Today, our kids get their information from the Internet, downloaded onto their iPods, and in Twitter feeds to their cell phones. A world of up-to-date information fits easily into their pockets and onto their computer screens. So why are California’s public school students still forced to lug around antiquated, heavy, expensive textbooks?
California is home to software giants, bioscience research pioneers and first-class university systems known around the world. But our students still learn from instructional materials in formats made possible by Gutenberg’s printing press.
It’s nonsensical — and expensive — to look to traditional hard-bound books when information today is so readily available in electronic form. Especially now, when our school districts are strapped for cash and our state budget deficit is forcing further cuts to classrooms, we must do everything we can to untie educators’ hands and free up dollars so that schools can do more with fewer resources.
Opinion piece continued here.
Other news stories on this topic
Schools may copy Arnold Schwarzenegger and junk their textbooks
California schoolbooks going digital
format for CA ebooks?
Wonder which format will win out? I think this is a good move, but wonder about infrastructure for getting it set up, since it seems there is no clear device that is best at this point….I also know kids lose, drop, and break things quite easily…hmmm…
Here’s a link to the arstechnia article on it:
(http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/06/open-source-digital-textbooks-coming-to-california-schools.ars)
Tony
http://www.libraryknowledge.com