Instead of seeing digital as just a new medium for the 'same old coursebook stuff', I really feel we need to look at how digital course materials can overcome limitations in scope and linearity in progression.
Image credits: Stuart Richards
Sooner or later, a great deal of what we currently consider to be course materials are going to be delivered in digital format.
Saying that this doesn't apply to many places now isn't really an excuse for the rather lame way most publishers appear to be picturing and handling the transition to digital delivery of learning materials.
Simply finding ways to convert coursebooks (as they currently exist) into digital format just doesn't cut it, in my opinion. Even finding ways to convert the coursebooks and then add a variety of rich interactive media applications around them isn't really maximising our chances to do this whole pre-made coursework material thing in much more exciting and more learner-friendly ways.
Coursebooks, as we currently know them (and in this teacher-writer's opinion), suffer from two major weaknesses:
A. They are limited in thematic and topical scope.
This is partly because of the limits of producing material on dead trees that need to be glued together and carted about. There is only so much material we can fit in a given book, after all. It is also in no small measure due to the fact that publishers now look for a one-size-that-fits-all approach to their coursebooks, so that their product can be sold in as many different contexts as possible. The inevitable effect of this is that only so many unit topics in a given coursebook are going to feel relevant or interesting to the learners, and the rest have to be tolerated and/or enhanced through the skills of very adaptable teachers. Even then, the relevance or interest needs to be coaxed or manufactured after the fact, rather than before (or because of) it.
B. They are extremely linear in their approach.
You know the story: the coursebook becomes the syllabus and the schedule. We start at unit 1 and progress through unit 12, take a test, and hopefully this particular 'level' is completed. Learners' (and, for that matter, teachers') specific needs and goals become subordinated to the scope and sequence pages of the coursebook.
What interests me personally is that I think this is where digital materials can make enormous inroads - so long as we are willing and ready to totally re-think our approach to how the materials are made, how they are presented, and how they are then used.
Here are (just some of) the things that I think need to happen (and why).
1. Instead of 12 units to one level in a coursebook, there need to be something more like 100 or even more units for that particular level, and the units themselves will need to have variations according to specific skills and/or mixed level.
Because we are no longer limited by dead trees, there is technically no limit to how much material we can provide for any given level of a course. Not all of it will end up being used, of course - in fact, for any given class there is every chance that a large proportion of the material won't be used.
But if we are starting to approach our materials more as a resource bank rather than paper between bookends, this represents fantastic opportunities to find more of the sorts of content (and skills applications) that our learners are more genuinely interested in and need.
This of course would have important ramifications on the 'authorship' side of things. Materials of this nature would need a whole team of writers rather than a sole author or very small group of authors. But it would also allow for certain ELT writers to develop specialisations that allow them to contribute materials to several projects (possibly even on the go).
2. Our resource bank of materials needs to be searchable and scalable.
A digital interface will need something similar to a basic search box application, allowing a teacher (or independent learners - see more below) to punch in all/any information (probably in sequences) like topical focus, relevant skills practice, high/medium/low level application, group versus independent study, specific test task types, etc.
I'll attempt a hypothetical example here, shall I ...?
After a bit of good old-fashioned open conversation with the class, the teacher notices that two different topical streams appear to have emerged - one about a recent sporting event, the other about local shopping. The teacher goes to his digital search fields, and provides information like broad level (say, level 2), topic (sport), skills practice sought (speaking/listening), level adjustment (mid), application type (small groupwork), and perhaps test task type (PET - if that is what the learners are taking at the end of this particular course).
The program then scans all the available units and sections of units and comes up with a menu of suggested materials/activities. The teacher gets half the class working on this material, and then does a similar search for materials relevant to shopping (or else handles each topic stream for the whole class separately). There is also the option of doing this in "live time" in class, or for a teacher to set it up between classes in a manner more similar to the current way of preparing classes.
The capacity to meet (or come close to meeting) all of this criteria will depend, of course, on the scope and layering of the materials mentioned in (1) above. But it sure as hell does a much better job of taking in and trying to match classroom interests and needs than our current coursebook format.
3. Our course system needs to be interactive, expandable and recordable
What we want is the capacity to monitor and 'record' the units and parts of units we are using, building an ongoing portfolio of coursework that learners and teachers can refer to for review or assessment purposes. A sophisticated system would actually generate options for homework (to be sent to the students electronically) and build a bank of test or assessment items, based on what is being selected and covered in class.
Beyond that (and admittedly, this is getting a bit ambitious), the digital medium and evolving tech tools should allow us to have students writing and recording responses directly 'into' (or 'onto' or 'out of') the materials. So learners could hit 'record' on their screens and have their practice with a partner recorded (which they could then listen to and perhaps re-record). In the case where learners are working with the materials from a single classroom screen, it might be an option to have a wireless mic that the teacher carries around and uses to 'listen in on' what students are doing. The same technology could be used to atually record what the teacher is saying and doing on an IWB as part of the lesson, which is then available to teacher and learners after the lesson for review purposes (and a much richer one, at that).
Some of these ideas are perhaps straying more into the realm of edtech tools for teaching in general, but that is sort of my point, too. I think the next generation of digital course materials need to be able to integrate classroom activity into the overall experience, even if it is in a series of optional formats. Teachers less comfortable with the influence of tech might just want to call materials up on the screen, while enthusiastic edtech teachers may want to go much further beyond that and create a very rich interactive course experience where the materials are just the starting point.
I also think that there needs to be the capacity for teachers to find, build and add their own material to the system - perhaps by accessing a series of interactive templates, for example - letting them become much more involved in the overall process of targeting and delivering interesting and relevant material to students.
Well, there are some ideas and suggestions, in any case!
We may not be 'quite there' in terms of some of the tools to make these things happen (but surely we're not very far away?), but I think the most crucial things we all need to start thinking about are the ways we actually perceive course materials, how they're written and adapted, how they can be accessed, and what they could do for our classrooms in digital and edtech tool-enhanced formats.
Getting rid of content limitations (in terms of scope and variety) and linearity in the next generation of (digital) language education materials has got to be a priority.
Otherwise, we're just scanning old photographs and presenting them on CDs or online in photo albums, don't you think?
:-)
