Teachers are often dissatisfied with the digital learning materials from publishers. There are good reasons for this. On the other hand, publishers also have good arguments for why they don’t simply upload PDFs to Google Drive and make videos available for free on YouTube. The solution can only be that both sides help to find better solutions.
At the beginning of the month, I came across a blog post by Simon. Simon teaches at the secondary level. He is a career changer who trained to become a teacher at the Zurich University of Teacher Education. Previously, he worked in the digital field. It’s clear that he has maintained his passion for digital technology and now wants to incorporate it into his teaching.
According to him, he’s quite successful at this. On his blog https://digitalunterrichten.ch, you can find many suggestions and (tool) tips, accompanied by good and bad experiences in everyday school life.
In his blog post, Simon takes issue with educational publishers. While he welcomes the fact that publishers are increasingly offering learning materials digitally, he is frustrated by complicated logins and incomplete materials. He is also not necessarily satisfied with the digital offerings because they are planned without considering his needs. Then Simon describes his actual need, namely:
all printed workbooks and worksheets in reusable PDF format and additional, interactive web offerings as a supplement. If a login is unavoidable, then please use logins with Google and Office 365.
You can read the entire blog post here.
My Understanding
I understand Simon’s demands well. In a modern teaching and learning approach, it’s about putting together an individual learning setting from a variety of topics and materials.
As a teacher and learner, I want to repackage content, separate important from unimportant, summarize different sources, and combine what I’ve learned with my own thoughts. When studying for exams, I need to create a condensed version from a large mass that I can anchor in my brain. I also want to document my knowledge and preserve it in a way that I can retrieve later. All of this is only possible if I can freely edit and restructure the learning content as I please.
Furthermore, it must be ensured that the learning materials are accessible anytime and anywhere. Complicated logins are just as unhelpful as the fact that I first have to go to a library to access the content.
And finally, I agree with Simon that in addition to the basic material often found in textbooks, additional materials should also be available. After all, you want to delve deeper into a topic if it interests you. Or you need additional material to become even more confident by solving more exercises or tasks. Or you simply want to look at a topic from a different angle, so you need an alternative approach. There are different types of learners and very individual learning needs – it’s clear that this can’t be covered with just ONE approach.
My Problem
Although Simon assures that he and his teacher colleagues would handle the digital materials trustfully with a sensible subscription model, unfortunately, our experiences from the publisher’s perspective are different: copying and distribution happen extensively. If we release content as a PDF or in a directly editable form, it makes the rounds. Unfortunately, this directly affects the sales of our products and therefore is not an option for us publishers. Swiss publishers have tried to address this circumstance with fair play, but the success of the campaign was – let’s say – limited. Therefore, unfortunately, it still applies: We must protect our content.
By the way: This is not only a problem with digital materials. Printed materials are just as affected. The copy machines and budgets of schools allow for very efficient distribution of content and are very often in direct competition with the ever-shrinking teaching material budgets.
Unfortunately, the login issue is not quite so simple either. Personally, I would be cautious with login mechanisms provided by globally operating IT companies. While the logins from Google Co. are easy to use and attractive platforms and tools await behind the logins, for us as a publisher, it is unthinkable to enter into a proprietary relationship with one of these corporations. Our demands on data protection and data sovereignty are too great.
Then there’s the offering of additional materials: It is the core concern of a publisher to offer customers as much additional material as possible. However, publishers need time and money for this. Alternative content must be produced with the same care as traditional content. It must be created, designed, and distributed, and it is subject to the same quality control as book content. Formats such as infographics, interactions, or multimedia tend to be even more time-consuming to produce. At the same time, the willingness to pay is decreasing.
We Won’t get any further this Way
So now the arguments go back and forth. Because I’m sure Simon will counter my explanations with another blog post.
It would be more interesting to talk together about ways out of the current situation. How exactly should we publishers prepare the content so that it reaches teachers and learners effectively? We want to help, but we still don’t know enough about the needs. I would like to take a look at Simon’s teaching setting and discuss with him how we can help. I firmly believe that there are other solutions besides PDFs and Google logins.
We publishers need to become more active, flexible, and customer-oriented. We need to rethink our current business models or perhaps even move away from the traditional publishing model. We need to find ways to better manage our content and offer it in a more modular way. We need to enable teachers and students to customize our content and compile it individually. And we need to learn how to offer the best possible material even with small budgets.
On the other hand, I wish teachers would also take a step towards us publishers. By making their materials available to us in return. By respecting copyrights. By respecting the work of authors, editors, designers, and multimedia producers and honoring it by compensating them.
Simon, shall we sit down together?
By the way: In a week, the next Publishing Talk will take place in Bern. Specifically, it’s about e-books, but also very much about the needs of teachers and learners. And about the question of how publishers can meet these needs.
