My British literature course used online texts primarily this semester. The students could purchase and use the anthology, but all the readings were online and marked in the calendar. We used the online versions in class and any quotes came from those.
There were also two graphic novels. One in addition to the literary text Gareth Hind’s Beowulf and one that was the literary text The Tempest.
At the end of class (and unfortunately after all the A students were gone), I asked folks to fill out a survey. (I had forgotten I needed to do it! Gotta put that in the calendar for next semester.)
It’s very interesting what people said in response to the survey. I didn’t know so many people bought the anthology and two people never read anything online except when it was up on the projector. Those two people also don’t own any mobile devices (smart phone, iPad, laptop).
Next semester’s class has the textbook only on the iPad. But I can’t list that in the course sign-up page, so that may cause an issue for some people who have signed up for the course. I hope not as I really need the course to make.
Maybe I should send an email out now to those students who have signed up for the course?
For this semester, where they were all web-based texts, there was a definite split in whether or not this should be done again–whether they thought it was a good idea for their class and would be for the next. It will be interesting to see if that split changes next semester.
I’m also going to be comparing the grades of the paper, web-based, and iPad textbook classes. That will also be interesting.