Deutsch im Blick
"Deutsch im Blick" is rich in useful, relevant content and covers an appropriate amount of material for a first-year German textbook. The authors have included all of the essentials for language-learners at the elementary level--vocabulary, grammar, culture, language-context videos, and much more. At no point does the textbook seem to be cutting corners. It is fairly easy for the teacher/student to move between the different chapters and the various links, content headings, and index are helpful in navigating the overall content, which goes to almost 500 pages.
The book's explanations seem to be accurate and error-free. Sometimes the speakers in the videos make small grammar mistakes, e.g. when they are international students not yet fluent in German, but in general I do not consider that a big problem.
Overall, the relevance and longevity are good. At this point, however, some of the content is almost ten years old and eventually the writers/editors will have to update it, especially where the various video clips are concerned. (Those clips are part of what makes "Deutsch im Blick" so wonderful.)
The style of the textbook was quite clear. Grammar was explained concisely and was illustrated with relevant examples.
With its clear structure the textbook is very consistent. It takes some time to get used to the format of the book, because you're moving back and forth between the text and the website, but once you're familiar with the guiding elements/structures you'll find them repeated throughout in each of the chapters.
Overall, the modularity is excellent. The instructor will be able to divide up the sections of "Deutsch im Blick" for different assignments quite easily.
As remarked above, I did at times have difficulty moving from one part to another, or finding the right recording/video clip for an exercise. The flow between different elements is a question of design thinking and I think "Deutsch im Blick" would need some work here. I sometimes used the PDF of the textbook on the computer screen and in general that is not a pleasurable experience, especially if I'm trying to move from on part of the text to another. The hard copy of the text was very helpful here, though at times I was dissatisfied with that too. Sometime the size of the print really struck me as too small. That's not good for learners of a new language. If you have them squinting too much they'll be missing all sorts of letters, umlauts, commas, etc., and that matters.
I had some serious navigation problems. Most importantly, links for the interviews would not open up when I clicked on them. Other links opened as they were supposed to, but not these. Why was this? What was the problem? It's a major flaw and needs to be fixed as soon as possible. The QR codes at the end of each chapter allowed me to get what I needed--it's good to build in redundancy like that, and even more redundancy would be useful--but I needed the interface to be better than that.
I want to use a free textbook like this, but some of the interface/navigation problems give me pause.
The grammar was solid. I discovered no mistakes outside of the stray stray typo or oversight.
Culturally the textbook was very relevant. Both Switzerland and Austria are included in important ways in the text--so that students as learners of German don't become overly oriented towards Germany. The inclusion of international students was helpful as well. Overall, there is lots of very useful cultural information for everyday life in a German-speaking country. I would have liked to see a little more about the German-Turkish experience in Germany--and for that matter about the experience of non-White/non-Western immigrant communities in the German-speaking world. "Deutsch im Blick" was made before the immigration crisis in Europe and before Merkel allowed a million refugees into Germany, and if the authors/editors update the book I hope they'll integrate the immigrant experience a little more into the new edition.
Overall, I liked "Deutsch im Blick" a lot. For a free textbook it does a wonderful job. The videos, the Grimm grammar, the website, relevant readings, the integration of Quizlet--the textbook package here has so much to offer and easily holds its own against textbooks that cost students $250 or more. We have not yet adopted "Deutsch im Blick" at my university, but are seriously considering doing so. Our reservations have primarily to do with some interface and structure issues, which I noted above. I think that a few design tweaks could help a lot. And also: Would it be possible to create an entirely online/html version of the textbook, i.e. without the PDF? Or perhaps eventually an iPad format? Perhaps that's a tall order, but I hope the UT Austin team is able to continue building and enhancing what they have here.
And finally, there's also this: I think that overall the videos are great--but I really would have like to be able to click on a button and get the text, both in German and in English. The fact that that is not there is a real flaw in my opinion.