★ Star ★ : "The Dark Side of Textbooks"

We decided to do an infographic, since is a powerful visual format that involves great creativity and is strongly related to ICTs.

Besides, there are a lot of benefits of using this scheme:

• 90% of information that comes to the brains is visual.

• 40% of people will respond better to visual information than plan text.

Related to our infographic, I would like to remark that we use an original design, inspired by one of the most famous album covers of Pink Floyd: "The Dark Side of the Moon".

You can appreciate the similarity between them:

All the data is collected from ANELE (Asociación Nacional de Editores de Libros y Material de Enseñanza).We put all the disadvantages commonly known classified in fields:

Economical:

Textbooks have been considerated for so many years as a necessary and essential tool for teachers, and editorials have obseved that, so that's the reason why textbook have become in a real huge business.

In fact, every year since economic crisit started, editorials have earned more than 800 millions of Euros in our country.

The most obvious problem is the expenditure for the families. In Spain, a family has to pay more than 100€ per child and year, just in textbooks, and not all can afford them. Another problem is Editorials prevent families from reuse textbooks.

Ideological:

Most of the best known editorials are owned by the Catholic Church, and normally goes according to the political party that governs in that moment, so it is obvious that textbooks have an ideological content. The problem with this is that children will be strong affected by this and won't let them to think by themselves, indoctrinating them in some way, without any possibility of know different points of view or contrast information, in order to have an own conclusion or opinion.

Educational:

It's common to see how textbooks present the content in a decontextualized and isolated way.

Many of the practices of teaching/learning which imposes the use of textbooks are very outdated and systematical: It consists in an exposition of the unit, comprehension, exercises and memorization.

Another problem related to textbooks is that they don't take into account the student diversity in the classroom.

Epistemological:

The textbook is the only source of true knowledge and, therefore, does not contribute to develop the real knowlede that must have a child; it doesn't allow children to look for another resources or alternatives.

Children read those books as they were a bible, doing that we are transmitting them, the feeling that they must believe everything that they read.

Textbooks don't offer the opportunity to create knowledge, while it would be better for them to search information and know how to discriminate it.

De-professionalization:

Editorials decide the content of the books, making curricular concretions, choose certain pedagogical theories and didactics, motivating most of them for business and influenced in the government learning politics. So actually, teachers don't choose the contents that transmit to their pupils.

According to this: the editorials are who really decide learning on the children. then, why are we sutdying a degree to become teachers? It would be enough just knowing to read.

Alternative to the textbooks:

Nowadays we live in a technological society and we think it is important to develop these skills in the classroom so, the teacher would have to get involved into teaching children how to get on that kind of world. They must learn to look for information and know how to contrast sources.

As an alternative tool we suggest ICTs, in order to use the imagination, and their experience to get children have curiosity, and motivate them. It's also important the possibility that the teacher could decide which are the correct method and manner for the teaching/learning process.

For that reason, we can metion another kind of alternatives, where teachers upload their own notes or units, and can actualize it as long as they desire, because of they are not static:

-Teacher's notes

-Blogs

-Sites

-Digital platforms

-Digital portfolios

Despite all of that, I would want to remark that we are not against textbooks: they are neither good nor bad, it's just the way we use it. Textbooks can help to the creation and learning but can also become a tool that completely degrades and distorts the teaching.

We could combine a good textbook, using it in a good way, with another kind of material or resources, previously mentioned. One of the most important things for an effective education is to know what knowledge the pupils start with. From there, the teacher can adequate the contens to the children or even modify it if it's necessary.

Finally, I would like you to take into account the effort that entails this kind of work. We tried to make it, as professional and original as we could, and it took a long time, becuase we started from scratch. (even the graphics were created by ourselves!)

Star: Alicia del Carmen Lova Ortiz