Today our kids get their information from the internet, downloaded
onto their iPods, and in Twitter feeds to their cell phones ... So why are
California's public school students still forced to
lug around antiquated, heavy, expensive textbooks?"
Today our kids get their information from the internet, downloaded
onto their iPods, and in Twitter feeds to their cell phones ... So why are
California's public school students still forced to
lug around antiquated, heavy, expensive textbooks?"
"That has probably been achieved mostly in the past 10 years. Ever since Tony
Blair came in and talked about 'education, education, education,' at least £2bn
has been invested in learning technology, and if things carry on in the same
vein, perhaps 40% of educational resources will be digital in 10 years time."
Publishers such as Hodder Education already offer a range of online resources
alongside conventional textbooks, and Pearson sells electronic versions of most
of its textbooks, either in interactive form, or as a straight portable document
format (pdf). Last year, Pearson earned £960m revenue from its digital products
and services – around a fifth of its total revenue.
replicate.
"You can flick back and forth in them quickly, you can scribble in them, it's
easy to share one between a number of students," she said. "Though theoretically
electronic textbooks can be much more interactive, the current reality is that a
lot of them are little more than pdf versions of the paper book," she added. "A
colleague of mine the other day got it right when he said that if you could
invent anything that's as powerful as the book in the next hundred years we'll
have done well."
"You can flick back and forth in them quickly, you can scribble in them, it's
easy to share one between a number of students," she said. "Though theoretically
electronic textbooks can be much more interactive, the current reality is that a
lot of them are little more than pdf versions of the paper book," she added. "A
colleague of mine the other day got it right when he said that if you could
invent anything that's as powerful as the book in the next hundred years we'll
have done well."