This document discusses alternatives to traditional textbooks for meaningful learning. It provides 10 alternatives, including using other educators as resources, databases, eBooks, teaching students information literacy skills, authentic sources, product trials, digitization initiatives, YouTube and educational videos, trade books, and creating your own resources. The overall message is that textbooks alone are not enough and teachers should utilize a variety of additional resources to engage students and support inquiry-based learning.

1. BeyondTextbooks:
Inquiry-based Teaching
for Meaningful Learning
M. Ekdahl, TL Mentor
Vancouver School Board
UBC LLED 469
July 2014

3. Textbooks are not enough …
Textbooks, although they certainly have an important role in
content area learning, have been scrutinized by educational
critics who express concerns about their quality in terms of
accuracy, readability, and appeal. These criticisms remind us
that some textbooks may as well be made for furniture rather
than learning ….
Vacca and Vacca (2005)
Content Area Reading: Literacy and Learning Across the Curriculum.
NY: Pearson Education, 154.

4. Do we start with questions like these?
– How long before the system loses interest in the iPad?
– Will everyone have one for home and school?
– How will this tool still be used by teachers and students in
years to come?
– Is there an App for that?
Or are there more fundamental questions of educational
philosophy?
Is Technology the Answer?

5. What knowledge has the most worth? Why?
What are the best ways of teaching and learning?
Or broader moral and political questions:
What is the ‘good’ life?
How does one live a useful and worthy life?
When these questions are asked and answered, then and only
then can new technologies play their role in schools and
classrooms.
More Fundamental Questions Like:

6. TC4C
Where are you and other teachers on The Continuum for Change in teaching and
learning?
Just fine where I am, thanks.
No time to think about it. Just surviving here.
What was good enough for me is good enough for them.
Convince me.
I get bored doing the same old thing over and over.
I’m aware that students get bored with “read the chapter, do the
questions.”
I’m always looking to try new ways to engage kids with learning.
I love to work with technology. Let’s go …
Want to work on a new unit together? Let’s try Blogging Mathematicians!

7. Points of Inquiry:
No longer can it be assumed that the teacher is the
expert as students actively construct their own
personal understandings of information. This kind of
learning is best accomplished within a model of
inquiry .…
Points of Inquiry, A Framework for C21L
Developed by BCTLA using BC curriculum documents

8. Many Models, Same Skills …
Glogster: Inquiry Models
“Although the models may look different and use different
vocabulary they all include the same basic processes and
skills.”
From Nell Ududec - Educational Resources/Library Consultant,
Pembina Trails, Manitoba

9. BCTLA’s Points of Inquiry Model
• BC curriculum
• Benchmarked
• Developmental
• Common language
• Frame for school-wide
tech planning, AfL,
IL skill development in
all subject areas …

10. Inquiring Learners:
• Are actively involved in the learning process
• Make connections and use prior knowledge
• Ask good questions, investigate
• Construct new understandings and
communicate these
• Think and reflect critically as they become
independent as learners

11. C21 Teachers
• Move to the side, guide, scaffold learning
• Provide feedback, empower deep learning
• Encourage students to have more authority over
their own knowledge and inquiry
• Are actively engaged in learning, assessing, and
teaching
• Ensure new learning happens in active, collaborative,
social contexts (real or virtual)

12. Good questions are the key to inquiry:
Langley Teacher Librarians’ Wiki:
Inquiry Questions
For Use with the Points of Inquiry Model

13. Top Ten Alternatives to Traditional Textbooks:
#1: Other Educators
What are other teachers or educators doing?
Check out –
Springfield Township High School Virtual Library (Joyce Valenza)
Eduscapes.com
Kathy Schrock`s Guide for Educators
PSAs, like Math Teachers
Twitter eg: YA Audiobooks, free for summer reading
Your recommendations?

14. #1, : Twitter / Tweetdeck
Hashtags: #bced #edtechbc #bctla #edchat

15. #2 = Databases
Try ones like these from VSB’s Digital Library:
Global Issues in Context (SS and Science)
Biography in Context
Bookflix (ESL, SPED)
Newspapers (All)
Culturegrams (Home Ec, SPED, ESL)

16. #2, continued: Sign up for LearnNowBC

17. #3 = eBooks
Go to VSB Webcat, click onto Video and More:
Check out such online book sources as:
Books should be free
Librivox Audio Books
Open Library Accessible Books Online
Project Gutenberg
World Book EBook centre
Smart History Art web-text
Merlot eText Content Online

18. #4 = Students Need “InfoSmarts” --
Teach search, retrieval, and CT strategies
Keywords
Google / Beyond Google = Chrome, Scholar, Ninja
Wikipedia – “begin here but never end here”
CCRAP – #9: evaluate sources for currency, coverage, relevance,
authority, perspective
Schrock’s Evaluating Websites page
BOOLEAN Machine
Advanced Search features
Wolfram Alpha (For Math and stats and other data, see By Topic)
Corroboration – hoax sites
ME’s Plagiarism Website

19. #5 = Authentic Sources
Authors
Creators
Scientists
National Geographic
NASA
TED Talks
Your recommendations?

20. #6 = Product Launches and Trials
What do you want to see?
Ask District Resource Centre for product trials
Ask Teacher-librarians for product updates

21. #7 = Digitization Initiatives
Canada in the Making - Constitutional History
Canada in the Making - Aboriginals: Treaties & Relations
Canada in the Making – Pioneers and Immigrants
Where are the Children? Healing the legacy of the residential schools
Moving Here, Staying Here. The Canadian Immigrant Experience - LAC
Multicultural Canada
Historica
History by the Minute
Canadian Encyclopedia, The
Black History Canada from Historica
… and lots more

22. #8 = youtube, NFB, TED, etc.
In Vancouver, Webcat links to Video and More by tab
Find a good short youtube clip, like -
Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years,
4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats - BBC Four

23. #9 = Trade Books (and TLs)
Trade books are:
– For use by general public
– Informative, entertaining, appealing to range of readers
– Picture books, fiction, non-fiction, poetry
– Focused on a subject
– Develop in-depth understanding
– Opportunities for reading to learn and learning to read
– Best when used in multimedia environment with curriculum
integration in mind
– An optimal way to extend and enrich learning
See more in Vacca and Vacca, Chapter 5 (circulating)

24. #10 – Self-created Resources
Create your own resources with tools like:
• Animoto, blogger, Prezi, etc.
Find out more about:
• Merlot
• Lulu

25. It’s Just The Beginning…