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Old 10-19-2011, 07:39 AM   #1
kennyc
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Digital textbooks open a new chapter - South Korea

Digital textbooks open a new chapter
By Gary Eason

Gwesan, South Korea South Korea's classrooms will be switched to digital textbooks over the next four years

South Korea, one of the world's highest-rated education systems, aims to consolidate its position by digitising its entire curriculum.

By 2015, it wants to be able to deliver all its curriculum materials in a digital form through computers. The information that would once have been in paper textbooks will be delivered on screen.

South Korea's Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Ju-Ho Lee, said that his department was preparing a promotion strategy for "Smart Education", focusing on customised learning and teaching.

The project, launched during the summer, will involve wireless networks in all schools to allow students to learn "whenever and wherever", as well as an education information system that can run in a variety of devices including PCs, laptops, tablets and internet-connected TVs.

He said the government would support an open content market containing a variety of learning materials, aimed at keeping up quality while keeping down costs.

"Smart Education will change how we perceive textbooks," said Mr Lee.

"The transfer from the traditional paper textbooks to digital textbooks will allow students to leave behind their heavy backpacks and explore the world beyond the classroom."

More:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15175962
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Old 10-19-2011, 08:10 AM   #2
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I have wondered for years why our universities have not adopted this.
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Old 10-19-2011, 09:14 AM   #3
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Quote:
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I have wondered for years why our universities have not adopted this.
Apache
Some have, many on a limited basis because the books are not all always available as ebooks.
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Old 10-19-2011, 10:19 AM   #4
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Quote:
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I have wondered for years why our universities have not adopted this.
Apache
Probably a few reasons.

1.
Ereaders weren't ready. They still aren't quite ready. And the few that could conceivably be used for schoolwork are the most expensive. See #3.

2.
The publishers of college textbooks would rather make $200 a book than $50. It's true the production costs for the physical books is higher, but their profit margin is still bigger in a system where they can tweak the font and call it a "new edition" every semester and force teachers to use it, thus forcing students to use it. They can't do that with an ebook. I can't recall the number, but the percentage of textbooks that have gone digital is a small fraction. Conversely, the percentage of commercial books being released with a digital version available, or being digitized is shooting through the roof. College textbook publishers resisting, because it hurts their margins.

3.
A lot of colleges these days have had their budgets slashed to bare bones, with public schools losing as much as 50% of their funding over the last decade or so. Simultaneously, enrollment is spiking due in part to the Echo Boomers and in part to desperate unemployed career people trying to get extra training in the hopes it will help them find a job sometime before 2015.

In an environment where both schools and students are going broke, it's hard to imagine how it would be feasible to require every student to get a high-end ereader, or how the school would cover those who can't. It's true the textbooks cost almost as much as the reader, but a lot of students these days simply don't buy the textbooks and try to scrape by as best they can, or buy an "old" edition for a quarter of the money.

Textbook publishers make most of their money on freshman who don't know any better. But by the time they wise up, they're already staring down a mountain of debt and there's no way they're going to blow a couple hundred or more on a cutting edge reader - they're going to keep trying to get by with really old editions or no textbooks at all. And as incoming students get broker, even the freshman will be hard to sway. I was one of the freshman the publishers got, but I know others who simply don't have books.

Last edited by SmokeAndMirrors; 10-19-2011 at 10:34 AM.
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