An Open Education First-Year Russian Language Textbook
The Need for a Natively Digital Textbook
It is difficult for many to think of higher education without the standard textbook. However, the resource itself is often large and heavy enough to fit in at Stonehenge, and its price is high enough to make any student wince. For some, buying another textbook can mean insufficient money for healthy food, healthcare needs, or other (honestly more important) needs. For instructors, student work in the traditional format means lugging around stacks of papers that represent endless hours of grading and countless items to keep track of.
The Textbook
We can do better, and at UVA we are trying to do so. Under the working title Interactive Materials for First-Year Russian, I am a co-author of the first natively digital Russian-language textbook. This unique resource will integrate modern interactive technology, authentic audiovisual components, and an accelerated first-year Russian-language university curriculum into an open, free resource for anyone anywhere to use. It will be released in parts on Pressbooks starting Fall 2022.
OER & H5P
These are the two fundamental building blocks of the textbook outside of domain knowledge of the Russosphere. The Open Education Resources (OER) philosophy gives the textbook its shape and the H5P tool suite its texture.
OER is an ecosystem of free (costless and generally unrestricted) instructional materials that support sharing and adaptation for a variety of educational purposes. These resources are meant to remove barriers of access to high-quality instruction, whether that money, distance, or something else. OER seeks to take advantage of our modern world's digital interconnectivity in order to expand educational opportunities for everyone.
H5P (originally from "HTML 5 Package") is a free and open-source suite of tools based on the latest website technology. Anyone can use it to create interactive, mobile-friendly content on the Internet, and it comes with dozens of options for instructors to present and review information, including audiovisual sources. H5P can be integrated into many learning management systems and completes the grading automatically with optional extended feedback.
Last modified: Mon Nov 27 2023