The Education Bazaar

Is There Room for Web 2.0 Content in the Typical Classroom?

Most schools are still using traditional textbooks in traditional ways. I am wondering where those classrooms are going to find the flexibility or desire to use Web 2.0 tools, such as collaborative content creation and textbook tools that are starting to appear.

As I outlined in “Is K-12 Ready for Open Content?“, the technological tools to support collaborative content development do now exist. There are systems that do serve that purpose on a limited scale now.

The most promising or important ones that are “Open” in the sense we use here would be in my mind Wikibooks, and Connexions. Although quite different, they offer tremendous promise. Sophie looks to be another project to watch, but is not currently something we can examine. The point of conflict is the degree to which schools can or want to participate in curriculum construction instead of buy it from vendors.

Now we look at some of the ways that Open Content would be superior to existing methods of content production through the publishing industry, as well as the limits to innovation that are being imposing on both grant-issuing organizations and schools.

The textbook industry has continued to assimilate smaller publishers into larger ones, and has greatly expanded it’s holdings in data systems, testing products, and the data analysis packages to explain the results to districts. In short, they make the textbooks, the tests, and the remedial materials to improve the test scores.In fact, the handful of companies that control textbook publishing are purchasing digital products and services in the hopes of creating new markets for proprietary knowledge distribution. Most now have online textbook enhancements, multimedia supplements, downloadable enrichment guides for teachers and so on.

Some, like Holt, Reinhart and Winston’s secondary division, have “online textbooks” which “provide expanded access to interactive activities and assignments, offering students a place to store work and teachers a place to manage assessment and progress of student work.”Pearson and others are now talking about Podcast and iPod friendly delivery formats….although the products proposed so far are simply digital audio and video using the latest buzz terminology, and not yet capitalizing on RSS and other Web 2.0 ideas.

Pearson recently bought PowerSchool, Apple’s web-based student information system, and indicated at time of the sale that part of the agreement involved a partnership to produce iPod-based content. Since Pearson now owns virutally all of the top three SIS systems, it is unclear if the iPod tie in will be related to that market, or to instruction.

In general, the industry continues to see takeovers and purchases of smaller, regionally relevant firms by larger, international media corporations. Depending on the source you site, the idustry is now controlled by either four large firms. This centralization of control has had a significant impact on the industry, and resulted in the extensive use of contracted “development houses” for publication lines rather that in-house writers and editors.

Profits are down, and textbook prices have soared. Textbooks are still a very profitable business for publishers, but less so than a few years ago. The industry seems to be struggling to find its way right now. Nearly all the major firms reacted to the calls for increased accountability under NCLB by further extending into testing and test preparation, made a ton of money doing so. Textbook publishers now control the textbooks schools use, the acheivement tests themselves, and the remedial programs sold to schools to increase their test performance.

It will be interesting to see how the industry reacts to the essential struggle between perceived control of knowledge by experts – the current system – and Web 2.0’s revolutionary ideas about who owns and vetts knowledge. The interactivity, exploding connectivism, shorter “shelf life” of knowledge will be hard for them to incorporate without giving up some essential controls. . Ideas about knowledge, the role of digital resources, and about technology’s role education are all changing. Teachers and students are people with regular lives outside of school, and they are seeing access to both create and consume information explode.

Are textbooks which are written every six years, even with online supplements, multimedia enhancements, and industry created iPod audio clips going to be enough to engage tomorrow’s students? Tomorrow’s teachers? Are they going to be relevant in a rapidly changing environment where the shelf life of information gets shorter and shorter?
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