Building the Better Textbook: The Promises and Perils of E-Publication

Michael J. Guasco

Whether we like it or not, electronic media have already altered the ways history is imagined, researched, and presented in the classroom. Most of the innovations, such as electronic course reserves and the substitution of Web pages for printed syllabi, are relatively simple. Many instructors have altered their pedagogy as a result of technology, employing PowerPoint presentations and the Internet not simply as educational resources but also as tools they require their students to master. Students' expectations have similarly been altered: e-mail has quieted the office phone and diminished the crush of eager students during office hours, papers and instructors' comments often travel back and forth across the Internet, and age-old excuses have been digitized. The fabled dog who used to eat our students' homework has been made obsolete by the corrupted disk, the computer that crashed, and the printer that refused to print. Interestingly, however, one significant area of teaching remains mostly unchanged—the textbook itself.	1
Several efforts have been made in recent years to alter traditional texts by packing them with CD add-ons that promise to enhance the learning environment. Digital Learning Interactive, founded in July 2000, has taken the task of building a better textbook even further by creating the Interactive Learning Resource Network (iLrn), which includes fully electronic "textbooks" in several academic fields. In American history, iLrn offers the appropriately titled America Unbound, a somewhat fragmented but comprehensive survey stretching from the settlement era through the end of the twentieth century.1 Instead of the typical thirty chapters that appear in most conventional printed textbooks, America Unbound contains sixty chapters of online text. Each chapter incorporates a brief overview, study questions, a glossary, a description of the internal and external readings, and a chronology. Other features include links to interactive electronic resources containing maps, images, and time lines. This package also provides space to design course-specific bulletin boards and calendars and to compile class rosters and exams.	2
One of the great advantages of America Unbound is that instructors can easily shape the text in any way they desire. Primary-source links and interactive modules can be integrated into the textbook-reading experience so that students can approach the subject matter from a number of angles. By putting these components online, America Unbound invites instructors to use their insights and imaginations to mold their students' approaches. The tool thus holds powerful potential for new collaborations between textbook author and course instructor, and between course instructor and students. For the students themselves, America Unbound offers possibilities to highlight text online, take notes in pop-up screens, and participate in ongoing conversations in course chat rooms monitored by instructors at all hours of the 24/7 world in which they—and we—increasingly live.	. . .