I’ve been thinking a lot about textbooks lately. Do students really read/use them? What is the difference between a textbook and a reference book and what are the pros and cons of each in education? What about books designed for professionals rather than for teaching? They seem to be half way between a reference book and a textbook. And is larger always better or are shorter textbooks as useful as large ones? Ultimately it boils down to what is a great textbook like? I’m still working on questions and looking for answers.
Recently I have found links to a couple of free books. Or parts of books. For example, There is a new edition of Rob Miles (@robmiles) C# Yellow book text available. That’s a textbook designed from the ground up to be used in Rob’s courses at the University of Hull. No doubt the text and course fit like hand in glove. From Microsoft Press there is a second draft preview ebook of Charles Petzold’s upcoming Programming Windows Phone 7! Download the PDF here. Download the XPS here. And download the sample code here. )
This is a book designed for people who already know some programming, from what I can tell, but who are interested in learning programming for the Windows Phone. This preview has 6 chapters and about 256 pages. This compares to Rob Miles book which is complete at 197 pages. Of course I have copies of some textbooks that are 600+ pages as well.
I have this love/hate thing with large books though. For a novel I see value in part as volume. I read quickly so a 900 page novel that is well written and tells a good story is gold to me. A 200 page book is read and gone too quickly. On the other hand many a student sees a huge textbook (or any book some times) as intimidating, as too much to handle and as something to avoid. So I tend to favor shorter textbooks for classroom use.
Ah, but a shorter book can only cover so much material. What about stretch learning? I tend to think that a reference book is better for the “extra” stuff. It’s too much to have students buy reference books or even to buy a classroom set. I like to have a couple of reference books on the shelf though. That allows me to occasionally point a student in a direction and get mostly out of there way. Sure it’s all there in the online documentation and some will make do with that. I guess I’m old fashioned but I don’t find online help or ebooks to be the same as a paper book.
So how do you see the textbook situation? Do you have textbooks you like and if so what makes them great? Do you like the huge books, short books or something in between? What works for you?
If reference material was online, there'd be greater search options and you could view it on multiple platforms, as opposed to carrying a potentially large book.
There's also the question of price. For example, there are many university courses that require a student to purchase a lot of books. Some of them can be very expensive and as we all know, students have finite financial resources. Making material available online could reduce costs.
Thanks for the shout out about my yellow book. The course does fit the book quite well (in fact I'm thinking of making my slide available to anyone that wants them) but the idea is that the text can be read straight through without any external input and also used as a reference work thereafter.
In terms of what I want from a textbook (aside from a Fifty Dollar bill inside the front cover) I reckon that I'm going for:
Accuracy: It must be right. All the examples must work. No excuses. I remember "Java in 24 Hours" had a typo on pretty much the first example. That completely threw me for ages as I assumed my code didn't work because I'd done something stupid. When I found out it was the book I stopped reading because I had no confidence in the text any more. Didn't get my money back though...
No Assumed Knowledge: The book must not assume you know stuff. If it makes any assumptions about the reader these should be right up front in the cover in big letters.
No "Magic": This goes with no assumed knowledge. A writer should not make use of custom bits and bobs to hide tricky bits from the reader. Even if you plan to reveal them later. Some readers don't get that far and assume your magic bits are part of the implementation. I've seen students graduating who still think that the Text class that used to be provided by Java Gently is part of the language.
Short sentences and plain english: It should be readable.
Plenty of strong context: There is no point in talking about something unless you have a big chunk of common ground between you and the reader. In programming terms this means that the conversation should be rooted in something that the reader might want to use from the subject in hand, and is easy to relate to. The reader should also see how the elements you are talking about fit together, and how they can take bits of what you are describing and use them in projects of their own.
A light tone: Having to read a text book is bad enough, but if the writer doesn’t really address you and make efforts to engage you with the subject it is even worse. This is not to say there should be a joke on every page, but the writer should not be afraid to address you directly and avoid third person writing styles.
I have to buy a new textbook for our Programming II class at the high school. Since this class is offered for college credit we have to use the book being used by the college, “Programming in Visual Basic 2008” by Bradley and Millspaugh. I have no problem with the book, like most VB books, it does the deed. But the price is killing me. It is listed at over $100 and I can find it for $75. This is a paperback, three color book with no CD. Paper cannot be that expensive! The author has a right to make a living but this is getting insane. I also teach math so I see the latest and greatest in math textbook offering all the time. I have an algebra textbook printed in the 1930s. It is about the size of a Nancy Drew Mystery novel. Looking at the table of contents between the old and the new the material is about the same. The big difference is all the non-content add-ins: the “career” pages, the multicolored pictures of nothing really important, the extended activities at the end of every chapter that no one has time to do, the 30 problems at the end of every section of which I only assign 10, and so on. Our latest math book purchase is so heavy the kids will not carry it. My daughter was a high school freshman last year. I kept waiting for her to throw her back out with the 30 lb backpack load she carried around. Books have become a major budget expense at my school. The prices are literally putting us out of the new book market. Publishers need to re-think the whole textbook concept. There is simply too much technology available that a single large volume textbook should not be necessary. I do think there has to be a paper textbook but trim the thing down. Put all the extraneous material on line or on a CD. Give the teacher a database of the problems so we only print those we want the kids to do instead of having every problem in every book. Text book purchasing decisions should determined by need, quality and application and not by if the school can afford it.
What do I want in a text book? Along with Rob’s comments, I want something I can afford. I think that combination guarantees I will never be happy.
Authors get a very small share of the sales price of a textbook. Sometimes I wonder if it is the smallest piece completely.
We do need to rethink textbooks though. And ebooks can' tbe just a static book that offers nothing that paper doesn't.