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Winn(ow)ing the Textbook Revolution

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Anyone who regularly follows education news would assume that it goes without saying that we simply must revolutionize the textbook. Apple’s recently announced plans for the textbook space are founded on this assumption, as are new developments over the past few years by established companies like Amazon and Google and start-ups like Inkling and Chegg.  Sometimes, though, consensus can run ahead of reality, or at least distort it. Today I will explore the question of whether it is really true that we must revolutionize the textbook.  Why must we?

Contrary to what some people write, it’s not because traditional textbooks are inadequate to prepare students for the modern world.  There are many obvious counterexamples to this idea.  To list just one, today’s most radically innovative and successful companies in nearly every vertical are run by people who were largely educated using traditional textbooks. And it’s not because traditional textbooks are out of synch with how education really works “in the trenches.”  On the contrary, textbooks are created almost without exception by highly accomplished instructors, people who work with real students every day and therefore understand well how to motivate and teach them.  And it’s not because students hate traditional textbooks.  Though students are uniformly unhappy with the price and weight of most textbooks, they do tend to appreciate their quality and educational value.

One thing is clear: if textbooks need revolutionizing, it’s not because there is something fundamentally wrong with them. It’s because, given the state of today’s technology, there are now ways to make the textbook much more right, to bring deeper and more lasting value to teachers and students.

So if we want to authentically reinvent the textbook, we have to be clear about what these real opportunities to create stronger experiences are.  We also have to discard some popular notions about the textbook that I believe have no relation to the situation on the ground.

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Misconception #1   The problem is that traditional textbooks are in print; whereas instructors and students today want digital materials. I can honestly say that I have never met a customer who said to me, “What I really want is digital materials.”  I have met customers who have said, “I hate how much paper we use in our textbooks; what I want is textbooks that are much more environmentally friendly.”  I have met customers who have said, “I wish my textbook could adapt itself to each of my students, based on their strengths and weaknesses.”  I have met customers who have said, “I wish my textbook could be waiting for me wherever I am, without my having to carry it there.”  And lots of other things, that all point to digital textbooks.  But no one has ever said to me, “I want digital.”  Digital is just a medium; no one does or should get really excited about a medium itself. It’s the impact that that medium can have, the way it can transform user value, that is the authentic motivation for reinvention.  And, therefore, it’s the achievement of all or most of this potential impact that makes a particular approach to reinvention interesting, not the mere digitization of formerly physical materials.

Misconception #2   The answer to the textbook problem is to find the best technology. The right combination of format and device will instantly lift classrooms from the 1950s into the 21st century. If you have spent any time with college faculty or K12 teachers then you will understand that a community of more fiercely independent-minded professionals would be difficult to find.  Instructors, of all levels, are fundamentally idealistic people, motivated by a passion for helping the world’s young billions achieve their human potential. And they don’t tend to believe that this can best be done by shoving their charges down an assembly line.  On the contrary, there is something inherently centrifugal about education: true educators are drawn to treat each student individually, to try to find the right, tailored approach to unlock each student’s full capacity.  Of course the exigencies of the real world don’t permit this very much.  But educators are nevertheless always trying to carve out some space for individuality, both for themselves and for their students. As a result, it strikes me as unrealistic to think that the education community will ever fall in line behind any one emerging technology. Much more likely that various segments within the community will throw their weight behind dozens of different technologies.  Each will use their creativity to draw out unexpected benefits from their chosen toolset, and try to convince the others to come over to their side. Over time, fringe technologies will fall away, and a few big

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winners will stay in the game for the long run, competing fiercely all the way.  If and when the majority of classrooms have moved into the 21st century, it will have been by a circuitous and heterogeneous path, not by virtue of any instantaneous global eureka.

Misconception #3  The key is to figure out how to make textbooks free, so that everyone can have them. There’s a fairly broad consensus throughout the education community that textbooks are too expensive, and need to become more affordable. But free is a pretty drastic change.  Is it necessary to jump from expensive to free? That’s sort of like getting so irritated at an itchy pair of gloves that you decide to cut off your hands.  Maybe it’s better to just find a different pair of gloves? I think the idea of free textbooks, while noble, might also be a red herring.  If textbooks could simply be affordable, proportionate to customers’ perception of value, that would satisfy nearly every customer I’ve ever spoken to.  Aiming at free just makes the reinvention of the textbook much, much more complicated than it needs to be.

With these misconceptions out of the way, we can now focus on the chief goals that the textbook revolution should focus on. I believe there are four fundamental goals, the first three of which are each a twist on one of the ideas I previously discarded.

Goal #1  The textbook experience must be designed to more powerfully fulfill education’s central mandate:  to give each student a genuine chance to achieve her potential by, first, deeply understanding her individual strengths/weaknesses, learning styles, and ambitions, and, second, constructing a rich, individualized tutorial experience based on these characteristics.

Goal #2 Textbooks of the future must be radically adaptable to a very broad range of user environments, in order to facilitate not just some but all classrooms, regardless of what technologies they use, philosophies they adhere to, or environment they operate within.

Goal #3  Textbooks must be affordable, priced proportionately to the value that customers perceive they derive from them.

The fourth goal is quite different, in that it’s fundamentally conservative, though it might sound radical to anyone who is used to thinking that a quick and dirty approach to content creation, which is good enough for social media, should also be good enough for textbooks.  The reality is that it is not. Instructors, who are and ought to be the gatekeepers of education, are rigorous and punctilious evaluators, and they will not, any time in the next few decades, become comfortable gambling their professional reputation as teachers on mediocre content of uncertain provenance.

Goal #4  Textbooks must continue to preserve and clearly display all of the characteristics that have always been explicitly and highly valued by customers, including exceptional quality, careful pedagogical design, and superb production values.

So now that we’ve dug into the background, let’s return to the original question:  are textbooks in need of revolutionizing?

My answer, as I hope you can see by now, is decidedly yes. But the kind of revolution that textbooks need is a substantive and fundamental one, addressing Goals 1 through 4, not a superficial one concerned with Misconceptions 1 through 3.  Real revolution addresses the core unmet needs of the education community, rather than the core unmet ambitions of the innovation community. Real revolution will be measured by the quantity of human potential it helps unlock, one student at a time. Real revolution will be holistic and productive and sustainable.

What kinds of textbooks will real revolution involve? What kinds of companies are best placed to create them? What should the business models be? I will defer those questions to a future piece.