The Dallas Morning News: 'The end' for schoolbooks?

[Lady Blue]

Just spotted this interesting article on the front page of today's edition of The Dallas Morning News regarding text books in electronic form. They're mostly referring to viewing textbooks on a laptop, but they also mention the Kindle.

(hope this link works)

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...s.3c71f04.html

[GeoffC]

Welcome Lady Blue (Nice name by the way).

yes, the link worked; and they make much the same arguments for, as we on here make frequently.....

[zelda_pinwheel]

thanks for the link ! that is an excellent article and very encouraging. we've often talked about the advantages of ebooks en education here and that article makes some very good points, including pointing out that the best solutions is doubtless a mix of both paper and ebooks depending on the context.

it's great to see that texas is so forward-thinking in this area ; it's a big state so could have quite a lot of weight with the industry if they throw their support into this area, and help move things forward much more quickly for educational materials delivered digitally. and learning to use technology from a young age will be more and more important for students in the future as well as it's becoming crucial to so many professional situations.

[S.Canton]

Thanks for pointing this out, the article was rather interesting. I think that from a purely economic standpoint, that using electronic reading devices will end up being a lot more economical.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

it's great to see that texas is so forward-thinking in this area ...

Texas may be forward-thinking, but I heard a lot of the same excuses from the rep for the Association of American Publishers, as well as an outright prevarication:

Diskey said publishers have been moving into the digital age as quickly as other industries...

This, combined with excuses like his "not everyone has a laptop yet," and Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro's comment that "Not everyone is ready to do 21st-century technology" (well, when do you think is the perfect time to teach them?), indicate that there's still plenty of resistance to go around.

[saoir]

Originally Posted by Lady Blue

Just spotted this interesting article on the front page of today's edition of The Dallas Morning News regarding text books in electronic form. They're mostly referring to viewing textbooks on a laptop, but they also mention the Kindle.

An interesting sector of the market. As a father of a 16yo in tandem with my own education years, I have learned how much of a racket the school book market is. The inflated prices, the insider dealing between teacher/authors, their books, and the farce of totally unjustified 'new versions' coming out every year.
I would guess this will be a big sacred cow for this sector of the publishing industry and a real test of the power of users.

The advantages are enormous. Large bags of books and the inevitable losses of them by students during the year. And the biggest gain in my personal view is the widespread physical damage being done to the backs of students around the world by these huge books.

Saoir