No name, no game: Challenges to use of collaborative digital textbooks

DTB are defined in many different ways throughout the research literature. Some definitions focus on their format as structured textual and visual content using a digital format (Knight 2015), others define them by means of device; as texts that include the familiar features of a textbook but in a digital form to be accessed with an app or via an Internet connection and to be read on an eBook reader, tablet, smartphone or computer (Dobler 2015; Yalman 2014). Further definitions add specific features, such as hyper-textual links, bookmarks, multimedia objects, interactive tools, possibilities for modifications, annotations and highlights, as well as search and cross-reference functions, illustrations and hotspots, and navigation mechanisms (Aharony 2015; Brueck and Lenhart 2015; Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. 2012). Bozkurt and Bozkaya (2015) define interactive DTB as the improved extension of digital books in which users, the digital book, and the environment interact reciprocally.

Consequently, the terminology on digital textbooks and learning resources is not standardised, and often intention is confused with function and content with tools (Selander 2003:220). This poses a potential problem for both practitioners and scholars. In our study, DTB refers to coherent (digital) material covering entire curriculums, and, if collaborative tools are included, they become collaborative cDTB. cDTB contain a complete range of material, as required by the curriculum, can structure this material according to pedagogical ideas, and also offer tools to support students in their learning, such as exercises, tests, opportunities to have the text read, the chance to make notes and annotations, marking text, and communicating with teachers and other students. This comprehensiveness distinguishes them from digital learning resources, which cover only some aspects of the curriculum content, such as an app to practise multiplication or a video-recorded teacher presentation. It also distinguishes them from digital tools, which are general assistants that are usable for many tasks in many contexts but do not contain curriculum content. Examples include word processors, spreadsheets, and Google apps for education. Digital textbooks may contain any number of such learning resources and make use of a variety of tools in order to facilitate and support learning of the established curriculum content. This, for example, has been proposed in terms of digital enhancements of textbooks (McFadden 2012), augmentations (Brueck and Lenhart 2015) or learning scaffolds (Embong et al. 2012), albeit the insistence on its educational importance – a clear definition of this development of the textbook – is lacking,

Today’s emerging generation of cDTB extend far beyond the book-in-box type that has been prevalent for years. In efforts to provide complete digital work environments, a number of tools serving various purposes have been included. Grönlund et al. (2017) investigated five contemporary products of this kind and found that the included tools fall into the following four categories: presentation aids, tools for working with texts, tools for communication, and teacher tools.

Some cDTB also include integration with curriculum goals and requirements so that students can relate their work to the grading scheme.

The perhaps most distinguishing aspect of collaborative digital textbooks in comparison with pdf ones is that they are based on a central database, not downloaded static copies. This means that content can be updated continuously, e.g. old videos can be replaced with newer ones. There are also tools for teachers and students to report errors and comments on the material and the tools to the cDTB providers.

The most interesting aspect of the list of tools mentioned above is the combination of them into a digital collaborative learning environment where many of the types of interaction that can be found in a physical classroom can take place in a coherent digital environment. This means that work with digital material does not have to be restricted to students working individually but can be extended to a blended classroom where tools are integrated.

In an earlier study (Grönlund et al. 2017) we surveyed five different cDTB products and, even though the sets of tools were fairly common across the board, we saw considerable variation in how the various tools were designed and arranged. Since learning is dependent on both the format of the text and the medium (Rockinson-Szapkiw et al. 2012), tool design is obviously important; for tools to be used, both useful functionality and smooth operation/ease of use are required.

Beyond the design, one major problem with new tools is to fit them into users’ ways of thinking. What is this new thing? Terminology is one issue – the kind of collaborative learning environments described here do not yet even have a name (as alluded to in the title of this paper). “Digital textbooks” makes people compare them to paper books. “Learning environment” is too unfocused to provide clear clues as to its uses. “Digital classroom” is a term used in so many contexts that it does not have a clear meaning, and it also gives a feeling of abandoning the physical classroom. Similarly, “digital learning resources” is too amorphous to provide a specific meaning. It could be almost anything.

The individual tools mentioned above are all available separately or in other, more well-known, packages. Text editing and commenting is available on virtually all word processors, messaging is available by e-mail, and communicating with students can be performed orally in the classroom. Moreover, there are numerous software packages that offer quizzes. However, using a large number of digital tools combined together in a package in a single uniform environment is very different from using them separately in multiple digital environments. A single environment means that both material and communication can be kept together, which both facilitates everyday work and provides a historical record. This means students can go back and review their work in preparation for exams, and teachers can monitor students’ work. This can be virtually impossible, or at least create huge administrative overheads, when using different digital environments for different tasks, for example when comments are separated from the material on which they are commenting.

Because cDTB are a very recent phenomenon, most existing research deals with DTB, the traditional static digital “book-in-box”, typically pdf files replicating the paper book. The bulk of traditional research on educational uses of e-books (digital books in general) and DTB (digital textbooks produced for educative purposes but lacking in collaborative options) focuses on students’ individual uses and perceived or measured outcomes in terms of, for example, grades, scores or reading speed (Daniel and Woody 2013; Sheppard et al. 2008; Woody et al. 2010; Yalman 2014;). This echoes the research literature on ICT in education in general – and even more so, the media debate – where digital tools are often seen as automatons replacing the teacher in guiding students through individual learning, rather than as tools in a learning process where the teacher is also present and active. Research on active teacher involvement in planning and working together digitally with students in learning activities using DTB or cDTB is less common.

While many digital learning resources are indeed self-instructing, cDTB are aimed at both teachers and students. They provide materials and tools which teachers can adjust to fit the situation. While automated tools may be very useful for many tasks, learning is not solely an individual practice that can be automated, but rather a social endeavour requiring social interaction. Not all knowledge is technical or universal; for example, the voting systems are very differently designed across democratic countries. These differences come from the social cultural contexts in which the different methods have been designed and through which they have evolved. Human teachers can explain such things, automatons cannot. From a technical and practical point of view, cDTB are conceived as focal points, platforms, facilitating teaching and learning by bringing comprehensive contents and tools together in an easy-to-use manner conducive to learning and supportive of teacher planning, monitoring and evaluation. This indicates a need to focus more on active teachers. Existing research indicates that the degree to which DTB are actively used by teachers and students in their courses differ dramatically between schools, classes and individual teachers. Knight (2015) outlines a four-level typology relating to the level of DTB use: integrated resource, core resource, related resource and peripheral resource.

Teachers and students experience both benefits and challenges with DTB. As noted by several studies, such benefits reported include flexibility, accessibility and attractiveness (Daniel and Woody 2013; Fletcher et al. 2012; Weisberg 2011). Findings from studies in higher education indicate that textbooks are generally considered to be reliable tools providing creditable information that supports and enhances students’ understanding of critical concepts (Knight 2015). In studying early literacy training, Brueck and Lenhart (2015) present the benefits of the use of e-books; they offer an engaging medium for young readers, are easy to implement for classroom teachers, and offer opportunities for individual practice for all students. Some students are found to be more inclined to use reading resources when digital text is the medium (Wright et al. 2013). E-books have also been shown to motivate children and students to become more active and investigative readers and to actively teach early literacy skills through narrations, animations, and interactivity features, including search capability, hyperlinks and multimodal enhancements. Aspects of interactivity and collaboration, in our study specific features in what we have termed cDTB, are presented as benefits by a range of studies (Knight 2015), but these are typically not included in the concept of DTB. The 2012 University Horizon Report notes that students expect new content-delivery formats and accessibility options, making it possible to learn anytime, anywhere, access content on the Cloud and collaborate across time and physical space. They also want interactive, socially based, fully integrated, and inexpensive digital media (Johnson et al. 2012).

In contrast, challenges to DTB include a lack of student preference for e-books generally, which does not seem to be positively affected by greater familiarity (Sheppard et al. 2008; Woody et al. 2010; Yalman 2014). It is also reported that reading time increases significantly (Daniel and Woody 2013. A further challenge is that many teachers received their training before mobile technologies entered the educational arena, which may lead to insecurities about usage, instruction and incorporation and that some teachers are wary about adopting social media (Brueck and Lenhart 2015). To use DTB, or cDTB, teachers need to be familiar with them and their possibilities. Yalman (2014) studied teachers’ and students’ views, knowledge and experiences of e-books, highlighting the importance of pre-service teachers learning about them in order to be able to use them in their professional lives. Teachers’ understanding of the qualities of DTB and cDTB is another challenge. Reints (2015) is interested in how educational research can help teachers when developing, selecting and using quality textbooks. The author argues that the vital question is not ‘what works’, but rather why it works, and that a reliable theory of learning is consequently required to judge their quality. Generally, teachers’ views of what can be achieved using digital tools do not appear to be so visionary. Both Tallvid (2016) and Holmberg (2016) found that technology uses that resembled traditional teaching were much more common than using collaborative tools and methods. Both papers find reasons that include traditional views of learning as an individual activity, school culture, and lack of knowledge of, and skills in using, information technology.

As shown above, cDTB set the scene for the entire learning environment; they guide didactics concerning both content and work methods. cDTB are much more flexible than paper books and allow the inclusion of materials and tools by the teacher: the fact that they provide both a comprehensive content and a learning environment equipped with many tools offers them a prominent role in the school, and indeed for the teacher who has chosen to use them.

Just as with traditional paper textbooks, both DTB and cDTB have the potential to make teaching more uniform across schools and teachers, in regard to both content and methods. cDTB are still an emerging technology, and, to date, they are not, to the best of our knowledge, compulsory anywhere, although they are strongly supported by some governments, e.g. in Denmark (Pålsson 2014). There is, however, an increasing demand as the alternative – to let teachers compile their own set of material for all courses – is both time consuming and risky, as it results in material with huge variations in coverage, methods, and quality. While there is a need for a coherent and quality controlled material and methods, it is important to understand the contents of DTB/cDTB. They are not all the same, but contain different tools, different materials and support different teaching methods (Removed for review). Tools inform and form use – to someone who has a hammer, everything looks like a nail (after Maslow 1966) – so it is important to understand what can be achieved with different tools, what cannot, and what negative implications different tools may bring.

Research on digital textbooks in schools, as we have seen, regard them as opportunities for learning connected to individual interactivity as well as communicative, cooperative and collaborative use, as providing tools with multimodal enhancements for teachers and students, and as offering flexibility, accessibility, attractiveness, engagement and motivation for teaching and learning. Nonetheless, despite the prominent role handled to the digital textbook and the educational importance of the features and tools added to the textbook by digitalisation, there is no comprehensive definition of these new features and tools agreed upon within the field of research.

As Table 1 shows, personal support functions are commonly used, at least by the students. Some two thirds of the students listen to the text at least some of the time. More than half of the students use the options for visual adjustment, and one quarter do this often. More than half of the students use the DTB on different technical platforms. Translation to other languages is also frequently used. Teachers’ use of the personal support functions is not noticeably different from students’, aside from the use of automated quizzes. These are used by almost all students and four fifths take them often. However, teachers do not generally monitor the results, only two teachers do so often, while 60% never do so.

The quiz function is there for three purposes. One is that students can conveniently check their understanding of the aspects of the material that lends itself to quiz-type questions. Another is that they can practise; they can perform the tests any number of times until they can get every question right. The third reason is that teachers can monitor student progress and take action when/if necessary. For example, if a student takes the same test ten times and never improves their score, the teacher might want to investigate the reasons behind this. Has the student not read the texts and done the exercises and is just guessing? Is the material beyond the capability of the student?

Marking text, writing notes and adding bookmarks to particularly important pages are common ways of both remembering and focusing upon written material. Opportunities for this are available in digital books as well as paper ones, but cDTB offer some additional benefits such as more space for notes and the fact that the material cannot be damaged by repeated annotation.

Two thirds of the students did not mark text or make notes or bookmarks at all. Only some 10% did so often. Almost one third did not know the tools exist. The numbers were slightly higher for the teachers (Table 2).

Communication functions were very seldom used by, and were often not even known to, students and teachers. Seventy-eight percent of the students and approximately the same proportion of the teachers did not use the Comments function. Thirty-five percent of the students shared material with other students and 44% with teachers, but teachers did not share material with students in the same medium (Table 3). This is not to say they do not share at all, but rather in other media, most commonly their own webpage, where they list links to resources on the Internet and provide self-made material. They also frequently mention YouTube, Google apps for education, and various learning management systems.

The cDTB in this test allowed for teachers to add links in the text to other resources on the Internet or to self-produced material. As Table 4 shows, teachers generally do not use this option to share material with their students. This is despite the fact that a majority of the teachers say that the texts in the cDTB need to be complemented by other material to some extent (65%) or often (35%).

In addition, neither do teachers share materials with other teachers, with only one teacher reported doing so.

Regarding students’ own views of their own digital capability, Table 5 shows that only 32% of the students always feel sufficiently skilled to use technology as required by schoolwork. Another 42% responded “almost always”, and 26% that more often than occasionally they do not feel sufficiently skilled.