AUTO-PRODUCED TEXTBOOKS: DIFFERENT APPROACHES FROM THE ANALYSIS OF THE EXPERIENCE OF INNOVATIVE ITALIAN SCHOOLS

The paper presents a research carried out by a group of researchers involved in the national project Avanguardie Educative, founded by Indire (National Institute for Innovation and Educational Research) and 22 innovative Italian schools.

Avanguardie Educative is a project aimed at promoting the innovation of educational and organizational models in Italian schools and actually involves more than 400 italian schools. The project is focused on 12 different themes, defined “ideas for innovation”; one of these is related with the development of Digital Educational Content (CDD) and its connection with textbooks.

According to a recent Italian law (Law 128/2013) schools can opt for the no- use of textbooks. They can also produce their own texbooks instead of choosing those proposed by publishers . Although this law dates back to 2013, schools are still waiting for official guidelines addressed to define the production process of texbooks and this is the reason why many schools are working according to their own methodology and models.

The researchers involved in the Idea CDD/Textbooks are describing the experience of auto-produced textbooks and are trying to formulate common models and methodologies that can be shared.

Using the methodology of narrative inquiry, researchers collected the stories of some teachers that have been working with the auto-production of textbooks in their classroom. From the analysis of the stories emerged three different models:
• the use of textbooks auto-produced by teachers, for the different subjects of the curriculum
• the use of textbooks auto-produced by teachers and students together, only for some subjects of the curriculum
• the use of auto-produced CDD as an integrative part of the traditional textbook .

These models are based on a common cultural approach. It demands a reconfiguration of the relationship between the act of studying and the use of the texbook, from the student point of view. It also requests teacher to use a different approach in planning and developing the lessons without the help of a defined tool (the textbook is a kind of “Linus’ security blanket").
Futhermore, the research project points out a particular textbooks (or CDD) design process that is still under investigation and that is going to represent the result of the second step of the research.