When There's No Textbook

Our students did not receive their textbooks yet so what I did, since it's our first meeting, I did not start the class on the first day of school. I discussed class routines and the course introduction and year plan and decided to deliver the first lesson the next day. I asked my students to download a pdf copy of their textbook online. I also told them that they can bring their own tables or iPads with the downloaded files and they can use those gadgets in class.

I asked my brother Sandy who is teaching Exploring Technology what online drive he is using and he recommended docs.com and Google+. I opted to use the docs.com because Google is blocked in China and I will have a hard time explaining my students to get a VPN and explain the whole process. I remember I used Dropbox before but then again, it's blocked. I also gave two websites I created few years ago for references where they can download the textbook as well.

Anyways, once the QQ Class Group is set up, I can send and/or share the files easily. QQ is an online social media app famous in China. Around 2014, when Weebly.com became slow, I shifted to QQ instead of the maintaining a class website. It's actually efficient and effective since all students are online in QQ.

What resources do you use when there's no required or recommended textbook for your class? Any technology that can aid this issue?

“Teaching in the Internet age means we must teach tomorrow’s skills today.” – Jennifer Fleming