I am seriously thinking these days, and gearing up to explore aspects of
education through on-line media as supplements to traditional instruction,
or alterntives to it.
So, a couple further steps:
The FAQs initially would be those the Authors thought of, but one could
have a Form on the webpage for students to submit their own questions, and
then a form for others (Authors, other students) to submit links to places
where _those_ answers might be found. (Of course one could also just submit
answers, but I want to stay with the original spirit of the approach.)
Break the textbook content up into hypertext units (bite-sized
topic-centered chunks), interlink these with hypertext cross-references,
and include links to the FAQs pages. Doing this may tend to alleviate the
'pushiness' of the textbook and make it an domain in which students can
explore, following their own lines of inquiry, as well as proceeding, if
they wish to, along the garden paths suggested by the Authors.
The textbook of the future? JAY.
---------------------------
JAY L. LEMKE
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
---------------------------