Digital textbooks are frequently regarded as ‘nothing more than digitised PDFs’ or are said to be ‘lacking in innovation’ in terms of digital learning and teaching. These views reflect the ambitions of education policy makers and practitioners to better harness the potential of digital educational media. There are currently very few research projects in Germany evaluating how digital textbooks are used. Available studies frequently have three aspects in common: 1) they generally investigate science books; 2) the research tends to focus on capturing learning success as a measurable outcome and 3) the studies tend to work with (quasi) experimental designs. Almost no extant research examines the effectiveness of digital teaching materials from a cultural and social-science perspective while also taking into account the process of achieving learning success and combining this with the qualitative and quantitative assessment processes used in schools.
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Aims
The aim of this research was firstly to contribute to research into digital educational media in the school context. The project explored the research question: Which historical or digital competencies are stimulated through the use of digital or analogue history books respectively? But the study also applied a hands-on approach that met the users in their specific situations, accompanied them in their use and extrapolated the implications for future production of digital textbooks. This research project therefore provided answers for educational practitioners to the question of which tools used in the mBook stimulate historical and digital competencies and lead to learning success.
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Methodology
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Publications
- Tribukait, Maren und Annekatrin Bock. "Impulse und Irritationen: Das transformative Potential eines digitalen Schulbuchs für den Geschichtsunterricht". Medienimpulse. 2022(1). (available online)
- Bock, A., & Macgilchrist, F. (2020). ‚Born digital‘-Schulbücher in der empirischen Forschung – Fragen, Forschungsdesign, erste Erkenntnisse. In: Florian Sochatzy und Marcus Ventzke (Hrsg.), Bildung digital gestalten. Eichstätt. (available online)
- Bock, A., & Macgilchrist, F. (2019). Digitale Schulbücher im Unterricht: Wissenschaftliche Begleitung der Verwendung des mBook Geschichte. Eckert.Dossiers.2/2019. (available online)
