Online Textbooks: How Irving ISD Has Implemented Them

Up to This Point

Lea Bailey, Ph.D.Director of

Learning ResourcesIrving ISD

TCATDecember 2010

Irving ISD

• Urban/suburban district

• Located in Dallas/Fort Worth area near DFW Airport

• 33,000 students

• 37 campuses

• Acceptable Rating – for district– With 2 exemplary schools and 19 recognized

Irving ISD Demographics

• Irving ISD students speak 56 different languages in their homes.

• Irving ISD students represent 98 different countries.

• In Dallas County, which includes 15 school districts, Irving ISD has the highest ELL population.

Irving ISD Demographics

   African American 12.95%

   American Indian 0.32%

   Asian 4.15%

   Hispanic 68.75%

   White 13.83%

Irving ISD Laptop Program

• 10th year of the program

• One-to-one in high school

• 9,200 laptops for students

• 2,500 laptops for teachers

• Bond 1996 – $48M

• Bond 2001 – $54M

• Bond 2007 – $49.8M

• Price of device has decreased

Learning has changed

The way it was vs. The way it should be

Online Textbooks

• Why in the world are we doing this?– Students are comfortable in the computer

world or are they?– Computers provide a higher degree of

engagement than traditional textbooks – Students stay on task more though it’s not a

guarantee– Students can participate in the learning and

create new understanding

Irving’s Laptop Program

• Governed by Board Policy for use and handling– CQ Policy

• Students and parents sign agreements– Laptop Handbook– Laptop Agreement

Teaching Has Changed

Curriculum is online not in books on shelf.

Instructional Considerations

• How do online textbooks impact instruction?

• What teaching strategies have to be learned?

• What teaching methodologies have to be changed?

• One teacher’s response (video isn’t being shared)

Online Assessment

Information vs. Data

For Online Textbooks to Work

• Must be in place – Laptops and training for teachers– A different mindset for teachers– Wireless or hardwire network capacity with LOTS

of bandwidth – Data projection systems in all classrooms– Server from which to download the textbook files

(large capacity especially at the beginning of a semester) or

– Internet access to handle the outgoing traffic

Logistics Advantages

• With online textbooks it’s– Easier to handle textbook inventory– No lost textbooks– Less physical weight for students to carry

around– More student buy-in– No “I left my textbook at home”

Online Textbooks

• Realities in Irving– Have not purchased online specific textbooks– Using publisher provided files– Separate webpages for elementary,

secondary, and teacher– Teacher resources are online as well when

possible– Created webpage access to secured server

for storing files

Online Textbooks

• Realities in Irving– Students use their district logons to access

server to download files – Maintained by the textbook department now

with assistance from district webmaster– Access instructions are posted on web– No parent access per say– Textbooks aren’t preloaded on laptops– Haven’t used open source textbooks

Online Textbooks

• Challenges– Publishers haven’t created electronic files for

all their textbooks, especially older adoptions– File types/access methods from publishers

aren’t standardized– TIME– Web page maintenance– Is Spanish available? Other languages?– Governor’s vision news story

Online Access

• Who’ll set up and maintain the online access codes or emails and passwords for the teachers?

• How will teachers get the information?

• Who’s training them on this?

• Who’s troubleshooting for them?

• What if publisher’s server is down?

Confidentiality

• How will that person obtain the needed data?

• Will your district provide an outside vendor with the student information files?

• Do they have to sign all the papers assuring confidentiality?

Example of form

Online Access

• Is there a SIF agent that can be added to your textbook system?

• Can Active Directory or some such program be used to interface with the publisher’s site?

• How will students know where to go?

• Will they remember all those passwords when they are working late at night?

Other Challenges

Be thankful for problems. If they weren't so hard, someone with less ability might have your job!

-- Unknown

Where To Go?

• How do we get the publisher’s wonderful online resources set up for access?

• Online interfaces that we’ve worked with this year for the reading/literature adoption…

Issues with Online Textbooks

• Issues Irving ISD has encountered– What if principal advocates that teachers need

a physical copy of the TE? Or claims the need for medical reasons?

– What if teacher does not have Internet access at home?

– Who’s going to train teachers in how to use the online or downloaded TE?

– Who are they going to contact when there are technical difficulties?

– Is the ratio of TE:PE going to matter?

Issues with Online Textbooks

• Issues Irving ISD has encountered– How will you track if a student downloaded the

copy?– Will or what if the subscriptions to online

websites expire?– Can student download more than one copy (one

on laptop; one on desktop at home; ??)– What if the electronic version requires a CD?– Is there online access at home?– Who solves the technical difficulties for the

student?

New Challenges This Past Year

• (I wonder what next year’s challenges will be…)

Road Block

“We do not have an ebook on the website, and we don’t allow any of our titles to be uploaded to other servers for hosting. However, there is an ebook that the school can purchase (which is 65% of the school price for single-student/one-year access.)”

excerpt from email 10/19/2009

Road Block

Lea,

  Unfortunately, we cannot grant permission to load onto an external hard drive or load onto your server.  We obtained permission to place the 3rd party materials on the CD only and cannot extend permission for any other use.

  excerpt from email 9/8/2010

Road Block

• Confusion (summarized from email 10/2010)

– I just realized that EACH of the cases (which looked the same) are different so I only installed “British Literature” which took about 2.4 Gigabytes.

– I still have Course 1, Course 2, Course 3, Course 4, and American Literature to load.

– So, I approximate that I need about 14.4 more gigabytes of space on the textbook server just to load those 6 books.

Road Block

• “Textbook server hard drive is FULL (there is less than 150 MB left.)”

• Then we doubled the size of hard disk allocated to the Text Book Server (i.e. 30 GB to 60 GB). Since this is a Virtual Server, we did not have to purchase additional hard drives nor take the server down.

Road Block

• Is the teacher willing to manage their students online setting up classes and passwords?

Road Block

• Can student work be submitted to the online website?

• Will the textbook online system interface with the teacher’s online grade book?

Online Textbooks

• Now, what if…– A student downloads a textbook for a course

they aren’t enrolled in?– A student requests a physical copy as well as

downloads a copy?– The textbook that doesn’t have an electronic

version?

At Adoption Time

• As we go into an adoption we do contact the publishers

• Each is asked to sign the publisher’s commitment form to know up front what electronic files they will provide

• No publisher is omitted if they don’t have electronic resources

• 2010

• Let’s look at what’s there…

Upcoming Issues

• How will the commissioner’s list affect all this? Or, open source?

• How will workbooks be handled? – Who prints off the worksheet?– Will it be submitted electronically?

• What about inconsistent formats?– pdf document you download– Online access to a website– Combination of pdf and links to website

Online Textbooks

• Future– More textbooks available online?– More interactive textbooks or websites?– Move down into middle school?– Kindles? Nooks? ipads?– iphones?

• Join Irving in the online textbook world to find out!

In Closing

In times of change

Learners inherit the earth

While the learned

Find themselves beautifully equipped

To work in a world

That no longer exists.

Eric Hoffer, Reflections on the Human Condition, 1973

• For more information contact– Copy of PowerPoint for your use only will be at

http://www.irvingisd.net/learningresources/library%20presentations.html

– Lea Bailey, Director of Learning Resources and Textbook Coordinator lbailey@irvingisd.net

or – Chuck Kennedy, Textbook Manager

ckennedy@irvingisd.net