Mark Nelson on the Future of Education |
 OurBlook interview with Dr. Mark Nelson, digital content strategist, National Association of College Stores ... www.nacs.orgA survey by your association found that even with new digital handheld gadgets, smart phones, pads and laptops glued to every college student’s hand, 74 percent still prefer to use a printed textbook when taking a class. Why is that? MN: I agree with the comments made by our research manager in the press release ... “Every new innovation takes time before the mainstream population embraces it.” The new technology must be sufficiently compelling to encourage adoption. Most of the current e-readers on the market may work effectively for trade books, but they do not work as well for textbooks because of how students use the content. Even among the students who prefer to use a digital textbook, most still use print. Lack of a digital version for many textbooks, and faculty preference for print are two reasons students provide for not purchasing digital. The economics of digital, coupled with DRM (digital rights management), also decrease the value proposition from the student perspective. Many students (about half by two different studies) do not even know if digital options exist, thus pure lack of awareness is having an effect as well. Students today are supposed to be very clued in to the latest technology and comfortable with it … based on the result above, is that hype or reality? MN: It is a common misperception that today’s students are digital natives. That is probably more hype than reality. Studies from numerous sources note that today’s students are still “digital immigrants.” They do appear to be better with technology when it comes to communicating, and possibly collaborating. However, when it comes to other productive uses of technology (education or work), they perform about the same as older individuals. It makes sense, though, when you think about it. Some solid longitudinal studies show that the majority of students currently graduating from college have not been using a computer in the classroom since second grade. Even if they have, they most likely have been taught to do so by someone who did not use technology to support learning when they were a student. It also does not mean they have necessarily had one-on-one interaction with a computer significantly since that point. We are still in the fairly early stages of determining how to best use technology to most effectively help students to learn, and even once we figure out more optimal models, it will take time for enough content to be built that uses those models. Each year, students are more comfortable with technology for learning, but we are still a few years away from true “digital natives” in the classroom. What are the advantages and disadvantages of electronic textbooks vs. print? MN: This is a lengthy question whose answer has been covered extensively elsewhere. The one caveat I would throw out is that it is probably a misperception that electronic textbooks will be less expensive (in terms of total cost of ownership) compared to print. What analysis I have seen does not support the generally accepted belief. The counter-case would probably be open-source or open-access course materials, but that movement (in general, not in total) has its own challenges related to economic sustainability, quality, accessibility and other areas. Do professors generally care about this issue? MN: It probably depends on the faculty member. Having served as a faculty member for a number of years prior to my current position, I would not venture to speak on behalf of the professoriate without data. In my opinion, more faculty are probably aware of and therefore likely concerned about this issue than in the past, but I have no data to confirm that opinion. Finding the course materials that fit what the faculty member wants to teach and how they want to teach it likely remain the top factors for how a faculty member selects their course materials. If they are aware of price, that likely comes in among one of the next decision factors. If I walked into a college store today, would I find it filled with technological gadgets? Which ones are most popular with students? MN: There are certainly some stores that are very effective at selling technology. The availability of different technologies will vary substantively by institution type, location, student profiles, degree of commuter population, socio-economic status of students, as well as many other factors. There is no one clear-cut answer to this question. Most definitely there are some stores that are more sophisticated technology retailers. Just as certainly, there are some stores that have chosen not to compete in that arena. Broadening this out to the use of technology generally in education: is there any device or method coming up that you think will become important? Is there anything about this that particularly pleases you or concerns you? MN: Obviously, I believe that digital textbooks will continue to grow in importance. We are seeing the first generation of devices emerged designed specifically for textbooks in a digital format. Factors favor improved success for these devices over prior iterations and prior points in time. There are still some barriers to adoption, however. The true answer to your question may lie more in asking, “What is the future of education itself?” That is another topic where I will not hazard a guess here. As it relates to electronic textbooks or digital course materials, one concern I do have is the number of companies and organizations pursuing the textbook market who are not necessarily interesting in making things better for students or education as a whole. There are ramifications for educational affordability, student privacy and institutional liability which few individuals appear to be asking at this point. It is my opinion that the opportunity is greater for those organizations who can work productively with college stores. I have seen estimates that range from roughly 18 to 50 percent of all course materials being digital by 2015. Each of the varying estimates and related scenarios have some plausibility to them. It is easier to predict that a transition will unfold then the exact rate or which new technology (device or method) will be the dominant player in the end. We can look at past failures, evaluate why they failed, and then use that information to assess future options as to whether or not they will be likely to succeed. Using that type of post-mortem analysis, I believe we are quite comfortable in our expectations of a sharper increase in digital sales as a percentage of course materials over the next few years. Is there anything else you’d like to say about any aspect of this topic? MN: Normally, I could go on more at length, but between travel and a fairly tight schedule of commitments, I am afraid I do not have more time to respond. We do have a blog where we cover this topic more extensively. The CITE can be found at http://thecite.blogspot.com ... we have thousands of weekly readers from countries all over the globe. NACS also has a relatively new subsidiary, NACS Media Solutions, which was created to help the college store channel work more effectively toward its opportunities in the digital course materials space. (Mark has both a Ph.D (in information science) AND an MBA (in marketing) from the University of Albany. He also holds a B.S. in computer science from Saint Michael's College. Besides being the digital content strategist at the NACS, he is vice president for strategy and development with NACS Media Solutions. Prior to joining the organization in 2005, Mark was assistant professor in management information systems and information technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.) Trackback(0)
Comments (2)
  written by hassan yakubu , June 18, 2010
am in support of the topic because ,here in Nigeria it is observe that despite the huge ammount of Government spending ,the student still come out with poor result...........e.g. NECO 2009 89 percent fail same thing in waec
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