Korea plans to eliminate textbooks in schools by 2015

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by RainingLemur

Somehow, America made celebrities out of Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton...

I think that being a superb Starcraft player is good enough for celebrity-dom.

I think the Starcraft players are more deserving, if anything. However, it is particularly digital in nature; hence the reference.

[readingglasses]

Originally Posted by gastan

What I'm hoping for from this is that, with that much money being tossed around, maybe ... just maybe ... someone there will finally come up with a decent pdf reader app.

Or an ereader that can display complex fonts properly!

Who said LCDs don't burn out your eyes? Of course they do! THey just don't set them in flames, but they're awful for your eyes. I can read lots on an LCD. But I can't read an entire history book.

This plan makes itself one sided by its very nature. To "transition to electronic books" means to get rid of paper books. Because just "adding some electronic resources" wouldn't be as zippy an idea. It would just be normal way to add more tools to teaching. That's not the way this stuff goes, it always has to be all or nothing, when big public policy is concerned. As recent, a-hem, "events" have shown.

And so long as we're considering balance, can't we want both kinds of meaningless, minor celebrity? Those who use their brains for small achievements like game play and those who offer unsatisfactory but still palpable sex appeal? I don't see why I should have to choose between a starcraft player and kardashianboobs/parisblonde. Frankly, I don't really want either.

There's obviously an advantage to electronic networked data. But you really have to do no research not to know that flipping through a complicated book is both more physically interactive and requires more concentration/patience. That's good for thinking and learning. You use a computer catalogue to find more books, true.
Of course, most adults who have transitioned to sitting in front of a computer screen and never touch bound matter are likely to have forgotten all about that. Technology for its own sake, huh?

You can love these ebooks and the web all you want, they just don't live up to the hype.

Cue obvious points about how "the web is really awesome bc..." as if I didn't know.

I can see the point about how some students might find more sex appeal in a glitzy tablet computer and thus be motivated to read/do exercises that they wouldn't on paper. I think EVERYBODY HERE can relate to that.

[readingglasses]

tl:dr