Aspects are text variations

We're thinking aspects can come in many forms, but no matter the implementation, the purpose of aspects is to get across a point/story in different or alternative ways. It's about telling one story, but having several different ways of telling that one story.

Aspects can both be cross-cutting and topical.

Textbook aspect examples

• Support for different teaching and learning styles: "Sage-on-the-stage" lectures, project-, cooperation- or inquiry-based learning.
• Variations on depth and level of details in the text: "Executive Summary" (a basic overview of the topic), balanced amount of information in order to get a good all-round level of topic knowledge, or a detailed version for anyone who wants to become an expert.
• Variations in the supporting material: Number and difficulty of tasks.
• Language adaptations: Wording for those with dyslexia, number and level of technical/precise terms, or text suited for automated speech synthesis.
• Alternative languages: Norwegian (Bokmål) or Norwegian (Nynorsk), English, Urdu or Polish versions of the text.
• Other customizations: Support for the teacher to select the appropriate assessment method according to topic, student or learning situation.

The idea is to expand the traditional linear textbook by allowing each chapter to be have different named aspects that the reader (with or without consultation) can decide to use, according to whatever requirements the reader has.

There are quite a few consequences that result from an ambition like this, and some of these are discussed on the consequences? page.

User stories

• A couple of the kids in history class appear to read through the material quicker than the others in class, and show this showing everyone they're bored. They and the teacher then agree to use a new version of their textbook where the next few chapters have more in-depth information and more references that the students can dive into. The extra material helps the kids keep the same progression as the rest of the class, and thereby enjoy the class more.
• The pupil has difficulties with certain parts of the math curriculum, and has been frustrated because he finds it too confusing. His teacher then shows several alternative ways that the math can explained, in order to figure out which of them best maps to the pupil's mental model.
• The history teacher wants to teach about the second world war by splitting the class into groups, where each group must give a presentation of the war progression as seen from a specific country's viewpoint. Each group gets one of the following countries assigned: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Spain, Libya, India, Bulgaria and Greece. They must research using press clippings, history records and other sources, and they get to use a textbook aspect that has stories and references that can help with their specific task.
• A teacher has had good success with his social sciences lesson plan about the history of parliamentarism. She's been working on and improving it for many years, and is quite happy with it. When looking at the new textbooks for her class, she's investigating if any of the aspects cover this topic in such a way that supports her lesson plan well, but she can't find any. Instead of accepting the "second best," she decides to spend some of her time writing aspect chapter especially well suited for her lesson plan, and then adds her own lesson plan to the supporting text so that other teachers can see it in context and use it themselves. Later, a discussion about the plan develops, where some of the other teachers have found a few improvements that worked well for them, and that can be incorporated into the text.