What was once an industry built on vanity presses and writing of questionable quality has become one of the fastest growing industries in the publishing world. Self-publishing is giving writers the opportunity to cultivate audiences, as well as to catch the attention of larger publishing companies. And with the rising popularity of e-books, self-publishing can be quick, easy and, most of all, profitable for the right writers. By cutting out the middle men of mainstream publishing houses, self-publishing authors are finding success—both critical and financial—with their work.
Self-publishing could also change the way teachers and students use textbooks. As e-readers and tablets become more commonplace in classrooms and on college campuses, the possibility for creating interactive, up-to-date textbooks is both exciting and daunting. Professors and instructors could create their own teaching materials and tailor texts for each new group of students they teach, and adapt their texts for varying abilities and learning styles. But the pros and cons of self-published texts could make it difficult to adopt on a large scale.
How self-publishing could change education…
From kindergarten classrooms to college lecture halls, teachers are trained to recognize and work with various learning styles. A textbook that allows students of all types to absorb course content more comfortably could transform the way students learn: books with embedded video, sound files, or even links to message forums could cater to the strengths of various students without excess individualization of the material. Instructors or small publishers could create texts from a set list of topics to cover for the semester or the academic year, and could update the texts frequently to provide students with timely content. For students enrolled in online learning, interactive texts could facilitate collaborative learning via the Internet another online resources. Finally, prices for self-published texts tend to be much lower than traditional textbooks, which could help lower the cost of books for students—even if the text includes interactive elements.
…and why it probably won’t happen soon
But the approval and implementation processes for these new e-texts could get messy. For universities with a large student body and hundreds of courses, choosing a text or commissioning a professor to write her own could cost both time and money. Ensuring that each self-published text meets the school’s requirements and fits its curricula could take more time than school administrations might anticipate.
And most schools don’t require students to purchase textbooks; if schools embrace a flat fee model for textbooks, as detailed in a Chronicle article about the evolution and possible end of the traditional textbook, would professors who create texts for their courses be able to force students to purchase their books? Finally, standardizing self-published content across schools might cause major headaches for administrators and instructors alike. But like every other new system, once the problems have been resolved, it could be a workable model that makes teaching and learning more effective.
With the flexibility of self-published texts and the potentially low prices, self-published textbooks could change the way students learn. But the publishing industry will have to change before teaching and learning models change—and that may take a while. As technology advances, however, those changes may occur sooner rather than later.
it will change education definitely, well this is what we call level up to a higher note. This will change our traditional way of learning.