Where Textbooks Have Gone

No More Pencils, No More Books (+Video)

Artificially intelligent software is replacing the textbook—and reshaping American education.

Will Oremus | October 25, 2015

Eighteen students file into a brightly lit classroom. Arrayed around its perimeter are 18 computers. The students take their seats, log in to their machines, and silently begin working. At a desk in the back, the instructor’s screen displays a series of spreadsheets and data visualizations to help her track each student’s progress in real time.

Source: https://www.aleks.com/about_aleks/assessment

This isn’t a Vulcan finishing school or a scene from some Back to the Future sequel. It’s Sheela Whelan’s pre-algebra class at Westchester Community College in Valhalla, New York.

The students in Whelan’s class are all using the same program, called ALEKS.

<more at http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2015/10/adaptive_learning_software_is_replacing_textbooks_and_upending_american.html; related links: https://www.aleks.com/ (ALEKS Higher Education. [About: ALEKS Corporation is a leader in the creation of Web-based, artificially intelligent, educational software. ALEKS assessment and learning technologies were originally developed by a team of cognitive scientists and software engineers at the University of California, Irvine, with major funding from the National Science Foundation. ALEKS is founded on groundbreaking research in mathematical cognitive science known as Knowledge Space Theory.  Through adaptive questioning, ALEKS accurately assesses a student's knowledge state and then delivers targeted instruction on the exact topics the student is most ready to learn. ALEKS has been used by millions of students in over 100 different mathematics, science, and business courses at thousands of K-12 schools, colleges, and universities throughout the world.]) and http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/03/the-death-of-textbooks/387055/ (The Death of Textbooks?
Artificially intelligent software is reshaping traditional teaching materials—but it's unclear what the new technology will take away from the learning experience. March 6, 2015)>