In today’s technologically-charged world, two professors at Dean College in Massachusetts have decided to give their teaching tools a modern update — by replacing textbooks with digital and Web-based materials.
“Students are spending 65 to 100 bucks for a textbook that they’re only using for looking up homework,” said Steven Gonsalves, a math and science professor at Dean. “There’s no reason for the average college professor to stick to the regular textbook except that it’s convenient.”
After discovering complete textbooks and other resources online, Gonsalves created a CD for his students that contains a series of math Web sites, a digital textbook and links to practice quizzes. Jed Griswold, a humanities professor at the small college in Franklin, Mass., also has converted to Web-based teaching methods.
“It was an opportunity to bring an innovation that would result in more interaction,” Griswold said. “It brought resources like good graphics, interactive graphics, quizzes and flash cards.”
Griswold’s general psychology class now can pay $20 to gain access to an online textbook with videos of experiments, quizzes and other graphic interpretations rather than buy the textbook.
Although most feedback has been positive, not all students are in favor of the shift to Web-based teaching. Still, Gonsalves dismisses the negative responses to his textbook CD.
“There’s still 10 percent of the students who just don’t want to use technology — and that’s ridiculous,” Gonsalves said. “It’s more environmentally friendly, you can use a better product and it’s free.”
Although Gonsalves predicts textbooks soon will be completely electronic, Griswold admitted that the digital textbook neglects some styles of learning.
“What I’m discovering is that there is such a diversity of (learning styles),” Griswold said. “Some students learn better by the interactive graphics and others by the textbook.”
In the future Griswold said he would like to use electronic materials to supplement the textbook instead of completely replace it. The transition to Web-based teaching at Dean began with the use of Blackboard, a course-management system already in place at Northwestern. Blackboard lets professors post syllabi and assignments online and eases communication between students and instructors with a discussion board feature.
At Dean professors are required to use Blackboard to post their syllabi and office hours. Although there are NU professors who use the system to its full potential by encouraging student use of discussion boards and posting links and video clips, some students feel Blackboard should be used more extensively.
Weinberg freshman Meghann Ostertag said she is disappointed that most of her professors do not use the site for much more than to post a syllabus and an assignment or two all quarter.
“If the professors bothered to use it, it would be great as something to go back to to clear up questions or get notes for missed classes,” Ostertag said.
Many students said Blackboard, when used efficiently, opens the door to a broad use of Web-based teaching tools. Some, like Ostertag, said they would prefer an electronic alternative to traditional textbooks, because a CD is cheaper and easier to carry.
“The engineering texts I have to buy are basically just black and white copy with a few graphs, so that could just as easily be on CD for a lot less money,” said James Diomede, a McCormick junior.
But other students do not see electronic texts as an improvement. Weinberg junior Jenny Frank said she is unsure of the convenience of Web-based or electronic learning.
“Many departments rely on multimedia technologies, and it sounds good on paper, but would be annoying in reality,” Frank said. “Textbooks don’t have to be rebooted.”
