Instructify

BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

It’s surprising how many teachers either don’t know about textbook companion websites or don’t bother to check them out. These are websites that publishers offer to accompany the material in a textbook. They vary in quality, but if you have a good one, your students can access some really useful supplemental material. Check the first few pages of your book and see if there’s a web address. Your companion website may have some of these features:

Summaries

A fantastic tool to improve comprehension or help with review. Summaries may take the form of outlines, slideshows, or even MP3s (think audio books). Your students can download audio summaries to their smartphones or iPods, and while they won’t start rocking out to physics or world history, they’ll be able to listen anywhere and anytime.

Interactives

Whether maps, diagrams, timelines, or games, these activities can be used in the classroom or for students to review at home. They’ll most likely be organized into the same sections and use the same vocabulary terms as your book.

Quizzes

The online medium makes quizzes more engaging, as they may have sounds, graphics, or extra factoids after each question. But the most useful feature is score reporting via email, which allows students to send their quiz scores to you. My students take the quiz after they read and only send me their score once they achieve 100%. That might mean doing it several times, but they always come out with a better understanding of what they read.

So take a look online — there could be a powerful resource waiting for you. I’ve only described some of the tools your companion website may have. I’d also recommend spending a few minutes of class showing everything a companion site offers. If your students like what they see, they may start using it even when you don’t ask them to.

Photo credit: wohnai on Flickr.

Ever winced at the high cost of textbooks? You may be able to find a free alternative at Textbook Revolution.The site is a compilation of textbooks from other sites, each free and easily accessed via category or title search. Most of the texts are available in .pdf format, and some are printable, though a majority of the texts are available to read only.

The site doesn’t do any of its own contracting or publishing; instead, it serves as a resource for links to free texts online. Unfortunately, the text database is less than comprehensive, but the site offers what may be “alternative” texts to the pricey books from the monolithic publishers.

There are about 500 books available, so if nothing else, the site is a treasure trove of free information for students and teachers alike. With this kind of information available so easily– Textbook Revolution may be starting exactly that, a revolution. –JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Textbook Revolution