As the open education movement continues to grow and become an even more rich trove of resources, teachers can use the content to make their own interactive textbooks. It might seem daunting, but the availability of quality materials online and the power of tapping into personal learning networks should make it easier. Here's how to create a digital textbook and strategies for involving the students in its development in three steps.
- Aggregation: Gather all your sources of information. The best way is through social bookmarking with great online tools such as Diigo, which allows you to bookmark sites that can be seen and shared online. Teachers can work with collegues within thier subject area departments and beyond the walls of the classroom to gather resources (such as Twitter which I gather most of my ideas!)
- Curation: While gathering resources, the process of curation involves a deeper analysis of those sites to select the ones that have the most relevant material for a particular topic. Use your syllabus or state standards to pick content for a unit of study. Focus on essential questions to help you choose your resources. Use web 2.0 tools to make your textbook engaging by using images, videos, and simulations. Even putting them on online magazines such as LiveBinders and Scoop-it! (are great resources).
- Creation: This is the most important part of the process. You can create an online repository using a wiki digital tool that organizes your resources neatly. One great tool now is Google Sites that allows you to create and share webpages, that have lots of customizable features. You now have iBooks Author that you can also do it on.
I tried to minimize all the material to its basics, but check out the full article here: http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/01/how-to-create-your-own-textbook-with-or-without-apple/
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