Digital Textbook: An Assessment

Presenter:

Hisseine Faradj, Assistant Professor, Social Sciences, Bronx Community College

Abstract:

Academic publishing companies have been aggressively marketing digital textbooks as pedagogical tool to enhance passing and retention rates. Moreover, the new technology is promised to be integrated with existing classroom technologies such as, Blackboard. As a monitoring tool, publishing companies argue that the new technology provides Instructors with a better and more effective means to assess the rates of reading-assignments completion and comprehension. This presentation is basically an assessment of the promise of digital textbooks service and it is based on data that is collected in a span of a full year that compares similar courses adopting either traditional or digital textbook. The assessment focuses on three categories: technical aspect of the service, the pedagogical aspect of the service, and the evaluation of retention and passing rate claims.