Are textbook references to Darwin close to extinction?

The textbooks used to teach GCE A-level biology 30 years ago tended to concentrate on traditional zoology and botany, with just a passing reference to evolution. As biology established itself as a new discipline, books (and syllabuses) began to take an integrated approach, and evolution became an important theme that helped students to appreciate the interrelationships between plants and animals, cells and molecules, biochemistry and physiology, systematics and genetics, and ecology and behaviour. With the modularisation of modern specifications this theme has all but disappeared from textbooks and a detailed discussion of Darwin and the evidence for evolution has been replaced by perfunctory references to variation and selection and, in some cases, politically correct acknowledgements of creationism

From the visual book to the WEB book : the importance of design

This paper presents the results of two studies into electronic book production. The Visual book study explored the importance of the visual component of the book metaphor for the production of more effective electronic books, while the WEB book study took the findings of the Visual book and applied them to the production of books for publication on the World Wide Web (WWW). Both studies started from an assessment of which kinds of paper book are more suitable for translation into electronic form. Both also identified publications which are meant to be used for reference rather than those which are read sequentially, and usually in their entirety. This group includes scientific publications and textbooks which were both used as the target group for the Visual book and the WEB book experiments. In this paper we discuss the results of the two studies and how they could influence the design and production of more effective electronic books

Human genetics and didactic transposition: the expression of skin color, eye color, and height in Brazilian and Portuguese textbooks

The knowledge produced by genetic science is constantly expanding. However, the “taught knowledge” is not just a simplification of the knowledge produced by science, since it is also a result of values and practices. The objective of this study is to analyze how some examples of the expression of human characteristics in school textbooks approximate or deviate from reference knowledge found in literature. Secondary school textbooks were analyzed: six Brazilian collections and three Portuguese collections. Three topics were analyzed (skin color, eye color and height) and data were compared to scientific reference literature concerning these topics, which was composed of recent scientific papers and teacher training reference books. This analysis used the methodology developed in previous studies by Franzolin (2012) on “categories of types” and “categories of implications” and the KVP model (Clément, 2006). This study shows that most textbooks are close to the reference literature in mentioning the polygenic determination of the analyzed characteristics (skin color, eye color and height) and the influence of the environment in the expression of these characteristics. Textbooks which deviate from reference literature may cause barriers to the central content understanding. In the Portuguese context, it was evident that the practice of adopting new topics in the curriculum lead to the elimination of such information, not valued in official curriculum documents.CIEC – Research Centre on Child Studies, IE, UMinho (FCT R&D unit 317), PortugalNational Funds through the FCT (Foundation for Science and Technology) and co-financed by European Regional Development Funds (FEDER) through the Competitiveness and Internationalization Operational Program (POCI) with the reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007562info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Textbook costs and accessibility: Could open textbooks play a role?

Rising textbook costs have been highlighted as an issue for students in higher education (HE), particularly in North America. Less is known about the costs and forms in which books are available to students in higher education in Europe and specifically in Ireland. This is despite significant moves towards openly licensed books as a potential response via established open access publishing platforms. This research sought to address a gap in the scholarly understanding of textbook usage and the potential of open alternatives in Ireland. We present the results of an analysis of the accessibility, cost and licensing of textbooks in Ireland taking one higher education institution as a case study. We report here on the findings of phases one and two of this study, including the retail prices of over 500 books, the formats they are available in and those that are in the public domain. The next phase of this study involved the design of research instruments to use with staff and students as participants in research. These instruments were designed, with reference to the research literature on Open Education Resources (OER), such as Wiley’s 5 Rs of OER, to examine the current usage and perception of educational textbooks with the overarching aim of determining the relevance of digital open textbooks in the Irish context

The survey of English textbooks used in female schools in Bukovyna (1900 – 1918)

The given article presents a survey of the English textbooks which were used at the lessons of English in female schools of Bukovyna in the beginning of the XX century. The author gives an overview of reference sources relevant to the issue under discussion and proves that the studied topic had not been in the focus of the scientific research before. The analysis of the textbooks was made using formal, functional, structural and subjective criteria. We reviewed 5 English textbooks, found in the scientific library and identified the English language teaching methods used in these books. The textbooks were divided into 3 groups: grammar references, textbooks and readers. The characteristic feature of the textbooks is that they were written in German, thus, English in Bukovyna, which at that time was a part of Austria-Hungary, was taught via the German language. We contemplated on the methodological aspects of teaching English in the Bukovynian schools for girls and the techniques applied for the development of English pronunciation, reading, speaking, writing and translation skills. Thus, the peculiarities of the principles of realization of grammar-translation and text-translation methods are revealed and the process of transition of the above-mentioned methods to the direct method of teaching English is illustrated in the textbooks being analyzed

Collection school textbookshow branch library and information resources and sources research

Охарактеризовано колекцію ,Дідручники і навчальні посібники”. Представлено каталоги підручників і навчальних посібників 1748-1945 pp. із фонду Державної науково-педагогічної ібліотеки України імені В. О. Сухомлинського, у яких бібліографовано видання з цієї колекції. У статті розкрито значення довідкових видань у вивченні процесів вітчизняного підручникотворення, навчального книжкового репертуару, розвитку національної бібліографії.Дана характеристика коллекции „Учебники и учебные пособия”. Представлены каталоги учебников и учебных пособий 1748-1945 гг. с фонда Государственной научно-педагогической библиотеки Украины имени В. А. Сухомлинского, в которых библиографированы издания из этой коллекции. В статье раскрыто значение справочных изданий в изучении процессов создания отечественных учебников, учебного книжного репертуара, развития национальной библиографии.Characterized collection of „Textbooks and teaching aids.” The catalog of textbooks and manuals 1748-1945 that are available in the Fund V. O. Sukhomlinsky State Scientific Pedagogical Library of Ukraine. where conducted a bibliographic description edition of this collection. In the article mentioned reference books to study the processes of national textbooks, educational book repertoire of national bibliography

Faculty's used books e-platform

The study was carried out in order to construct a Web-based application of Faculty's Used Books E-platform. This is done due to communication problems that occur among sellers and buyers of used university textbooks. This study also recognizes the e�commerce capabilities and marketing strategies that could assist in developing the applications. Moreover, this study also embarks on the search of technopreneurship initiatives in Malaysia to develop a guide to technopreneurship as encouragement for students to become a technopreneur. The System Development Research Methodology is the methodology used in the study. The prototype of Faculty's Used Books E�platform is built using the MySQL relational database, together with PHP and Apache Web server. The benefits of these technologies are discussed in this paper. The development of Faculty's Used Books E-platform will improved the communication between sellers and buyers of used books community and could be a reference to students of Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya