Blog Post 14

Teacher Knows if You've Done the E-Reading
CourseSmart has come up with a digital textbook. This allows teachers to track what a student has read and the key components they have highlighted. A problem has that has come up is that one student was doing ok on his quizzes but when the teacher looked at his textbook tracking, the student had only opened the book once. Another problem is that the software was having problem. For instance, one student had opened the book more than once but it was reported that the student only opened it once. By the end of the experiment, Mr. Guardia, who was testing the digital textbook, realized that his students tests scores were higher but their engagement into the textbook was still low. Maybe the textbook is too easy or maybe the course is too easy. Mr. Guardia is confused on this.
As a teacher I would love to have this in my classroom then I would know who is doing their work and who is working hard. But questions would arise when a student is regularly reading the material but not doing well on my quizzes or tests. Or like what happened in Mr. Guardia's class, a student who does ok on my tests and quizzes but only opens the book once. Or what about the students that don't actually read, they just open the book to make it seem like they are reading.
If this applied to me now as a college student, I would think it would be very dumb. I'm already paying my money to go to school and get my degree but now my teacher needs to know if I'm doing my readings every night. I would feel like my teacher should trust me enough to do my readings at night and if I don't then my grade will suffer.
A question I would ask the teacher is would he use it again? If it's worth it.
A question for the students would be if they felt like their trust is being challenged.
A comment I would write would be, although CourseSmart made this book out of benefit to the teacher, I think it draws a thicker line between the teacher and student and makes a relationship more business-like. Instead of the teacher actually caring about the student and the student wanting the teachers approval.