- Well, one of the first textbook challenges is certainly affordability (price), and then the coverage of materials which can be overly extensive to get frustrated by just a glance at it, or relatively poor to get some questions hanging. The another factor is legitimacy of the material – who are the authors of certain materials provided and what is their agenda: critical-thinking centered or fixed stymie thinking?
2. With all respect, I appreciated OER`s approach of addressing technical and pedagogical aspects of textbooks. Via these inquiries, I believe that quality of textbooks might be amplified in long-term. Yet, I also think OER failed to address the learning aspects via textbooks. By this I mean, along with pedagogical and technical qualities, accentuation is also required to evaluate how textbooks are transmitting knowledge: did the student actually learn something from textbook except memorized parts?
3. From my perspective, textbooks reinforce learning processes and academic performance, but don`t guarantee them. Therefore, it`s totally up to students whether to evaluate them as regular classwork or supportive learning material.
4. First – affordability to students: not every student has good financial situation to purchase an expensive book.
Second- relevancy of materials: Do materials covered in a textbook actually relevant to class` teachings.
Third – freshness of materials: updated materials with new findings make a textbook more valuable than old coverings.
5. I never paid attention that pedagogical and technical aspects of a textbook can correlate interest to textbook itself, and therefore to learn materials with more passion. So, appearance of the textbook also effects student`s will and motivation to learn it, doesn`t it? At the same level, I learned a lot about textbook publishing industry and its properties (i.e. copyright, creative commons etc.)
