Week 3 - Digital Textbooks

The Digital Textbooks link really caught my interest this week. In fact, I followed most of the secondary links, and then did a little research on my own to find out more about this method of getting information to our students.

It seems that nearly every summer our school puts out thousands of dollars to purchase new textbooks. Textbooks are incredibly expensive! Along with the expense, there are other issues to consider:

1. How long will it take before the books are outdated and must be replaced?
2. Do we really get all the information we need for a class from one textbook? Yet we invest a major portion of our budget on purchasing it.
3. Running short of books can cause a student to fall behind until a new book can be ordered and shipped.
4. A printed version of a book is static. I cannot be updated and revised with new facts, or ongoing research results.
5. Kids lug enormously heavy book bags from one class to another. Is this a health risk?

So, when I read about Tucson, Arizona, actually having a textbook-free public high school, I was very interested. The high school's website had interesting information on how the teachers collaborate, and a little about the use of wikis and other internet resources, but it didn't give much in the way of what they use in the place of textbooks. I'm sure they have it all worked out, but I'd like to learn more about how the students function in their classes.

Consequently, I guess I came away with more questions than answers. Are the students all required to have a laptop computer? Do students have electronic versions of textbooks, or do the teachers download and print information for them?

California's Digital Textbook initiative seems to be focused on allowing students to download actual textbooks onto a Kindle, or a similar device. Their motivation appears to be twofold — #1 The need to lower the rising costs of education; #2 Providing access to the latest, up-to-date information, especially in scientific areas.

I'm definitely interested in seeing what happens with this idea. I'll be watching for what may be available to our private schools, as well. I'm wondering if "free" means free to all schools, or only to the public schools. If a new resource makes textbooks less expensive and keeps the information up-to-date, then it's sounding pretty good to me!