The Textbook Is Not The Curriculum

I thought I'd give a little update on two of my previous posts. Despite overwhelming opposition by the professionals that we pay to teach our students mathematics, our district went ahead and adopted the Agile Mind materials. The rollout this fall has been less than smooth, including many technical issues that have been slow to be addressed (students not being able to login, students not being able to load the materials, some of the materials loading but not others, etc.). We are diligently working through those technical issues and I imagine we will solve them reasonably soon.

But the other concerns the professional mathematics educators expressed regarding the materials are not so easily addressed, and many of them are coming up in the day-to-day use of these materials. The Algebra team at my school (Algebra being the only course where they are required to use the Agile Mind materials at this point, although Geometry and Algebra II will be required in the future) has been extremely frustrated up to this point. Being the dedicated teachers that they are, they aren't giving up, they are still trying their best to make this work, but they have been burdened by the expectation that they must use these materials. (And, as stated previously, Agile Mind seems to be designed to work as a script, not a resource.)

As a result of the technical problems with Agile Mind, I have had a fair amount of interaction with the Algebra teachers around Agile Mind (full disclosure: I'm not teaching Algebra this year so am not experiencing this myself), and I've mentioned several times that they don't have to use these materials. Like any textbook or other approved materials, it is simply a resource for them to use. The only expectation of them is to help students learn the mathematics curriculum as decided by the Board of Education, and they can use their professional judgement on how best to do that. Every time I've brought this up they look at me and say, essentially, they been told they must use these materials. (Apparently it was even mentioned that the district can "track" how often students log in, and therefore how often teachers are using the materials, although it's somewhat unclear as to which half of this the emphasis was being placed on.)

Which brings me to why I'm writing this post. I have a daughter who is in ninth grade and is taking Algebra at Arapahoe, so therefore is using the Agile Mind materials. She recently brought home a letter from the district saying that all the students would be surveyed three times throughout the course of the year to help determine the impact on mathematics instruction and achievement of the use of the Agile Mind materials. The purpose of the letter was to allow us to opt-out of the survey if we wished, per School Board policy.

Normally we wouldn't have any issue with our daughter taking a survey such as this but, for the first time, we are choosing to opt her out. It's not just because of the 45 minutes of mathematics learning she will miss out on while they are taking this survey, although that's certainly part of it. But it's because of the letter itself, and how it reflects on the above discussion and my previous blog posts. Here's the full text of the letter.

Do you notice anything about this letter? Here's what I noticed. It refers to the Agile Mind Curriculum in the header and three separate times in the the first paragraph. It's not a curriculum, it's materials that have been adopted to support the curriculum. This may indeed just be a slip of the keyboard (although four times in one paragraph is a whole lot of slippin'), but the problem is that - whether it's a slip or not - that is exactly how it's being implemented by the district. It's being treated as a curriculum, not in support of the curriculum. Not only is this exactly what the professional teachers of mathematics feared back in the spring when we were discussing this, it is in direct violation of the curriculum adoption process in our school district.

I've stated before that I think the materials adoption process in our district is deeply flawed, but at least it was a process that was more-or-less followed, even though the results of that process were not ideal. But clearly the process for curriculum adoption was not followed, and so for the district to now be referring to this as the Agile Mind Curriculum in a formal communication home to parents is stunning.

So, as a professional educator, as someone who has a fair amount of experience teaching students mathematics, as someone who is fairly well connected to the on-going discussions around learning and what's best for our students, as a staff member in Littleton Public Schools and at Arapahoe High School, and as a citizen and taxpayer, I have a question. But let's ignore all those roles and I'm just going to ask this question from one perspective:

As a parent of a ninth grader enrolled in Algebra at Arapahoe High School in Littleton Public Schools, I'd like to know what the LPS School Board is going to do about this?

An Open Letter to the Littleton Public Schools Board of Education

This post is kind of an addendum to my last post. On Tuesday of last week the district asked our Math Department for a list of our concerns over the materials that were being recommended. Since the Board meeting was on Thursday, the department met after school on Wednesday and generated the letter below. The letter was shared with the district and, to their credit, they shared some of the bullet points with the Board when they made their presentation. To the best of my knowledge* (see update at bottom), the entire letter was not shared, so I thought I would share it here.

There are two other high schools in our district, plus a small, alternative setting. At the Board meeting the Math Department Chair of the next largest high school (we are the largest, 15 teachers in the department) spoke against the materials adoption, stating that 10 out of the 11 math teachers in her building opposed it (you might recall from my previous post that we had been told something different). The third high school is apparently in support of the materials although, again, we're hearing second hand from at least some of those teachers that, and I paraphrase, "we felt like we didn't have a choice so why fight it."

The School Board will decide on the materials adoption at their next meeting on Thursday, May 8th.

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To: Littleton Public Schools School Board

From: Arapahoe High School Mathematics Department

Re: Concerns over materials adoption

As you know, LPS is in the process of adopting new materials in order to implement the newly revised Colorado Content Standards in Mathematics (which, in turn, align with the Common Core State Standards - Mathematics, or CCSS-M). As is the usual process, a committee was formed to preview what materials were available, then review selected materials, then make a recommendation to the Board on what materials to adopt. While this process has worked reasonably well in the past, we have concerns that the materials that are being recommended this time are not in the best interests of our students.

First, a bit of context. While there has been a lot of discussion both locally and nationally around the Common Core State Standards (not just the Mathematics ones, but the Language Arts ones as well), it’s important to keep in mind that these standards are still relatively new, especially in the context of textbook development cycles. Consequently, many of the choices that are currently available from textbook publishers are not (yet) of the quality we would like.

In addition, we are very much in a transition period between print resources and digital resources. While we clearly are headed toward digital resources, textbook publishers have not yet figured out the best way to utilize this new medium. (There are also questions of how the publishers will maintain revenues and profits, but we will not go there as part of this discussion.) Many publishers initially just tried to port their existing print resources to an online format, usually as some combination of non-editable PDF’s and non-editable web pages behind a login. While that was a natural first step, it really didn’t provide any advantages for the end user over a print textbook (in fact, it was probably more difficult to use). (It did, however, provide a cost-savings to the publishers as digital is much cheaper than physical; a cost savings that sometimes was passed along to the customer, but often was not.) This is an example of “Substitution” phase in the SAMR model that LPS uses for 21st Century Literacy.

Over time publishers began receiving feedback that customers did not like this and began to investigate better ways to take advantage of the affordances of digital platforms. The Agile Mind materials that the committee is recommending we adopt is an attempt to both address the new CCSS-M Standards and take advantage of those digital affordances. In our opinion, however, they have not successfully addressed either one.

Here’s a brief - although not comprehensive - list of some of the concerns we developed in a department meeting.

• Much of it is not editable (exams, lessons, activities in PDF form or online) - can’t be easily customized. A physical text would not be editable either, but we feel like other digital resources are much more customizable (our own fledgling efforts on ck12 (still very much in alpha form), test generator-type software from previous publishers, Google Sites/Drive, etc - all have the ability for us to modify).
  
  
• Not adaptable across our level of instruction such as remedial, on track, and advanced. This ranges from concerns from our Learning Support Services folks about reading level of the text (not adaptable to lower reading levels) to concerns about the ability to extend for our more advanced students. This also includes concerns about how we implement the various intervention models we have developed in our PLCs over the last few years using these materials, including how our Study Center personnel will utilize it.
  
  
• There are not enough examples and daily practice provided without considerable supplementation.
  
  
• There are concerns about being able to utilize the Smart Board environment like we currently do while simultaneously accessing the Agile Mind materials on screen. Many of us have developed many digital resources that we use with students in class. We understand that you don’t have to follow the Agile Mind script exactly, but that calls into question what the advantages are of buying this resource.
  
  
• These materials are built to be delivered in a fairly particular way. While the publisher argues that the teacher has great flexibility, the materials themselves only work for a while if you follow the “script”. While teachers are under no obligation to follow that script, if they do not, then these materials are not of much use to them. In addition, the Agile Mind script requires more days of instruction to complete the curriculum than we currently have.
  
  
• There is a concern with all students having access to the Internet at home in order to fully utilize this program. While that is certainly a goal of ours and we are heading that direction (both at AHS and in LPS), the district currently cannot guarantee this. If we are going to adopt materials that are only available with an online connection, then we would have to guarantee (and provide for those who cannot afford it) both equipment and high-speed Internet access for all of our students. (In comparison, the ck12 book we are creating is online, but can also be downloaded in PDF, ePub, or mobi formats for use offline without an Internet connection if necessary).
  
  
• While we haven’t had time to explore the materials fully, we have already discovered some technical issues (for example, there are issues on pages with scroll bars and the “interactive” dragging and dropping). In addition, the user interface is not particularly well designed. There are issues with the size of the print (if you’re projecting and kids are very far back in the classroom). While there are zoom options available on browsers, the interface itself doesn’t adjust well making it not very usable with a class.
  
  
• Cost (including additional cost of printing the student activity sheets). While we have not been told an exact cost, we’ve heard numbers like $500,000 thrown around. Whatever the final number is, we think that would be a reasonable investment in materials that would help our students become better learners, but we don’t feel it is a reasonable investment given the quality of these materials. Especially when you consider the following budgetary concerns (these are just three recent examples that come to mind):
  
  
• Our Deaf and Hard of Hearing Teacher is being let go due to budgetary reasons, despite the fact that we still have students in need of those services, and the fact that we have two sections of students who are taking ASL as their World Language and will now not be able to continue with that.
  
  
• Apparently spending $15,000 on blinds to cover the windows next to our classroom doors is too much, even though we need them in a lockdown situation in order to prevent intruders from seeing into our classrooms and targeting our students.
  
  
• Apparently we can no longer as a district support individual student logins to the network. Instead, all students at Arapahoe will use a single login. This affects all students and teachers, but particularly affects instruction in Technology Education, Business and Journalism.

While not a comprehensive list, we feel these concerns are more than enough already to question the adoption of these materials. We want to be clear that we are not resistant to change, nor are we unwilling to look at new approaches, we just don’t feel like the materials we have seen so far (and, specifically, the Agile Mind materials), meets the needs of our students. Instead of adopting - and spending the money on - materials that are not up to our quality standards, we would propose the following.

• Don’t adopt anything at this point. Perhaps some outstanding materials will come along in the future that will be worth adopting but, at the moment, these are not outstanding materials.
  
  
• Instead, let's use a small part of the money that would’ve gone to this adoption and invest in professional development. Since we’re beginning this transition with Algebra, why don’t we get a group of Algebra teachers together and develop materials and come up with the types of activities we want to do with our students? We feel that we could come up with materials that were at least as good as those proposed for adoption, and probably better for our students, for substantially less money.
  
  
• In addition, that professional development is much more likely to impact our students in a positive fashion than simply purchasing these materials. Learning theory tells us that humans actively construct their own knowledge and are active meaning-makers. This is not only true for our students, but for our teachers as well. Adopting canned, pre-scripted materials is unlikely to actually impact classroom practice or student learning. If we want to actually impact classroom practice, then professional development - with teachers co-creating materials and activities - is the way to do that.
  

We feel that there has never been a better time to be a teacher or a learner. We fully agree that the affordances of digital technologies and resources can improve our instruction and our students’ learning. We simply disagree that the Agile Mind materials - or any of the materials that were previewed - will actually do that. We feel that investing in professional development - investing in us - would not only be less expensive, but much, much more helpful for our students.

You trust us with your children, please trust us with this.

Sincerely,

Arapahoe High School Mathematics Department

Update 5-1-14: We've been told that the entire letter was shared with the Board of Education.

Burden of Proof: A Textbook Example

My district, like many I imagine, is in the process of making the transition from our existing math curriculum to one aligned with the updated Colorado Math Standards (pdf), which in turn are aligned with the Common Core State Standards - Mathematics. This post is not going to be about the Common Core State Standards themselves (you can thank me now), but about the "Materials Selection Process."

Traditionally in my district (as in many), when new curriculum is adopted a committee is formed to select new materials to support that curriculum. (Although, interestingly, I recently found out that in my district there is no dedicated budget for that, they just "find" the money each time they need to do this.) Once the committee researches, previews, and reviews the various materials available, they make a recommendation to the Board of Education. After a period of time for public comment, the Board then decides whether to adopt the materials.

In many areas, particularly Math, this has traditionally been a textbook-selection process. I was not part of this committee, but the process this year was a little different for a couple of reasons. First, because the Common Core State Standards are still fairly new (at least in terms of textbook publishing cycles), there are not a lot of good choices out there. Second, we are clearly in a transition period between the traditional print-based textbook and online "techbooks".

The committee ended up deciding on Agile Mind. (Well, sort of. Apparently some folks on the committee weren't entirely thrilled with the choice, and others felt like they really didn't have much choice so didn't say anything. But, in any case, that's the recommendation that's going forward.) The math teachers at my school were then asked to review the materials briefly before a webinar from the company and to share our thoughts and concerns. Here are some of my thoughts.

To summarize those thoughts, my feeling is that this isn't a good choice. While I like some of what Agile Mind is doing (I've used some ideas from the Dana Center in my Algebra class), overall I wasn't really impressed with their online techbook (with the caveat that I haven't spent enough time with it to do a fair and thorough review). It just doesn't seem to leverage much of the affordances of digital over print (see the thoughts for more on that).

I found it both interesting and convenient that for the webinar Agile Mind chose "Topic 18: Modeling with Quadratic Functions" to demo their product. I had recently taught an abbreviated version of this topic (abbreviated because we are transitioning to the new curriculum this year, so we have some of the old and some of the new), so I could compare what they clearly felt was their "good stuff" with what I had just come up with on my own.

Conveniently (again), Agile Mind starts their unit with a modeling activity built around shooting a basketball. They have an animation of two players shooting a basketball, one overhand and one underhand. You really have to see the animation to get the, umm, full effect, but I'll share a screen shot here that should give you an idea.

Source: Agile Mind, Algebra 1 CCSS Edition, Topic 18, Student Activity Sheet 1

It turns out that I used a similar activity borrowed from the MTBoS (MathTwitterBlogosphere). Which version do you think makes better use of digital resources? Which version do you think is better pedagogically? I think the MTBoS version is much better, but that's certainly debatable. What's not debatable, however, is that I can modify, alter, adjust, customize, and add to the MTBoS version as I see fit, where it's difficult to do that with the Agile Mind version (their techbook is behind a login, student activity sheet is a PDF, you can't customize their techbook).

I could go on about things I don't particularly like about Agile Mind (as well as things I like - for example, it has a cohesiveness and flow that a "put-together" set of lesson plans like mine may lack), but the point of this post is not really to criticize Agile Mind. The point (I knew I would get to it eventually) is that the "materials selection process" we (and I imagine many districts) have in place is fundamentally flawed. The default assumption is that if we are revising the curriculum, then we need to purchase new materials, and those materials are going to be in the form of a textbook (either print-based or digital, but still essentially a textbook).

I think that is wrong. I think it's a fundamental misunderstanding of the context of what it's like to be a learner today. It completely misses the advantages and affordances of digital over print (or at least open digital over pre-digested, closed digital resources). I think that for all "materials selections" from here on out, the default should be to not purchase a new textbook. That doesn't mean a new textbook can't be purchased if it's decided that's the best option, but it means the burden of proof should be on those that want to purchase a new textbook to justify why we should. To use the trendy term, what's the "value add" of these materials?

We haven't been told how much this adoption is going to cost, as I don't think they've negotiated that yet, although the figure of $500,000 has been thrown around (not sure if that's an initial cost, or a 7-year cost, or what). I'm going to assume that this will cost somewhere between $50,000 and $5 million. Whatever the final figure, I think that's an egregious waste of money.

Here's what I propose instead. Don’t adopt anything at this point. Perhaps some outstanding materials will come along in the future that will be worth adopting but, at the moment, these are not outstanding materials. Instead, let's use a small part of the money that would’ve gone to this textbook adoption and invest in our teachers. Wouldn’t it be amazing to get a group of Algebra teachers together for two weeks over the summer and come up with the types of activities we want to do with our students? (Maybe $15,000 or so, depending on the number of teacher and number of days - we currently pay $150/day stipends for teachers doing curricular work.) That would give at least one full day to work on each unit in CCSS-M - wouldn’t that be a better use of our time and money? Wouldn't that end up developing materials that were at least as good as - and perhaps better - than the materials we could purchase for substantially more money? And, more importantly, wouldn't investing that money in teachers developing the activities be much, much, much (did I mention much?) more likely to impact teachers' practice?

Adopting Agile Mind (or anything else I've seen out there) isn't likely to change what happens in the classroom with kids. (Or, if it does, it will change it in a negative fashion by providing a script-like experience for students.) But give teachers time, guidance and resources (including tapping into the MTBoS), and I think you will not only develop an outstanding resource that will get implemented in the classroom, but will also influence teachers' practice, and therefore student learning.

If the burden of proof is indeed on those wishing to adopt/purchase new materials, I would suggest that they haven't fulfilled that burden in this case. And I would suggest that districts and School Boards everywhere reevaluate the processes they have in place for curriculum adoption and materials selection. If you can't justify how and why a new curriculum or set of materials is going to help your students become better learners, then you can't justify the purchase price. Instead, consider investing in your people, and their ideas. That's truly a better way to develop agile minds.

What Job Would You Hire a Textbook To Do?

It was a fun and thought-provoking two days at Discovery Education's Beyond the Textbook event. Thanks so much to Steve Dembo, Dean Shareski, Hall Davidson, Laura Wenograd, and all the other folks at Discovery who not only planned this thing, but took very good care of us while we were there (Full Disclosure: I did not get paid to attend, but Discovery covered all expenses). And thanks to my fellow attendees for making this a great learning experience. (Oh, just a reminder Dean, there are still a couple of light bulbs you need to change.)

Here's a quick overview of the two days, and then I'll try to process a few thoughts. The first day (which was optional, but I attended) was a chance for attendees to meet in small groups with different teams from Discovery so they could pick our brains about a variety of topics around professional development, learning, digital resources, etc. (As was typical for me, I was pretty quiet at the beginning of the day, and then wouldn't shut up by the end of the day. Somehow I need to figure out a way to balance that out.)

The second day was the main event, where we spent some time brainstorming what a "21st Century Digital Resource" might look like, and then more specifically sketching some prototypes of what a "mathematics techbook" might look like. (Discovery Education already has a Science Techbook that is available, and will be shortly releasing a Social Studies Techbook. They are just starting on Math and are expecting their first techbook sometime in 2014.) Here's a picture of Darren Kuropatwa in front of our group's mockup as he's explaining to the whole group some of the ideas we came up with (photo courtesy of Tom Woodward).

Six different groups came up with six different mockups and, as you would expect, there were many commonalities as well as some differences. The main commonalities were that a "techbook" should be very customizable (by both teacher and student), media rich, provoke wonder/curiosity/inquiry, stimulate mathematical thinking/habits of mind, and have a social component. I'm not sure what exactly Discovery is going to do with these results, but I'm hopeful that we contributed at least a small part into making their next techbook better.

I'm left with two (at least) big questions after this event. These are questions I've had for a while and this event confirmed that they are still central (to my thinking, at least) to any discussion of a mathematics techbook.

The first question (and I don't think this one is necessarily shared by any of the other attendees), revolves around the essential question, "Is curriculum necessary?" This is not a new question for me, but it's still one I'm struggling mightily with. It seems to me that a central assumption of a text/techbook is that there is a readily identified, relatively fixed set of content/standards that all students need to learn and master.

While there's certainly a part of me that believes that in order to have a just, democratic, and functional society we do need some common knowledge, there's also a part of me that really disagrees. That part of me looks at all the children (really, humans) I've ever met and recalls how different they all are, and wonders how we could ever think that all of them should have to learn the same things at a certain specific age. This part of me doesn't see any way (or need) to create a text/techbook, because the fundamental assumption of what you would use it for is flawed.

The second question only arises if you answer "yes" to the first question. So if you believe that curriculum is necessary, or even if you don't but you think that as a practical matter it's going to exist for the foreseeable future, then perhaps this question will be more meaningful for you. This essential question is, "What's the purpose of a text/techbook?" (Or, because I just finished this book by Clay Christensen, perhaps rephrase that as, "What job would you hire a text/techbook to do?")

I think this is fundamental to this whole process, and it's the question all the Beyond the Textbook attendees were struggling with in one way or another. Is it simply a resource (digital or otherwise) with examples and sample problems for students to work through? Or is it more comprehensive, including and guiding the activities you would use with students in class? Is it a scope-and-sequence, default curriculum guide for the teacher of the course? Or is it designed simply to provoke student curiosity and mathematical thinking? Is it a central "hub" for the course that students (and teachers) will visit every day to launch and guide their learning? Or is it an occasionally-used reference?

Going along with those questions, what are the affordances that a digital techbook offers that a printed textbook does not? In other words, why digital? What can a digital techbook do that a printed one cannot and, in this case, what "value add" can Discovery bring to the table to make this better? What are their core competencies that they can bring to bear to make this a better tool to help teachers and students think and learn mathematically?

All of these were questions that I know my group thought about as we were working on our mockup. We certainly didn't come to a complete resolution on any of them (although you probably won't be surprised that we didn't think it should simply be a digital copy of a paper textbook, with examples and problem sets). One way we did try to address some of these questions was by suggesting that a techbook should be very flexible, with the district/school/teacher/student being able to customize and modify it at will to meet their needs. Darren suggested the idea of a "slider", where you could adjust what appears in the student version based not only on what your students need, but also on your skills as a teacher. (I suggested that perhaps it would have to be more granular than a slider, more like a checklist so you could pick and choose each and every piece, but otherwise we're pretty much on the same page.)

Let me try to illustrate that with an example that Darren shared. There's a fairly common trig problem revolving around a boat in a harbor and tides. The boat needs a certain depth in order to leave the harbor and you are given some information about certain depths at high tide and low tide (or other times) and then you can work through trying to solve the problem. Our thoughts are that a techbook could scaffold that in a variety of ways, and a teacher could choose how much information to include.

So, for example, a new teacher that is perhaps not very comfortable yet could slide the slider all the way to the right which would basically include everything in the student version of the techbook (much like a paper textbook typically does now, laying things out in detail). This would be the "be very helpful" version of the techbook. But a more experienced teacher might slide it all the way to the left, in which case the student would simply get the video of the boat rising and falling, with some time indicators, and ask them to figure out the question and then what they need to figure out the answer. (This would be the "be less helpful" version.) The students and teacher would then explore the problem in class via guided inquiry. And there would be several gradations in between those two versions.

I don't know if that example adequately illustrates the idea or not, but I figured it was worth a shot. We thought that one of the core competencies that Discovery could bring to this is to create those scenarios/videos. Those are the type of things that individual teachers often don't have the time or the skills to create, but someone like Discovery (who perhaps could hire some really smart folks to help with this) could create some provocative prompts and then provide pedagogical suggestions for the teacher. (And then the techbook would have the capability for teachers and students to upload/link their own creations that teachers could decide to use as well - the resource would grow over time.)

This is just one small part of our mockup, there were also pieces that addressed problems, exercises, collaboration, and the social component, but I thought it might give you an idea of some of what we were thinking. Part of the difficulty in making something that is viable is that it has to meet teachers (and schools, and districts) where they are at, and sometimes that is not where those of us in the room wish they were. So the challenge is to create a techbook that leads folks in the direction that "we" feel is the correct direction, while still maintaining "backward compatibility" with those that aren't there yet. The good news, however, is that I think digital makes that possible. I think it's possible to make an inquiry-based, technologically and web-enabled mathematics techbook that also provides support for a more "traditional" approach, and then helps lead teachers (and students) in a more constructive direction. That wouldn't be feasible in print, but - given enough smart folks and some decent server space - it is definitely possible with digital.

Now it's up to Discovery to pull this off. Even if they don't, I appreciate the way they are going about it and that they're giving it a shot. I'm hopeful they will be successful.

Beyond The Textbook - Your Thoughts?

Over spring break I'll be attending Discovery Education's Second Annual(?) Beyond The Textbook Forum:

Last year, we brought together more than twenty content experts and leaders amongst the EdTech community for an open conversation about the future of digital resources. . . This year, we plan to start right where we left off. Forum participants will explore the past and present of digital curriculum, and then collaborate to ideate what the future ought to be.

We have split the event into two days. The first, Wednesday March 27th, will be spent in small group conversations with teams from Discovery Education. While optional, there are many people within the company that would love to tap into your collective brainpower. We know that you each bring a unique perspective to the table and hope you will share your knowledge with our teams.

The main event will take place on Thursday March 28th. It will involve in-depth conversations and brainstorms identifying ideas that aren't just theoretical, but actionable. We have handpicked a forum representing all grade levels, subject areas and roles within the education space.

(Full Disclosure: While I am not getting paid to attend, Discovery is paying all my travel expenses.)

You can read Dean's post (and the links) for more on last year's event, or check out Steve Dembo's delicious bookmarks. (You can also follow this year's forum at the twitter hashtag #beyondtextbooks, although you'll also find lots of other folks thinking about this topic at that hashtag). I imagine this year will be similar in some respects, but very different in other respects. For example, Discovery just announced they will be producing a Math Tech Book in 2014, and the attendees of this year's forum have a definite math tint to them, so I imagine we'll be talking about possibilities in the mathematics arena a bit more.

I have my own ideas, of course, but I would love for some of you to share some of your own ideas in the comments. What does the future of "digital resources" look like? What does the next generation digital "textbook" look like (and "textbook" is used very loosely here)? Specifically, I'd love to hear from math folks (and others) what would a "Mathematics Tech Book" include?

As you think about this, keep your options wide open. Certainly Discovery is looking for ways to package something that not only adds value for our students, but that they can actually package, sell and monetize. But don't limit your own thinking to what you think they could "produce" and "sell," but really think about what kind of digital resource(s) you would want to support your classroom (math or otherwise).

I'll share any comments you leave with the Forum on March 27th and 28th.

Western Civilization Is Changing

A while back I remember Vicki Davis posting that effective bloggers should come up with good titles for their blog posts to grab the reader's attention. How'd I do?

In this case, Western Civilization refers to a class we teach at my high school. Amanda recently posted this request for help from the blogosphere:

I am thinking of teaching Western Civ (European History from the Greeks to the present) without a textbook next year. I already use many outside sources, but I am thinking of just going with outside sources (subscription services, primary and secondary sources, etc.) entirely next year. I want to do this for two reasons: I don't think that textbooks in their traditional form are going to exist much longer, and I really don't think that they are useful because they necessarily summarize information that otherwise is very interesting.

So, I am thinking of having a web-based class, in the sense that students will be given broad guiding questions and links from my website to other websites that they can explore in preparation for class. They will decide what is ultimately important about the people and times we study. I think that other teachers are probably doing this in some sense, and I'd rather not totally reinvent the wheel, so I would like to hear from other teachers. Which online resources do you use to teach Western Civ? If you would like to see the types of materials that I currently use, here is the link to my Unit I page - click on "Unit I (Greece)"

I think a class like Western Civ is a great one to utilize the resources of the Internet, so we don't limit our students to the "necessarily summarized" information that a textbook can present. By setting a goal of not using the textbook, I think that forces Amanda - or any teacher - to really look at what they are teaching and the resources they are using to see if they make sense. I think too often a textbook can serve as a crutch, a safety-net for the teacher so that they don't have to take a hard look at what they are teaching. And I think we all should be taking a really hard look at what we are teaching.

Amanda has already developed a pretty good list of resources, and will undoubtedly come up with some more before next fall, but if anyone out there has some good suggestions, please head over to her post and comment.