Abstract:

Electronic textbooks enlarge the possibilities of teaching natural history towards the use of multimedia interactive elements. In our paper we introduce the analysis of multimedia equipment of electronic textbooks that are currently being used on primary schools in the Czech Republic. We conducted a comparison between 8 didactical sets for teaching natural history intended for pupils between the age of 12 and 15. Researched sets of teaching materials by 2 reputable Czech publishers include electronic textbook, workbook with methodical guide for the teachers. We observed types of multimedia elements, the frequency of their usage and the quality of theirs processing. Our results show, that multimedia elements are often integrated unequally in the electronic textbooks. It sometimes happens, that relevant multimedia material, which would we expect by the specific topic, is not included. And on the other hand, sometimes there are so many multimedia elements in one chapter that you can’t even reasonably use them all, because of the time subsidy for the specific subject. The goal of our research is to contribute to a better integration and elaboration of multimedia elements of electronic textbooks, mostly from the “didactic efficiency” point of view.

Keywords:

Electronic textbooks, e-books, natural history, STEM, primary school.