California schoolbooks going digital
June 9, 2009
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, seen here on June 02, has announced plans to phase out school textbooks in favor of digital learning aids as the state looks to plug its massive budget hole.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced plans to phase out school textbooks in favor of digital learning aids as the state looks to plug its massive budget hole.
The measure -- dubbed the Digital Textbook Initiative -- will see California schoolchildren ditch "outdated" traditional maths and science textbooks for digital versions later this year, Schwarzenegger said.
"Kids, as you all know, today are very familiar with listening to their music digitally and online and to watch TV online, to watch movies online, to be on Twitter and participate in that and on Facebook," Schwarzenegger said.
"So this is why I think it is so important that we move on from the textbooks," the Republican Governor told schoolchildren in Sacramento on Monday according to remarks released by his office.
"The textbooks are outdated, as far as I'm concerned, and there's no reason why our schools should have our students lug around these antiquated and heavy and expensive textbooks.
"California is the home of Silicon Valley. We are the world leader in technology and innovation, so we can do better than that."
California is the first state in the United States to introduce such an initiative, Schwarzenegger said. The move comes as Schwarzenegger looks to slash spending across a range of sectors in a bid to narrow California's projected 24 billion dollar budget deficit.
With the average price of a school textbook coming in it around 100 dollars, Schwarzenegger said initial savings from the plan would be between 300-400 million dollars. If the scheme was widened to cover more subjects, hundreds of millions more would be trimmed from the annual budget, he said.
"I know this is, of course, a dramatic shift from the status quo and there is some resistance in some cases," Schwarzenegger said.
"But I feel that this is the wrong time now to hold onto the status quo, because this is one of the worst economic and financial crises that the state has been in since the Great Depression.
"The state has a tremendous lack of money; therefore we had to make severe cuts to schools, billions of dollars of cuts, so we have to find every possible way to think outside the box."
(c) 2009 AFP
Apr 28, 2009 |
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"In 2006, bookbinders and bindery workers held about 72,000 jobs, including 7,200 as skilled bookbinders and 65,000 as bindery workers. More than 3 out of 4 bookbinding and bindery jobs are in printing and related support activities." (http://www.bls.go...32.htm).
In essence the idea is to reduce the number of bodies in a craft industry to that of off shore (child labor) workers building cheep liquid paper devices (eBook readers)...
I actually agree eBooks are a far better idea because of the ability to interact with the medium by searching and alike. Kids learn better when they can explore the content more institutively then what an editor might have imagined.
The problem is the government does not evolve with the times,.. they don't have to compete, so there is no motivation to improve.
With that in mind, ...THE ENTIRE SCHOOL SYSTEM SHOULD HAVE BEEN PUT ONLINE BY NOW, ...it's 2009!
No more physical schools, buses, or teachers unions, ... only a testing center every hundred miles. The existing school system is comically inefficient in both money and time wasted.
...and those who don't have internet access, THEY can pay for a tutor.
Ok, but with the way it's going, the laptop will be about $200 or so. The cost of 2-3 schoolbooks.
For every way that you can break a computer, I can think of two to destroy a book. At least computers can be made waterproof.