--- Forwarded Message from [log in to unmask] --- >Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:41:20 -0500 >From: [log in to unmask] >To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: Re: #9295 eBook question >References: <[log in to unmask]> >In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]> >User-Agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) H3 (4.0.3) Bonsoir! My students in various high school French courses and in a Global Civilization course use online textbooks & ancillary materials from Holt Rinehart Winston publishers. Publishers' success at rendering the materials with reliable web access can vary, but all are attempting the same task. As an instructor, having the materials online is helpful, especially when quizzes and tests are downloadable AND editable and not fixed. What is extremely helpful is also having test banks, where you can indicate the number and type of different questions you want to pull into your test from a fairly large bank and make up an exam very rapidly. What I find frustrating is actually not having been provided with paper versions of the many, many layers of materials, from overheads to maps to activities, or whatever for my Global Civ course. (This is the social studies' department's fault.) I do have this in paper form for my French courses. A book or notebook full of all these papers is MUCH easier for me to look over and ponder using than going from screen to screen to look at. The publishers tend to almost supply too many ancillary materials. Sometimes it takes a few years of getting used to the materials before you find ways to use them all. So, bottom line is: I feel more comfortable having the real book versions handy to look over to see what we're dealing with, but the online version for DVDs, audio, maps/visuals/graphics (use with smartboard) and editable tests is useful for in-class. As for the students, their primary complaint is that half the time the website does not function and they can't get further than the log-in screen or whatever... -which means I try to assign homework from the printed version of the workbook that I know the students have and then I reserve any exercises or textbook work to be done in class when I can provide the material and project it on the smartboard (& htus not rely on students' inability to access this outside school.) Many students would still like to have the real book to look at and thumb through, even if it weighs a ton to schlep around... In one course, we just keep a set in class for all sections. But the future seems to be in e-readers or website location for the text etc., so kids have to get used to it. If publishers could divide the text into smaller paperback segments to have and hold, and spend MORE time on providing extensive exercise banks to choose from (so you can test the same grammar topic multiple times and in different ways) and authentic video from real places and real conversations, and LESS on filming made-up skits and stupid dialogues and scenarios, it would all be more useful... My two cents... Sincerely, Emily Wentworth Trumbull (CT) High school & Yale University Quoting LLTI-Editor <[log in to unmask]>: > Hello, > > Have any of you adopted the eBook version of the traditional language > textbooks from publishers like McGraw-Hill (http://www.mhcentro.com/books)? > If so, could you share some comments on the experience, both positive and > negative? > Thanks, > Eduardo > > Eduardo Lage-Otero, Ph. D. > Director of Blume Language & Culture Learning Center > Raether Library & Information Technology Center, # 121 > Trinity College > 300 Summit Street > Hartford, CT 06106-3100 > > Phone: (860) 297-5282 > Email: [log in to unmask] > Web: http://blume-center.trincoll.edu/ > > > *********************************************** > LLTI is a service of IALLT, the International Association for > Language Learning (http://iallt.org/), and The Consortium for Language > Teaching > and Learning (http://www.languageconsortium.org/). > Join IALLT at http://iallt.org. > Subscribe, unsubscribe, search the archives at > http://listserv.dartmouth.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A0=LLTI > Otmar Foelsche, LLTI-Editor ([log in to unmask]) > *********************************************** >