“It’s nonsensical – and expensive – to look to traditional hard-bound books when information today is so readily available in electronic form.
“… there are those who ardently defend the status quo, claiming our vision of providing (digital online) learning materials to students for free would risk a high-quality education.
“That’s nonsense. As the music and newspaper industries will attest, those who adapt quickly to changing consumer and business demands will thrive in our increasingly digital society and worldwide economy. Digital textbooks can help us achieve those goals and ensure that California’s students continue to thrive in the global marketplace.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Digital Textbooks Can Save Money, Improve Learning, The Blog, (California) Office of the Governor, June 7, 2009, captured June 14, 2009.
I am very much in favor of pursuing electronic textbooks, media, resources. It pains me to see ratty textbooks, sitting on shelves, and to have new ones adopted by a district. It is costly to keep on getting "new and pretty" textbooks when, really, the ones that are a few years old would be useful, but the real problem is with how quickly textbooks are out-of-date or weak in this age when a digital version is so dynamic. Video at your fingertips–listen to the researcher discuss his work. Thousands of photos–see before and after photos of a doctor and her work. Personal narratives–read the thoughts of politicians, theorists, artists, and your neighbor with ease and speed. I have a classroom web site that I use with my students. This web site has vidcasts and podcasts for parents and students to use for pre or post instruction. I also have all of my handouts and resources available so that we can continue the instruction outside of class. I rarely use my textbooks and, as my action research shows, my students are learning and being successful.Plus, and this is a pragmatic reason with little to do with education: paper textbooks are costly to manufacture, ship, and store. Of course that would rely on having computers and a system to support computers for every student in school. However, I would rather see the future and move toward that model rather than see a future need as a limitation.Consequently, when going through National Board Certification, all of my resources came on a web interactive CD-ROM (put CD in computer and navigate the CD but the CD will link to the web so that the information it provides is both accurate and current)
Welcome back to this blog, Travis. Yes, I too am glad to see use of digital, Flex Texts increasing in classrooms. Thanks for sharing your insights about using advancing communication technologies in your classroom and for your professional development. You always add thoughtful, practical comments. I think software developers who read this blog will find your comments useful. And, if I haven't said so before, I've meant to do so, congratulations for earning National Board Certification. I'm sure your students appreciate its results that benefit them.