Teaching

Will Digital ‘Textbooks’ Change Teaching?

By Anthony Rebora — January 28, 2013 1 min read
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An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education looks at the next generation of digital textbooks. Comprising videos, customizable assignments and activities, and test-administration functionality, they seem, according to those in the know, less like textbooks than entire courses in and of themselves. As such, according to the piece, they are expected to alter the nature of classroom instruction:

As these "courses in a box" continue to improve, though, they could shift the professors' role to be more like pilots on modern commercial planes, who let the autopilot do the flying except when they have to step in.

In other words, at least for some courses at the college level, “flipped"-style classrooms might increasingly become the norm. Might similar changes be in store for K-12? Food for thought ...

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A version of this news article first appeared in the Teaching Now blog.