I have been following this project for some time now, as I had the fortune of getting an presentation on this work from the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation. I should say that I think what they are doing is wonderful, and truly the quality of the multimedia they can produce are breathtaking.
However, when thinking about this materials as the basis for a curriculum and a textbook, there are some things that I hope will be in this resource that I think would be of value. *1)* I hope they put a lot of care and consideration into not creating the split attention effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_attention_effect). So, for example, they should offer "animation + narration" and not only "animation + narration + text", (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_learning#The_Redundancy_principle) . *2)* It would be nice if in addition to the high-resolution animations they also offered low-resolution, simplified diagrams for many of the concepts. Depending on what you are trying to learn, it often makes sense to have different kinds of diagrams. Consider, for instance, how a tube map ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_map) avoids geographic information so as to help you understand the relative position between metro stations. *3)* For many learners, the way they like to use textbooks is to quickly skim through information and then read the self-quiz review questions or simply jump into their problem sets. I hope that this resource allows students to simply reorder the materials to suite their learning style. For example, imagine if each Chapter had there section types (A, B, C), and they were ordered and defined like this: A. Rough outline of concepts and facts in lesson/chapter/section. B. Important review questions, activities, or learning exercises. C. More detailed subject matter. You could imagine some students wanting to order all of the A.'s from all chapters at the front of the entire book, and then let the rest of the book be ordered as a series of B and C. type sections. *4)* Lastly, I hope they design everything (animations included) so that the text is easy to translate or rewrite (i.e., in simplified English, perhaps). Sorry if this was a rather long response, but, these are thoughts that have been brewing for some time and it is nice to have an outlet such as this to share my ideas and thoughts with others (maybe I should turn this into a blog post as well). Cheers, -Josh On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 6:07 AM, Derek Chirnside <[email protected]>wrote: > Noticed this from the SCoPE conversations via Nick Noakes: > > http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/wilson-free-biology-textbook/ > > Maybe a little extravagent in their claims? I'd also wonder at the total > accuracy of all their statements. > But interesting. Some other sad comments on competition . . > $10M I wonder is this value for money? > > A small extract: > > By no “small matter,” Patterson means money. Completing the book’s > chapters, laced with high-end interactive animations and video interviews > with Nobel laureates, could cost as much as $10 million. > > “No publisher is doing what we’re doing, which is developing, from scratch, > a serious digital textbook,” Patterson said. He added that only $1 million > of that funding — half of it from Life Technologies Foundation — is in > place, and the remaining $9 million remains to be seen from private and > public donors. “It’s expensive, but once you’re done you can keep it up to > date across time, globally, essentially free of charge.” > > The foundation plans to sell university-level editions for about 10 percent > of the cost of the average print textbook, in part to fund that continuous > updating. Kindergarten through 12th grade editions will be free. > > Patterson said the idea is to provide any student in the world > unprecedented learning tools, but acknowledged imminent backlash from > profit-seeking publishers. > Read More > http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/wilson-free-biology-textbook/#ixzz13YIY6SeA > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "WikiEducator" group. > To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org > To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] -- "Every time the word 'achievement' or 'academics' is used to mean test scores we cheapen the meaning of both terms." --Deborah Meier -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]
