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This is an interview for writing in digital environments.
Will you please state your name and
give a brief job description.
Yes. Hi, I'm Dr. Lori Tanner
and I actually wear a couple hats.
I'm the director of the
QEP STEP-UP Program for the campus
and I'm also a faculty and instructor,
I teach here in the School of Education.
Would you like to tell me more about the STEP-UP Program?
This is an initiative that has been required by our accreditation
for us to show some sort of sort of quality
enhancement plan. We've decided as a campus
to make this this a student technology enrichment program
and so the idea is that we are going to enhance
student's use of technology, make this campus digitally
literate, have good digital citizenship, and that students will carry
this technology through their career at the university and then
have the technology skills when they graduate.
So our focus is on electronic textbooks and
how they can enrich the classroom.
When were you first introduced to E-texts?
Way back, about 1998 is when I first had it,
and I'm going to read some of the notes
that I've written for you.
Back then, publishers were just starting to
include web resources in textbooks
and I was a public school teacher back then
and you were starting to see those showing up in the back
with a CD ROM, maybe have some extra articles.
So very slowly the transition came where it was an
added benefit to a hard copy textbook.
And then obviously journals, academic journals, were
starting to be published online and libraries had started
moving away from the old-fashioned card catalog where
you thumbed through it
to having an electronic database.
That was my first experience
with it, was probably back long ago as '98.
So what were your preconceived notions about
digital textbooks when they were introduced?
If you look around my office, I have books.
If you went to my home I have hundreds
and hundreds of books on bookshelves.
I was an English major in my undergraduate degree.
I hold books, I flip through books, I dog ear books.
In the beginning I was not an advocate of it [E-Books]
There were good reasons for having digital
resources, because the web was just coming up, but
as far as, "Would I want to have a textbook in my hand?"
Yes. Because I like to thumb through the pages,
I like to look at the pictures,
I like to stick my finger in
and turn to the index, go into the glossary
and I couldn't see that happening in the early days of
electronic textbooks. So I was skeptical,
needless to say. I don't know if I'll ever give up
the hard, the tangible touching of the book.
But I do see a purpose in the E-textbooks, I really do.
And I will admit, I own a Kindle
and I'll read novels on my Kindle [Laughs].
So, what do you think are the key differences
between textbooks and E-books?
Now, when I teach technologies and
I've got probably got 45, 50 technology books on my
bookshelves here. As soon as those books are
published and purchased they're already out of date.
And that's a disadvantage to the traditional publishing,
the hard copy book.
Unless it's a classic you're reading or a novel, but
as far as reference and resource,
those can be changed so dynamically if they're E-texts.
As quick as history changes,
as quick the industry changes, as quick as
geography, and borders, and countries.
And some school districts are still using hard textbooks and Russia is USSR.
So, those things.
And that is an advantage with the E-text.
If you get a 100% adoption,
where a university wants to really
buy into the program, then the student owns
the book and the updates, continually,
even at graduation.
So, if something, especially in the professions, the
medical fields, if a new drug's discovered,
if a new procedure is done, if best practices changes
That's updated in the textbook and you don't have,
like I do, a shelf full of outdated technology books. [Laughs]
How many of my students, having taught, don't buy the book?
Because they can't afford the book.
And so they are hoping they can read somebody's,
maybe run to the library look and see if
the library's got it, or try to wing it through class
without ever reading the textbook and guess
on the exams.
And really kind of fake it. They're not getting
the knowledge that they should.
So, that's where E-texts will influence students.
If I require you, in my class, to have an E-textbook
I need to force, somehow, that this become a fee.
Part of the course, part of your tuition, it's like a lab fee.
That if you were taking the biology class, you pay a lab fee.
Everybody in that class buys that book
Then the publishers,
drop the price, as much sometimes as 80%.
So a $50 textbook can suddenly become $5.00.
--That's incredible.
That's really where the power of the E-text comes.
It's not just buying a book for your Kindle,
or finding that textbook online.
It's getting a university and professors to say,
"I will require this E-text." And, every student has to pay the fee.
And that text then is, everybody has to buy it,
the publishers will drop the price dramatically.
Because they know 5,000 students at USC Upstate
will be purchasing books.
They won't be going to eBay,
they won't be going to Amazon and buying the used books.
They will buy the textbook from the publisher.
As a professor, how do you see the student's dealing with the "Bring Your Own Device to Class" problem?
That, this is a good question. Because I'm,
right now on the committee for pushing the
Bring Your Own Device or BYOD, and what we're going
to discover, and this is typical, you're going to have
the early adopters, the faculty who have
the newest gadgets all the time and,
"This is great, I want to have every student in my class with a smartphone and a tablet".
But then you have your traditional,
more my generation, who are used to
standing up and lecturing and,
"I forbid electronic devices in my classroom. I don't want to see a computer".
"That cell phone's in view, I'm going to ask you to leave".
Very resistive, thinking that all student's are doing is checking Email and Facebooking.
We've got to change the culture, alright, in that.
And so I don't think the students are going to be the resisters, as much as your faculty.
If we introduce the BYOD, the Bring Your Own Device
simultaneously with E-text,
but we don't say "You have to do this".
Whether we allow the early adopters, and we start
making a transition, that will change.
Then the culture will change.
And I can remember, working at different universities
and working at public schools when Email first came out.
Serious resistance to Email.
Very serious resistance.
But 15 years later, nobody can imagine writing a
little memo and sending it somebody slowly,
snail mail. Everything is Email.
So, do you think moving towards a digital classroom is a good thing?
That's... I don't think it's good or bad.
I think it IS.
We don't have a choice. It is.
And, we're a global culture.
We are digital, as a society.
We can't get around that. We have instant everything.
We are a digital culture, and education is lagging.
And it's lagging behind the professions
and it's lagging behind industry and
we're being pressured, as a university,
we're being pressured to create digitally competent, literate professionals.
People to fill these technology rich jobs.
We can't chisel the lecture in stone anymore. [laughs]
We have to start embracing the technology at the university level.
Is there anything else you would like to tell me that we haven't had a chance to talk about yet?
Some really key things we do have to keep in mind.
One, will be a revenue issue.
Your bookstores are going to resist.
Your university bookstores will resist the E-text.
And that, because there's a market that's a revenue maker for them.
So, that has to be addressed and
very gently transform them to maybe the
gatekeeper of the tablets that the students buy.
It has to be 100%. You can't say
to the students, "Well, you can buy the
hard copy or you can buy the
E-copy". The discount won't come unless you get a
100% buying.
And one [issue] dear to my heart,
is the digital divide. I can say,
"Bring your own device". I can say "E-textbook".
But, can I guarantee every student has
a smartphone or tablet, a laptop,
and when they leave campus,
do they have internet access?
Can they get that
textbook if they're off campus? You know,
we can't alienate the students that can't afford or don't have access.
Might be living rural and can't get internet.
So, those are big ones for me.
Thank you for meeting with me.
Well, thank you for doing this project.