Nerd humor: the next generation (or: hypertext rules, plaintext drools)
It makes me proud to see high schoolers taking a delightful jab at the march of progress (or lack thereof). Chris Lehmann from SLA shared this awesome video on the Twitters done by some of the students there which explains the problem with textbooks. I’d say more, but I don’t want to spoilt it. Thoughts after the video.
My favorite bit is definitely when he wants to save the image, but realizes he doesn’t have a folder to drag it to. But every single point is spot on when comparing the interactivity of the learning experience when reading hypertext vs. plain text.
Now, I love a good book, as seen here:
But we need to face facts: texbooks are incredibly lame in comparison to hypertext. I’ve had to attend a lot of reading trainings the past couple of years as my school fights for AYP, and the key point that’s always made is that good readers interact with the text. The whole point of a hypertext setup is the interaction.
Of course, this doesn’t need to be just on a computer. Earlier today I read an interesting writeup by Seth Godin in which he describes changes he would make to the Kindle. Relevant ones for education in particular:
3. Anytime I send someone a book (see #1) or recommend a book, let me (with the other person’s consent) see the comments they write in the margins of the book as they read it. Imagine being able to read a novel this way with your book group, or a sales manual with your department.
6. Demolish the textbook market as soon as possible by publishing open source textbooks for free.
7. Give publishers the ability to insert quizzes or feedback. This creates a certification or continuing ed or textbook opportunity far bigger than a book can deliver.
In particular, #3 is just the kind of thing that would be awesome for a classroom environment. Teachers could see the notes that students are taking to help them see if the students understand the material, and students can see what everybody else wrote to lead to a richer understanding. Add the ability to do a quick gogole.wiki search for any word in the text, you have instant, limitless, connected, and relevant knowledge.
I also very much enjoy the idea of destroying the textbook industry. Having recently listened to the audiobook version of A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn (please note: that there is a link to the apparently full text of the book. For free. Awesome!) and also being a fan of Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen, I can pretty safely say that, at least when it comes to history, there’s a lot that can be improved there. Being able to quickly and easily look up more information, possibly from a very different perspective, would be a huge improvement. Science and Math books need some serious improvement, too, as Dan Meyer likes to point out.
This post started as just me wanting to embed a funny video. Funny how my brain made all these connections as I worked. Hyperthoughts!
March 16th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
The company my wife works for is involved in something very much like this, mostly for medical texts (which change all the time) — semantic tagging and other concepts are finding their way into grad schools and even undergrad programs because of the cost of print.
Unfortunately, I think it is going to take a number of years before the electronic textbook of sorts is mainstreamed into our public schools. There are two things working against them. First: money issues. I’m sure you understand what I mean by that. Second: unless the textbook companies are on board, nothing’s going anywhere. They have such a stranglehold on the way our subjects like history and science are taught because of the way their books are so geared toward standardized testing. It’s maddening, sometimes.
Tom’s last blog post..In Soviet Russia, Book Reads You.