HEIS Newsletter - March 2023 (Plain Text Version)
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ARTICLES HANDCRAFTED LEARNING: MAKING TEXTBOOKS WITH GOOGLE SLIDES
Introduction Have you ever had one of these problems: your university is late ordering textbooks; your university bookstore runs out of textbooks; or, a group of your students are unable to access the online homework and resources because they purchased second-hand books without access codes? Have you ever had to create PowerPoint presentations because your textbook didn’t come with digital resources that allowed you to easily project learning materials in the classroom or share online? Do you find yourself making alternative or extra resources because you find something lacking in your existing textbook? The answer is probably yes. Since all teachers have been students at one point, you may have also suffered one of these problems: you have had to buy a textbook that was too complicated and / or too expensive for your budget; you bought a textbook but the teacher ended up not using it; or, years (or even months) after you finished a class you had to get rid of the textbook or sell it (at a substantial discount) because you needed to move or the book had lost its usefulness. To be certain, there are many benefits to using academic textbooks. They are time savers and organize information better than teachers can on short notice. Additionally, a good textbook series will usually come with tests and resources that can be reused across multiple classes. However, for all the reasons discussed above, it is worth considering whether there might be a better solution, or at the very least an alternative to academically published textbooks. This brief article details the results of my own experience crafting a textbook using Google Slides on short notice. The Context I decided to create a textbook using Google Slides for a very specific reason. I was starting a new job at a university and was going to teach a new course: Designing and Conducting Research. The course had not been previously taught, so there was no recommended textbook. I had several research methods textbooks but nothing that was designed for non-native speakers of English. I wanted to make something that had a minimum of jargon and that provided students with a maximum of help via free online resources. Since I was unsure how many students would be in the class or what their English proficiency levels would be, I wanted the textbook to facilitate self-help and self-study when needed. I wanted students to be able to click on links to applications such as the Scribbr APA citation generator, the Quetext plagiarism checker, and Grammarly. I also wanted students to be able to click on links to videos on Youtube and in-depth articles on the Scribbr website. All of these resources were free, or at least had a free option. And yet, I wanted all of these resources organized so that students could access them quickly. Since this was a new course with a new teacher, I also wanted some kind of benefit to make the newness more palatable. I wanted the textbook to be downloadable and free. The Textbook: Designing and Conducting Research I have revised the first four chapters of the textbook for this article. You can click HERE to view these chapters of the textbook. The reader is free to use and modify the textbook in any way they see fit. To do so, simply copy the Google Slideshow to your own Google Drive or download it as a PowerPoint presentation. The textbook is different in a few respects. My university’s logo has been removed from the textbook and I removed any materials that I had doubts about. I offer one important piece of advice on how to use the textbook. The book was provided free online to the students and all of the students viewed it on their laptops. However, if you intend to print the book, I would recommend turning the links into QR codes for students to scan with their smartphones. You can do this easily with an online QR code generator such as this one. The Results The textbook took me about two weeks to design, working approximately one or two hours a day. Thus, the entire project took about 20 hours to complete. The hardest part was creating the Google Sheets workbook for the weeks that covered basic statistics. I am not particularly skilled at statistics but did my best to give the students some foundations. At least one of the rationales for the book did not become a reality. Instead of a large class, I had a class of five eager and inquisitive students. The self-help option was not needed as much as I had thought. One of the aspects I enjoyed the most about using the textbook was that I did not have to spend each week making PowerPoints or Google Slides for class. The textbook was something I could project to the class from my classroom Smartboard. This helped cut down on preparation time. A short survey of students after the course found that students universally appreciated that the textbook was free and downloadable. Another popular aspect of the textbook was that it had links to applications such as Grammarly, Quetext plagiarism checker, and Scribbr citation generator. One criticism of the textbook was that it did not have a Table of Contents. This is an aspect I hope to fix in a future edition. Though students did not mention the issue in the survey, I felt that students needed more time learning writing techniques associated with research. This is not something covered extensively in this edition. Thus, in the next edition of the book, I plan to spend more time explaining concepts such as summarizing, paraphrasing, and proper techniques for quoting authors. Conclusions Making your own textbook using Google Slides has many advantages. Self-made textbooks using Google Slides are easy to customize, duplicate, share, and add to a Google Classroom and other learning management systems. The major drawback is the time and expertise needed to make them. For this reason, I would like to try at least one semester using a publisher’s textbook before I decide to revise the current textbook or make new ones. Ironically, having made my own basic textbook, I now feel more comfortable using a publisher’s textbook, knowing that I can take resources from my own creation when needed. Acknowledgment: I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the five students who took the first semester of Designing and Conducting Research in Spring 2021. The class was an experiment in more ways than one. I appreciate their hard work, patience, and enthusiasm.
Daniel Clausen has taught ESL, English composition, and other courses in the United States, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. He has also conducted research in the field of International Relations. His work has appeared in The Diplomatic Courier, e-IR, East Asia Forum, and The Korean Journal of International Studies, among other journals and magazines. He currently works as an English language instructor for Nagasaki University of Foreign Studies in Japan. |
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