. The $200 figure Wiley quotes must be for books in chemistry or something. I think most educators realize that a $200 book cost would statistically atypical. Because I will use the Intro text I assign again, the student can sell this book back for half value. The students this semester are using a new black and white custom printed book for a little over $50 (actual cost after reselling). See my post on the “beer money ploy” for an explanation of how to interpret the real cost of textbooks. So, my interpretation is that the real cost comparison would be $35 + postage vs. about $50 at bookstore with return (I am assuming there is no practical way to return the $35 version for half your money back).

What would it cost the student to self-print? Not sure – I can’t really tell how many pages would be generated. That would be $25 + cost of printing. This has to be more expensive than purchasing the book for $35 unless you actually do not pay for the paper and printer supplies.

I think the ebook version might be a good deal. There does not seem to be much of an advantage for printed versions. The real cost savings here is to view the content online. Of course, the author gets nothing in this case and must hope that most students will opt for a print version. There must be data on viewing vs buying. It would be nice if these data were available. What do you think would happen if the online viewing option was not included?

Perhaps some of these numbers will be helpful. I think my numbers are realistic and take into account several variables that are typically not included.

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