Let’s think about e-books and new technologies for learning

We’ve been participating in the DICE-PUFSIG workgroup of the IMS Global Consortium, devoted to the Dynamical Instructional Content Exchange, for almost two months.

The end goal is to define use cases that reflect most of the uses of an advanced e-text book, on a global basis: e-text books can only be successful if they are independent of the underlying technology, and oriented to a mass market, gathered from customers all over the world.

In this effort to accomplish that task we shared some information about the situation of e-books in Spain, which is quite different from that of the United States.

In Spain, there is not a business model for re-buying and re-selling used text books on a large scale basis. Only individuals sell them through internet. As a result, market lacks used books. For that reason, e-books compete directly with new books, although they are not very popular.

Regarding primary and secondary school environment, text books change from year to year, that is, children and teenagers cannot get used books from their brothers. People are used to pay for text books without having any refund, but they complain about high prices. To solve this,Government pays a “book check” to families with low income or more than two children. E-books can improve the learning experience and reduce the prices families invest on education, and also provide much more services for the same price.

At University, students rely on their lecture notes to study, and borrow books from the library. They buy cheap technical notes edited by the University. University libraries have a number of copies of text books as a function of the number of students registered in a particular subject. Students are not used to buy a book per subject and, for this reason, they are not willing to invest money on e-books. Nevertheless they could probably change their minds if e-text books offer a comforting and effective learning experience and learning process improvement.

There are some e-books repositories available for free at public Universities, but statistics of usage are discouraging. This is due partly because of the shortage of books in some subjects and partly because of this e-text books are just plain text ( i.e. you can watch them on your screen, but interactivity does not exist).

The challenge is to define attractive e-text books that give the students new possibilities to improve their learning experience. These e-text books should be interactive, flexible and contents should evolve as faster as possible. All the same, users should have the possibility of improving the content with their comments or suggestions.

Europe is suffering a crisis in its education system. School and College are failing to motivate students. Old methodologies are not working anymore.

Young people are the Web 2.0 generation and if we succeed in adding the Internet 2.0 philosophy to the new e-materials and learning processes, not only would we improve the learning experience but also could find a new way of motivating young people.

Could you share with us your vision about the learning experience in your country? Which capabilities do you think are important for an e-text book to be successful?

Sixth Intangible: The need for gateways to large markets

New businesses need markets to be tested and proved successful. Densely populated areas are a natural laboratory for testing and introducing new ideas cost-effectively [Venkataraman]. Smaller and less densely populated areas have to find a way to overcome the lack of counting on a natural laboratory. In our global world, interconnections are easier to achieve, but they have to be established first. A small area that is willing to enter into a virtuous cycle has to establish bridges to near and further markets all around the world.

The access to external markets depends primarily on the intangible social network infrastructure, more than on the physical one. The quantity, quality and density of the social and economic connections (the ones that business and government leaders of the aspiring region have with the leaders of gateway cities), and their willingness to use it on behalf of the local citizenry will make the difference [Venkataraman].

But, leaders’ capabilities to connect with different regions, depends strongly on the education they have received. If we want our community to develop itself as a cosmopolitan area in the future, some questions have to be addressed at the early University stage. These are actions that have a long-term effect, but we cannot ignore them in the present if we look forward to a future virtuous cycle.

University has a great role in developing horizontal skills in the students such as working in interdisciplinary and international workgroups, or being capable of managing to make good contacts with people from different cultures. In Europe, we have experienced the significance of promoting international relations during the University period in order to make a real European market. Exchange programmes are a strong tool to achieve this goal. Living in another country and developing relations within another culture during the University period is the beginning of feeling like doing international businesses. Apart from the laws that simplify commercial relationships between European countries, the real Europe can only be constructed on the basis of personal and professional connections of people.

When I studied at University, twenty years ago, the working environment was basically nationwide. Nowadays students are used to study at least one year in another European University, so most of them develop this kind of skills. The result is their working environment is Europe and they develop easily personal relationships with other people across the continent.

An area that has to enter in a virtuous cycle, needs educate the new generations in fostering the ability to understand and relate with different cultures. Actions aimed at achieving this goal, will bring in the future the desired gateways to other markets.

And, as a personal reflection, they will bring something far more important: a peaceful world. The more people of the world know each other, the less it is likely to fight for anything.