California To Move To Online Textbooks

Hugh Pickens writes "Last year California spent $350m on textbooks so facing a state budget shortfall of $24.3 billion, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has unveiled a plan to save money by phasing out 'antiquated, heavy, expensive textbooks' in favor of internet aids. Schwarzenegger believes internet activities such as Facebook, Twitter and downloading to iPods show that young people are the first to adopt new online technologies and that the internet is the best way to learn in classrooms so from the beginning of the school year in August, math and science students in California's high schools will have access to online texts that have passed an academic standards review. 'It's nonsensical — and expensive — to look to traditional hard-bound books when information today is so readily available in electronic form,' writes Schwarzenegger. 'As the music and newspaper industries will attest, those who adapt quickly to changing consumer and business demands will thrive in our increasingly digital society and worldwide economy. Digital textbooks can help us achieve those goals and ensure that California's students continue to thrive in the global marketplace.'"

Comments

OLPC?

[i.r.id10t]

So are they gonna provide students a method of using these electronic resources, like a OLPC?

Re:OLPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course not - teachers will merely go to these online aides and hit the "Print" button.

What can go wrong?

Re:OLPC?

[Mr_eX9]

I know that there are publishers that make their textbooks available in a web-based format, such as Wiley...but Wiley's textbooks have gotten pretty terrible, at least at college level. Hopefully California will be able to find a better product in this vein.

Re:OLPC?

[uncledrax]

Yeap.. I was just going to post the same thing.. we as /. users are definitely on the tech side.. but lets remember not everyone has or can afford Internet access and the things to go with it (like a computer).

So really one must weight the cost of those dead-trees verses limited access mitigation like enhancing computer labs at schools, offering after-hours lab time, or even like you said, buying inexpensive netbooks for school (which you -know- will end up getting lost/damaged often so will need to be replaced.. plus who is gonna run the tech support for them when they get full of virii (or if they are linux, doing something like "rm -rf /")).

I'm very much for progress and technological evolution.... but we just got to realize there are still issues with doing it.

Re:OLPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or OSPC.

(one Skynet per child)

Re:OLPC?

[GreenTech11]

And the schools will charge the printing costs to the California Government, costing $360 million. Problem solved.

Re:OLPC?

[Idiomatick]

doing something like "rm -rf /"

Come on! It was just the one time, I was drunk and curious at the time, I swore I'd never do it again.

Re:OLPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

Schools have computers, and for the freaks who want to study in their spare time, libraries have computers to. The "Not everybody has access to the internet" argument works in 3'rd world contries, but not in the USA, Everybody DOES have access to the internet, even those who don't have access to a fancy laptop.
Crying out for laptops is like crying out for hardbound books, the papereditions will do quite fine.

Re:OLPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

sure not everybody can afford online access but many already have it. The schools can have online access for those that do not, then for those that cannot afford it you can still have the books available to those in need or you can print out a copy. I am sure they have thought of this issue. I am also sure that it will slowly get phased in. There are always solutions to problems but going this route can save money that should be going to other things that can greatly increase the educational needs of the students. For how intelligent /. users are supposed to be I am greatly disappointed in the lack of creativity and pessimistic attitude.

Re:OLPC?

[cayenne8]

"And the schools will charge the printing costs to the California Government, costing $360 million. Problem solved."

Not to mention, every time a schoolchild uses the excuse "the dog ate my netbook"...that'll cost the state another $250 or so.

Re:OLPC?

[ShakaUVM]

The "Not everybody has access to the internet" argument works in 3'rd world contries, but not in the USA, Everybody DOES have access to the internet, even those who don't have access to a fancy laptop.

Incorrect. My mother wrote and ran the Borderlink Project (http://www.borderlink.org/), which was a multi-million dollar technology grant for the rural and needy areas of southern California. Believe it or not, most of socal doesn't look like the OC - at some of the schools she worked with (near Warner Springs), the schools opened early so that kids could come to school early to take showers. 3rd world countries, indeed.

And if you're making the logical connection that kids that don't have showers, who live 30 miles away from the school up backcountry roads, don't have internet access, why, you'd be right. From what I remember working with a school district in Calexico (in the desert near the border), home computer access was around 30%, with around 60% having TV (and a slightly lower number having a Playstation or similar system), and 80% with phones.

I don't see how these kids would benefit at all from electronic textbooks. While I never really read my textbooks when I was in school, I think that students at least should be guaranteed access to the texts.

Re:OLPC?

[diskofish]

I agree with you in that it could potentially be a problem, but it wouldn't be hard to do right. Printing doesn't really cost that much. Spending $10 to print and spiralbind a textbook is a lot cheaper than paying $150 for a hardcover version. Need someone to print and do the binding? Hire students over the summer and on breaks and have them do the work.

Re:OLPC?

[2obvious4u]

What are you guys talking about? A text book costs more than a computer, how is this even an issue? Seems like a no-brainer to me. A freaking Kindle DX is cheaper than most text books... How about one Kindle per child?

Re:OLPC?

[Attila Dimedici]

. I am sure they have thought of this issue. I am also sure that it will slowly get phased in. .

You do realize that this is the government we are talking about? Right? What makes you so sure they have thought things through on this?
It is certainly not a conclusion based on past experience.

Re:OLPC?

[jekewa]

While a computer-based solution, like OLPC, would be dandy, it may be overkill, as I'm sure some will point out. Instead, use a device that takes advantage of "e-paper" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_paper) such as the Amazon Kindle (http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Amazons-Original-Wireless-generation/dp/B000FI73MA) or Sony Reader (http://www.sony.com/reader). The current $200-400 price tag puts the current selections in the realm of "just get a cheap computer," but perhaps with the volume necessary the production could go up, allowing costs to be driven down, bringing these to within reasonable for every student. Especially when considering that students with a computer, PDA, phone, or other device capable of document handling wouldn't necessarily need such a device.

Re:OLPC?

[gnick]

Agreed - Printing is much cheaper than buying a hard bound version.

And, for those of you complaining about computers/Internet access, compare the cost of 1 semester's worth of books to the price of a cheap PC and a semester's worth of Internet access. You might be surprised. Heck, PC + Internet + printing/binding may still be significantly than my book costs some semesters - And you only have to buy the PC once (hopefully).

Re:OLPC?

[ILongForDarkness]

but lets remember not everyone has or can afford Internet access and the things to go with it (like a computer)

Not only that, but if you already have a computer at home you'll probably need a second one. After all, if your kid is tied to the computer for hours a day doing their homework, you no longer have a computer your kid does. So to save the government the cost of providing course materials to the kids, at least part of the cost is being passed off to the parents via the need for computer, internet connectivity etc. Also, teachers like to have kids read out of the book in class, does this mean that every class will need enough computers for everyone? Or are they going to supply the kids with Kindles or something?

Re:OLPC?

[Trahloc]

I was took printshop when I was in highschool. I'm sure just about all school districts have access to a printshop or a neighbor school district does so your right on the money. High school students these days if I recall *have* to do community service to graduate. So have them help print the school books for the district and count that time towards the community service.

Re:OLPC?

[wisty]

Printing yourself is cheap and nasty. The paper goes manky much sooner, it's not as well printed, and it's much heavier per page.

There is a reason why hardcover books are still, despite the fact that they cost more - they are much more durable. (Although, like big cars I expect the manufacturer makes more on the margin ... )

Printouts are good for worksheets (which you throw away anyway), and books that you won't actually use, and maybe specialist topics (where 30 people in the world will read it), and for stuff that goes out of date the moment it's printed (like most economics, these days), but not Math and Science.

Re:OLPC?

[mea37]

It's not really a question of whether a specific group of children will benefit.

It's a question of, can we prevent any group of children from being hurt by the move, and is there a net benefit? Here the driver is cost - and don't get me wrong, I'll be the first to say that a rush to technology to save a buck can be a disaster.

That said, none of the issues people are raising are show-stoppers. We're talking about books, not dynamic content, so internet access need not be a requirement. ("But if you had the ineternet, think of all the cool value adds..." Yes, but right now we're just trying to save resources without putting extra burden on any children. Doing too much too fast is one of the easiest ways for this to go wrong.) School-provided hardware, done the right way, could save money over school-provided books. The computer doesn't have to be a general-purpose PC, so the tech support environment can be kept dirt simple.

Yes, they need to think this through and proceed carefully. Let's save the pointing and laughing until we see whether they do or not.

Re:OLPC?

[Trojan35]

Hmm... if I recall, a $200 used laptop and a local library card that gives you wifi access is a whole lot cheaper than what I used to pay in text books... text books that would be an "old" revision next year and completely unsellable. And by "old" i mean they changed the order of the questions at the end of the chapter to force everyone to buy the new textbook.

Re:OLPC?

[rho]

More importantly, what about a UPS?

California: land of the electronic textbook AND rolling blackouts.

Re:OLPC?

[PalmKiller]

The durability is not a big deal really. The schools change to the new revision as soon as it is out, and thats normally every year or two, and colleges change revisions sometimes semester to semester. So it only has to be readable once.

Re:OLPC?

[addsalt]

Spending $10 to print and spiralbind a textbook is a lot cheaper than paying $150 for a hardcover version.

While I have no data to back it up, I would have to believe that it is less expensive to have one publishing company produce all the hardbound books and ship them than it is for each school district to print 100 at Kinkos and spiral bound it. Economies of scale need to come into effect.

The remainder of the money goes to the publisher and author(s). Even in our School Textbook 2.0 world, they both would need to get paid. I would be hard pressed to believe that with the same profit margins this could turn out to be less expensive in the end.

Re:OLPC?

[Endo13]

Yeah, and who would ever want or need to do homework at a place where there's no computer available? Seriously, spending time outside on a nice day is so overrated.

Re:OLPC?

[vux984]

Printouts are good for worksheets (which you throw away anyway), and books that you won't actually use, [ ... ] but not Math and Science

1) Does anyone refer to their 8th grade math textbook all that often?

2) Did anyone ever read their entire 8th grade math book even in the 8th grade? I recall consistently covering less than half the material in any given text book, when I went to school.

Re:OLPC?

[sgt scrub]

There is an ever growing number of schools going to 1 to 1 programs (each student with a laptop). The biggest issues confronting the schools that have made the switch is bandwidth. Students tend not to do things to destroy laptops they are going to use all year. If the telco's would run fiber to schools, then branch it out to area households, the biggest problem would go away and the telco's could profit from it.

Re:OLPC?

[SignalFreq]

Agreed - Printing is much cheaper than buying a hard bound version.

The problem with this argument is that printouts are not likely to be used multiple years in a row. The cost of a hard bound book is distributed over a period of many years (sometimes as much as 15), whereas you'll be reprinting almost every year.

My take on it is this:

Average junior high books:
Language Arts
Science
Math
Social Studies
Maybe Foreign Language/Art/or Music

At $100 a book, that's $500 per student initial investment. Expected lifespan, say 7 years? So rounded up to ~$75 per student per year.

At $250 per netbook, that's half the initial investment. Expected lifespan, say 3-4 years? So rounded up to ~$75 per student per year.

So their is probably minimal cost savings.

Primary benefits: Increased technology in the classroom, constantly updated online textbook material, saved some trees
Drawbacks: Stolen/damaged netbooks, netbook lifespan may be optimistic, school network infrastructure will need upgrades also

Can anyone think of more pros/cons?

Given the trend toward technology in the workplace, I think it's a good idea. But I don't think it will save money.

Re:OLPC?

[AceofSpades19]

(or if they are linux, doing something like "rm -rf /")).

Just don't give the root access, then they can't do that.

Re:OLPC?

[ByOhTek]

But, I think this is at the grade school level, not the college level. Which means, a new copy will be printed, at minimum, once a year. At that point, it becomes a question of how many years the books are expected to last, at somewhere between 5 and 10 years average life expectancy of the books, it'll be cheaper to print than buy (I'm taking that $150 estimate as WAY too high for a grade school book - college text books, except in a few 'high end' fields - specialties in some of the harder sciences and medicines, don't even cost that much.

http://www.nyla.org/index.php?page_id=1520

If that is accurate, and we assume 1/3 ream of paper ($15 ream / $5 book?) per book, no ink costs, no printer maintenance, no licensing fees, then we get the same cost in 4-5 years from printing as we do from standard text books over their lifetimes. Given a standard textbook as 4-5 times that in lifetime from the article... This will SIGNIFICANTLY increase costs.

Re:OLPC?

[the phantom]

I would be really curious to know where you went to high school, and how your school was able to afford new editions every year. Where I teach, we are lucky to get new math books once in a decade. We might get some NCLB money to buy new books next year to replace our five year old texts, but we aren't counting on it.

Re:OLPC?

[camperdave]

Does anyone refer to their 8th grade math textbook all that often?
Well, not my math book, but I have cracked a grade school reader once or twice to read a story. Also, I reference my highschool physics text every so often.

Re:OLPC?

[Trahloc]

If you get books once in a decade wouldn't it be nice to be able to have a new book every year? Instead paying $100+ per book that becomes out dated in 2 years and isn't replaced in 10 years you spend ~$10/year on a new book handed to each student at the beginning of the year? When I was going to school there were classes where we weren't allowed to take the books home because there was a shortage of them, if the books were available online or with a simple materials cost I could have had my very own copy which I could markup and put notes in without a care. I'd think if anything you should be the first person in line supporting the transition.

Re:OLPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course WE are. This is government after all. When the public foots the bill there's no shortage of screwy ideas you can put into action.

Re:OLPC?

[Trahloc]

The pros you offered outweigh the cons to such an extent that even if it was twice the cost (which i sincerely doubt) it would warrant the transition. Although personally I don't like the idea of purchasing netbooks for class learning, I'd rather lean towards something like the bebook.

Re:OLPC?

[ThinkWeak]

What about using something like the Kindle? I haven't heard of any virii making their way onto it and it could be a win-win for Amazon and California. You just need the scholastic textbooks to be available via Amazon.

Re:OLPC?

[somersault]

if they are linux, doing something like "rm -rf /"

Probably nobody, since it'll do fsck all if they aren't root - they might lose their homework or something but that's their own fault.

Re:OLPC?

[tattood]

I dont know about you, but I dont like reading lengthy documents on a computer screen. Yes, I spend all day looking at a computer screen at work, but if I have to read a manual or a training document, I prefer to read a paper copy than an online version. Online is good for searching for a particular word, but if you have to read a chapter, it's easier to read it on paper. Also, and I have no data to back this up, I think that looking at a computer screen causes more eye strain than looking at a printed copy. There is also the repetitive motion of having to click the mouse or trackpad or page-down button while they are reading their homework assignment. With the size of the computer screens, you will be clicking every few second to scroll the page, compared to turning a page every few minutes or so. Is the next generation of kids going to end up getting carpal tunnel syndrome at age 18?

On another note, if all the books are online, how are kids going to draw mustaches on all the pictures in their history books? :)

Re:OLPC?

[DomNF15]

When I was in grammar/high school I would refer to my notes way more frequently than the textbook...

Re:OLPC?

[pluther]

It will only increase costs if people print the entire text book every year.

I can see some students occasionally printing some pages, but why on earth would anyone, let alone everyone, print the whole thing?

Kids these days are pretty much perfectly happy reading content online. Sure, you get the occasional freak who prefers paper books, but that's hardly the majority. Get an e-reader that allows markup, and you can even take notes directly in the "book". To say nothing of the increased search power in an electronic copy.

Re:OLPC?

[DomNF15]

The Kindle or something similar is probably the right way to go - I personally would have preferred something like that as opposed to 40-50 lbs of textbooks in my backpack every afternoon.

Re:OLPC?

[tattood]

Schools don't use Kinkos, or even normal copy machines. Didn't you ever see the copy room at your school with that big machine with the wheel that spins when it prints copies? And ohhh, that newly printed smell.... mmmm... Anyway, they have much more cost-effective ways to print than normal copy machines.

At any rate, I would think that if the schools made the decision to move to electronic copies, they would have a policy that prevents teachers from using school resources to print hard copies, except for special cases. Now, if the teacher/parent wants to spend their own money to print a paper copy, then fine. The school isn't paying for it then.

Re:OLPC?

[Rolgar]

Even if budgeted a million dollars, divided by 450,000 students in the grade that would be using the book, the development cost of the text would be $2 per student.

One high school teacher I talked to said text book selection is a very political exercise. But with the above numbers, the state could probably develop 3-5 texts for each subject for the million dollar cost, and the individual teachers could use any of the texts since they would all be approved for use by the state.

Re:OLPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course not. Only those who can afford it, deserve education, after all. You cannot afford a laptop and book licenses for all your children? Oh nevermind there's always a minimum-wage job for them around.

It would be funny if other countries wouldn't usually follow the USA's lead to dumb down people.

Re:OLPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

Math? What part of 1+1=2 has changed in the past 10 years? Or 5 years for that matter.

Yeah yeah, you do more complex stuff than 1+1=2 but it's math - this shit doesn't change!

Re:OLPC?

[Ex-MislTech]

Take it a step further, college classes are being done online, and kids who do well
get the option to do school work from home at their own pace instead of listening
to some teacher monotonously read from the book.

The problem is, then they will need less teachers.

Potentially a LOT less teachers, and that will cause a $h1tstorm.

After awhile of this you could close half the physical schools as well, saving huge amounts of money.

The physical schools would be attended by those who cannot do well on their own,
and need face 2 face assistance from a teacher, or whose parents insist on the
state providing school as a daycare.

Imagine doing your home work at the pool, listening to your mp3 player,
with something like a kindle at your pace instead of waiting for the class
clown to interrupt 5 times, or worrying if the 1,000+ kids in your school
have the latest SARS, SWINE, BIRD flu....

I so wish I had this in my high school days.

Re:OLPC?

[DragonWriter]

much. Spending $10 to print and spiralbind a textbook is a lot cheaper than paying $150 for a hardcover version.

Well, except that the hardcovers rarely cost that much, printing and spiral binding rarely costs that little, and a printed-and-spiralbound copy will be far less durable than a hardcover. Unlike universities, which require students to buy books and thus have no problem requiring a new version every other year (or sometimes every year), public schools often use the same book for many years.

Need someone to print and do the binding? Hire students over the summer and on breaks and have them do the work.

Which will probably, due to reduced efficiency and greater supervision costs, increase the costs beyond what they would otherwise be if the printing and binding was done either by regular paid staff or outsourced to a commercial vendor.

Re:OLPC?

[Kibblet]

What about the poor children? Sure, pay for internet at home, but sometimes these families go for some time without electric. Then what? Can't use it, can't charge it. What about risk of mugging? There is a dollar value, you can figure in you have to replace X due to theft, but what about the damage to body, and mind, when that happens? And what about rural areas with shitty connections? The other night a number of students of mine had an assignment due, and we all had to use noodletools, which is fantastic, but online only. Mediacom went out for much of the area, for much of the night. Way too many of us suffered from lack of sleep waiting for the internet to come back on, so we could finish our work. I would have gone to the downtown campus of my school? BUt they use mediacom. Library? Mediacom? Free wireless? Mediacom. Oh, and imagine reading textbooks on a netbook. I'm on one now and I don't relish the thought.

Re:OLPC?

[mdarksbane]

And honestly, is there any reason to replace most school textbooks if they haven't been ripped to shreds?

History - at least in my school, we almost never covered anything more current than world war II. I don't think what happened in the American Revolution has changed significantly in five years. And really current events should be using current journalism rather than a textbook anyway.

Math - Primary and secondary school math was pretty completely defined hundreds of years ago. All new textbooks add is different methods of teaching it, none of which have been proven to actually be better in a long-term sense.

Literature - Again, in school you're reading classics, not keeping up with the New York Times bestsellers. Heck, most literature books are just for convenience anyway - the vast majority of it is all public domain and available on Project Gutenberg or something similar. Similarly, most classes read the same novels every year or allow the students to go find a book on their own to read.

Science - There have been no scientific advances in the last twenty years that will actually be covered in secondary school. The old scientific literature, combined with a few periodicals for some of the "wow" factor of modern science, should be fine.

The only field where I can see an advantage to updating textbooks is in the computer science classes - and all computer science classes by definition already have a computer in them to access the vast quantity of web-available information.

I know this idea is anathema to the textbook industry, but seriously, what have they changed in the actual core textbooks aside from graphics and layout styles?

I'm all for adding new online worksheets or test generators or that sort of thing to make teachers lives easier, but that should have nothing to do with having to spend $100 on a new book.

Re:OLPC?

[pyrelite]

Yeap.. I was just going to post the same thing.. we as /. users are definitely on the tech side.. but lets remember not everyone has or can afford Internet access and the things to go with it (like a computer).

So really one must weight the cost of those dead-trees verses limited access mitigation like enhancing computer labs at schools, offering after-hours lab time, or even like you said, buying inexpensive netbooks for school (which you -know- will end up getting lost/damaged often so will need to be replaced.. plus who is gonna run the tech support for them when they get full of virii (or if they are linux, doing something like "rm -rf /")).

I'm very much for progress and technological evolution.... but we just got to realize there are still issues with doing it.

As far as internet access goes, I cannot think of any schools that do not provide internet access for free on campus. And even if you had to replace an inepensive netbook every semester, netbooks are around what, $300-$400 maybe? It's not uncommon for students to pay $600-$900 a semester for books. It still ends up being remarkably cheaper. Most schools also already offer tech support to students for a very small cost. You only have to enhance computer labs once to make them compatible, where as making new textbooks is a never ending process.

Re:OLPC?

[mabhatter654]

How about a Kindle! It's exactly the kind of thing schools should be looking into. It would be trivial to build tests that could include nice buttons and text entries. It's low power, locked down, and simple. They could make a school version that used a private radio channel rather than the phone network so updates could be pushed by the school directly.

Re:OLPC?

[tkohler]

Hmmm... You all seem to be under the impression that the high cost of textbooks has something to do with the production cost of the media. If that were the case, then eBooks and MP3s of audiobooks would be much cheaper than their hardcover comrades. A quick review of Amazon.com shows that to not be the case. Textbooks are a racket. Read Feynman for some anecdotes about this: http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm

Re:OLPC?

[mabhatter654]

The only reason to BUY new textbooks is to update learning styles and integration of classes that varies (i.e. making math and physics books "match" topics)

but that's the very same thing you can do MORE easily with e-textbooks. In fact you could pay the state-funded universities to keep the facts straight and let teachers reformat the actual books as needed.. after all, it's all just pages in a database pushed to a "book", right, just like Wikipedia.

Re:OLPC?

[geekoid]

Printing them would be stupid and create MORE work for the teachers.

Why netbooks at all? Kids can sue there computers at home to create reports and look up data and email them to their teachers. If the children don't have net access at home, then they can use the schools library, or their local library computers.

The potential to completely change the educational landscape for the better is huge.
There are schools whose don't ahve a text book per child, and have texts books over 10 years old. A proper implementations of an online resource could mean all kids have up to date and accurate information at all times.

It also ends a single state dictating what goes into a text book, remove the stranglehold the text book industry has on this nations schools, and makes the teachers job easier.

http://harns.blogspot.com/2008/07/so-obvious-and-yet-so-not-done.html

Re:OLPC?

[stewbacca]

Heck, PC + Internet + printing/binding may still be significantly than my book costs some semesters

a) More

b) Less

Which is it?

Re:OLPC?

[geekoid]

Please, this is no different then when typing was mandated. Don't have a typewriter? use the schools lab, library, or your local library. Same thing.

Computers and internet access are SUBSTANTIALLY cheap then books.
Yes, the overall cost of text books in money, accuracy, distribution and political positioning are a lot more thern the 500 bucks for the books.

Let the education industry create the material. Remove the textbooks companies completly out of the picture. Let them die, the deserve nothing less.

Re:OLPC?

[stewbacca]

Less than half? I'd say less than 25%...and even then, 95% of that 25% was the answer pages in the back.

Re:OLPC?

[Tetsujin]

Printing them would be stupid and create MORE work for the teachers.

Why netbooks at all? Kids can sue there computers at home to create reports

They could also sue their English teachers for failing to teach 'em right...

Re:OLPC?

[Aazzkkimm]

Printing is much cheaper the first time, but a hardcover usually lasts much longer. I would imagine that these books would probably have to be printed every year.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. Students would always have the most up-to-date version.

Also, who pays for the PC? The parents? If that's the case, then it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper for the state just to have them buy the book in the first place.

Re:OLPC?

[ByOhTek]

maybe, but the kids printing it aren't the problem, they probably won't be printing it on school printers - it's the teachers printing & handing out.

Also, you can mark up your own print outs just as easily as a computer screen (or easier, depending on what you are trying to mark, and your skill set).

Finally the group of people that finds electronic documents great for reference (searchable) but lousy for through-reading is still a sizable minority.

It might save money, but I'm rather suspicious, that's all, especially if you add in costs for think like ink, printer maintenance, etc, you are probably limited to printing out under 10% of the book per year to keep it cost-effective.

Re:OLPC?

[Tetsujin]

The Kindle or something similar is probably the right way to go - I personally would have preferred something like that as opposed to 40-50 lbs of textbooks in my backpack every afternoon.

Well, my backpacks did tend to wear out from the large number of books in 'em - plus my tendency to use just one shoulder strap most of the time - so I can kind of see where you're at, there... Besides which, I was a computer geek and I would have loved any kind of portable computer that could do that kind of stuff - (I didn't have much portable computer tech back then, just an old Model 100) - even if it wasn't quite as practical as the simpler alternative.

But to me, the idea of going to e-books seems horribly premature. An e-book has to work hard to do things that are quite natural for a paper book - things like letting the reader flip through pages quickly, or hold their place somewhere while jumping back to another chapter for reference... Plus simple things like being legible in different kinds of light, and providing sufficient resolution for the information on the page. A book is a very tactile thing, and as such it's a much more natural interface. A book also doesn't have to be started up, shut down, or recharged. Of course e-books have advantages, too - weight, as you said - plus automated features like search...

But there's also the technology aspect to consider. How smart are these devices going to look three years from now? The technology is still moving pretty briskly - I don't think it's too sensible to invest too much in today's version.

Re:OLPC?

[stewbacca]

And if you're making the logical connection that kids that don't have showers, who live 30 miles away from the school up backcountry roads, don't have internet access, why, you'd be right.

Incorrect!!!!! I'm at work right now and can't get to it, but I have the US Department of Education statistics (through 2006) breakdown of Internet access in schools. The lowest access demographic is still near 95%. That means, on the average, the WORST demographic in the US still has a 95% access rate.

Sure, that doesn't do anything for that other 5% without access, but it's time to move beyond the myth of the "digital divide". Frankly, "most" schools in America DO have access to the Internet, and it is around 95% for every demographic group. Poorly performing schools need to stop using this excuse, because it simply isn't true.

Now, knowing how to use the Internet to improve learning is another discussion altogether, but access is NOT the problem. Also, access at home IS a problem. Kids with Internet/computer at home are much better off than those who would have to stay at school longer or go to the public library.

This is such an annoying misconception that I actually feel compelled (for once) to go home, find the study and properly cite it!!!

Re:OLPC?

[stewbacca]

OK, I'm so passionate about this topic, I bothered myself to search for something to cite while at work. I correct myself, and update the worst school Internet access from 95% to 97%... in 2001!!!

So this means practically every school in America has Internet access. The statistic is staggeringly surprising to me still, three years after I learned of it.

Notice too, how "rural" schools are listed at 100 percent access (rounded up from more than 99.5). The lowest access is actually "city".

Perhaps more pertinent to this conversation is how many kids actually have access to this nearly 100% Internet access rate. Well, that is addressed in another table, which lists percentage of classrooms that have Internet access. Again, the worst demographic in 2001!!! is at 79%, which is still "most" in my book. Certainly the numbers in this list, while already pretty high, even for 2001, have only gone up as of the 2006 study I wanted to cite in my previous post.

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/2002018.pdf Go to the "Tables of Estimates and Standard Errors" section, pages 14 and 16.

Re:OLPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the expensive part of the text book was the actual educational stuff that is printed on the pages (author's royalties, proof reading, lawyers, publishers etc etc). These all still need to be paid for regardless of the final media on which the work is distributed. So how is distribution in "e" form going to actually be cheaper than paper? Plus, since any publisher is also going to worry about people purchasing one copy of the e-book and then printing off multiple sets and distributing the many print-outs.. won't the prices be inflated (like they are when you compare kindle novels to paperback novels of the same title)

Re:OLPC?

[Feyshtey]

Agreed - Printing is much cheaper than buying a hard bound version.

And, for those of you complaining about computers/Internet access, compare the cost of 1 semester's worth of books to the price of a cheap PC and a semester's worth of Internet access. You might be surprised. Heck, PC + Internet + printing/binding may still be significantly than my book costs some semesters - And you only have to buy the PC once (hopefully).

Wow...

You'll be buying a pc every couple of years, or at the least refreshing the OS install on most of them. And that's optomistic when you consider that the average kid is able to completely destroy a cell phone in a few short months.
You'll also be paying the licensing fees for the anti-virus, and readers, and on-line books, etc. None of that is free.
You'll pay out a ton to build the networking infrastructure in the schools to handle thousands of connections instead of the previous hundred or so.
You'll be implementing significant server hardware to maintain filesharing, backups, authentication, etc.
You'll be spending more on the internet bandwidth at the schools that's been increased exponentially.
You'll be paying for the deskside support staff to fix the PC's, either when they just die, or get corrupted or you screw them up.
You'll be paying for the network admin team that would have to be on-hand at each school.
You'll be paying for the server admins, and security admins.
You'll be paying the maintenance contracts for all the hardware/networking you have in place.
You'll be paying for the additional power/cooling costs associated with millions of additional machines online for 7+hours a day at the schools.
You'll be paying for the administration of patching and updates to the OS and every application on the machines.
You'll be paying for code integrators who are modifying the OS to harden against unintended uses, and use specific to education.

The list goes on indefinately. Every time a manager (in this case a governor) utters the phrases "All it takes..." or "We'll save 'X' dollars...", don't be skeptical. Resolve yourself completely to the certainty that there's a list of costs (s)he hasn't even begun to consider.

Re:OLPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why netbooks at all? Kids can sue there computers at home to create reports and look up data and email them to their teachers.

Many families still do not have a computer, or if they do, they only have a single computer. Families with multiple children may have trouble getting all their children sufficient computer time.

There are schools whose don't ahve a text book per child, and have texts books over 10 years old.

These are the same districts where the family can't afford a computer in the first place. If the community cannot afford to supply a school with textbooks, what makes you think the families in the community can suddenly afford computers?

If the children don't have net access at home, then they can use the schools library, or their local library computers

So the 700 kids in the local Junior high will share the 30 computers in the computer lab? Or the 10 computers at the local library? Even at 1/hour per student of computer lab time, that is only 240 students able to use the computer in a typical school day... what do the other 500 students do?

Re:OLPC?

[P1h3r1e3d13]

That really would be great. We could also just have them print a few pages of money to go in the back of each book!

No, really, my university ("of California") has or had a (student-staffed) service that put together spiral-bound "readers" for teachers. Problem is, they've been in copyright lawsuits with publishers about it.

What makes you think publishers are going to want to give up their per-copy profits? No matter how big a market California is, they're not going to see 'one license per school' as better than 'one book per student.'

Also, can I resell it? Dog-ear it? Highlight it? Make notes in the margin? Reference it years later? (Yes, I do.) Take it to the beach? Prop up my lopsided dorm desk with it?

Re:OLPC?

[Bobartig]

If you're thinking of printing out books on your lexmark inkjet, then yes, it is nasty and such. But you might research solutions like "Print on Demand" book printing machines likethe Espresso. For something like a school system, these things could revolutionize textbooks solutions.

With several of these machines and free licensed textbook material, a school district could make new, publisher quality textbooks for a few dollars apiece. Machines like the Espresso cost something like low 6 figures, with the goal of designing cheaper next-gen versions in the mid 5 figures. When you consider a textbook budget in the 100 millions, these machines could really revolutionize textbooks for school.s

Re:OLPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, licensing cost per year per book. 25$ / book thats $250 / year / student. Expected lifespan 1 year.

Re:OLPC?

[bcrowell]

Printing doesn't really cost that much. Spending $10 to print and spiralbind a textbook is a lot cheaper than paying $150 for a hardcover version. Need someone to print and do the binding? Hire students over the summer and on breaks and have them do the work.

Yep.

Note Schwarzenegger's remark in the opinion piece linked to from the slashdot summary: "Even if teachers have to print out some of the material, it will be far cheaper than regularly buying updated textbooks."

But if you want a bound copy, it really no longer makes sense to DIY the way you're descibing, with labor-intensive laser-printing and countertop spiral binding. Print on demand has changed all that. For example, lulu.com will do it for about 3 cents a page (depending on quantity, page count, and quality of paper), which is significantly less than the cost of paper, toner, and binding supplies for a DIY operation, even assuming zero labor cost. And what you get is a nice, durable perfect-bound book, not something spiral-bound that will get destroyed rapidly in kids' backpacks.

Re:OLPC?

[lgw]

It's been true for decades that more US households have color television than running water. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if more households have internet access than running water.

Re:OLPC?

[selven]

Except that people need a computer anyway, so the total cost of getting everyone a netbook, considering that a large organization will be able to get a volume discount, will be extremely cheap, possibly even negative.

Re:OLPC?

[Latinhypercube]

OLPC what a WASTE of Precious resources AND money. In a time when both are short on supply. How about re-purposing the billions of tonnes of computers we throw away every year ? Any computer built in the past 10 years would be more than sufficient for a school kid to browse the web and read text books. This sort of move should have happened in California decades ago. Why Apple or Microsoft haven't already stepped up and got involved is SHAMEFULL, and an example of how corporate America is the least patriotic force in America.

Re:OLPC?

[Archades54]

How much would the textbook writers charge them for the privilege of printing though, the 150 for a textbook isn't just for the printing.

Re:OLPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

"ensure that California's students continue to thrive in the global marketplace."

Yes, I'm sure that they will "continue to thrive in the GLOBAL marketplace" , NOT.

Seeing as California is filling up with THIRD WORLD SCUM, their hideous offspring haven't a chance of 'thriving'. The only thing keeping these scum in the luxury which they are unable to create in their OWN country, is the white people who have to work extra hours every day to pay taxes, to support the brown invaders from the South.

America will soon be a third world country, while the idiots on here keep pretending nothing is happening..
THIRD WORLD PEOPLE = THIRD WORLD COUNTRY.

Re:OLPC?

[L0rdJedi]

Tell the kids at least a day in advance what text is going to be read. That way, the kids that don't have Internet at home can go to the computer lab and print the necessary pages. You'll still be using some paper, but far less than a full books worth. This also has the advantage of basically telling the kids "We're going to read these pages in class tomorrow, so you should read them at home tonight in order to better discuss it tomorrow". Most of the kids probably won't do that, but that's no different than right now anyway.

I think this is a really great idea as long as they give the kids with no Internet some kind of place where they can do the reading and print out what they need. Whether it's a computer lab in the school library or even a local library in the city, either way should be fine. It'll also get kids back into the library.

Re:OLPC?

[el3mentary]

1+1=3

(For significantly large values of 1)

Re:OLPC?

[el3mentary]

On another note, if all the books are online, how are kids going to draw mustaches on all the pictures in their history books? :)

MS Paint, the ultimate in image manipulation software.

Re:OLPC?

[PCPackrat]

Another benefit. Makes it WAY easier to revise history when those pesky dead tree additions say otherwise.

Re:OLPC?

[uncledrax]

It's not uncommon for students to pay $600-$900 a semester for books.

I thought we were talking Public school system, not College level?
I never had to pay for a text book when I was in public school.. of course I never went in California either.

Re:OLPC?

[ivan256]

We're talking about California here. It has nothing to do with being able to afford it. It has to do with a feel-good state law which requires schools to buy new textbooks if the existing ones don't meet the standards of the local review boards. Combine that with the most over-sensitive local review boards in the country rejecting every existing textbook the moment something in them is no longer politically correct....

Last night I heard a BBC reporter ask a California Board of Education official how this could possibly save any money, and the answer was that local review boards require changes so often that textbooks cost 3x more in California than in the rest of the country.

I'm at a loss as to why it's remotely acceptable to re-write history, science, and math books so often. It's pretty clear that this is a case of politics over accuracy.

Re:OLPC?

[cyn1c77]

The parent is complete right. Also, once the publishers start losing money from their textbook sales, they are going to jack up the electronic access fees to their books. At that point, I doubt that there will be any price difference between hardbound books and electronic books.

Also, you are going to have a bunch of high school kids walking around with netbooks? Have you seen how they treat their phones and books? The repair/replacement rate of the hardware is going to be astounding.

Finally, and maybe this is because I started with paper books, but in my experience electronic files do not lend themselves to the same level of focus as paper files. It's easier to move around and find things in the electronic versions, but it is also easier to get distracted and experience eye fatigue. For hyperactive high schoolers, I doubt that is a recipe for high levels of comprehension.

Re:OLPC?

[Ihmhi]

Right, because the cost of textbooks has to do with the printing and nothing at all to do with the companies massively price-gouging.

Re:OLPC?

[SignalFreq]

From the Article:

"Starting with high school math and science books, this initiative paves the way for easier access to free digital texts in California's schools."

"And now California has put out an initial call to content developers, asking that they submit high school math and science digital texts for our review."

My understanding of the Governor's message is that he is calling for solutions from content developers--anyone who is willing to create textbook material--for online or digital use. This is more than just a shift to a different medium, it is a direct challenge to the textbook monopolies. I'm sure current publishers will fight to maintain their stranglehold on the economy and politics of textbooks, and they may succeed in doing so, but this at least opens the door for more competition.

I hope...

Re:OLPC?

[the phantom]

If you get books once in a decade wouldn't it be nice to be able to have a new book every year?

Not particularly. Mathematics at the high school level has not changed much in the last 100 years. New books serve basically two purposes: they include new pedagogical ideas (sometimes good, sometimes bad), and they contain new problem sets. In terms of pedagogy, I can get the same information by attending in-service and university classes. That is cheaper for the school, and has the added benefit of making me a better teacher. In terms of problem sets, I can always write my own, or get problems from one of several problem banks on the internet.

Instead paying $100+ per book that becomes out dated in 2 years and isn't replaced in 10 years you spend ~$10/year on a new book handed to each student at the beginning of the year?

High school texts don't go out of date in 2 years. As I said above, mathematics at the high school level hasn't really changed much in the last century. English is still English, and there is little call to update texts every year. History is still moving on, and one might claim that yearly updates could be useful, but a ten year cycle isn't that bad, either. It is going to take something like a decade for historical ideas to pass through enough peer review to become consensus, and make it into textbooks, anyway, and more recent events will be within the memories of the students themselves, and my need less teaching and/or analysis. Civics are pretty much unchanged over the past 50 years, if not more (there are still two houses in congress, 50 states, and presidential elections every four years). Even the sciences don't change that much at a high school level. Newton's approach is still good for physics, and there is not really any cutting edge biology or chemistry going on at the high school level.

On top of that, it takes time for an instructor to get used to a new text. I would hate to be teaching out of a new text every year. I don't know if you have ever had to prepare a class, but there is a lot of work involved. If one is familiar with the text that one is teaching out of, it is much easier to prepare.

So, in short, no. No, I would not like to be teaching out of a new text every year. It might not be that bad to teach out of new editions of the same text every year, but even that seems unnecessary

Re:OLPC?

[pyrelite]

Oh, sorry, I automatically thought of college level when discussing textbooks. If we're talking public school systems, then I retract what I said.

Re:OLPC?

[Naturalis Philosopho]

Except for the cost of printing rights which will add x cost to the book.

The cost of the binding (spiral or otherwise) that you need special equipment for, especially to do in volume. Then you need to have presses to handle the number of books needed, so you could have many, many small presses, or one big press, each solution costing in the millions. Then the cost of shipping to the districts. Then replacement costs for lost units. Plus "cost of quality" for reprinting when amateurs are doing the printing and it gets fracked up. Ever plan to have enough paper for a textbook shipped to a printer when you need it, warehoused, tracked, and used? Do you know how much that paper costs or even where to buy it? And don't even get me started on the Prep required to get California standard products out the door correctly. It can be done, but it would cost, I kid you not, orders of magnitude more than it does now unless you use Zero printed materials.

Or you could go with the people who already print this shit, who've spent decades working to get the costs down and the quality up to the most efficient levels. I've got news for you, it costs the publishers less than $10 per unit right now from the printers, the user cost is all in the mark-up for quality research and fact checking, quality layout and design, and the ability to produce quality products in a timely, efficient, manner. Add that cost to more expensive printing and you're in for a world of fiscal hurt. It IS hard to do right.

Re:OLPC?

[Shadow of Eternity]

My marine science textbook had one of those "by the way..." sections dedicated to pointing out why the giant squid, as in those things we now classify as larger than normal squid but smaller than colossal squid, was a myth and could not possibly exist.

Discounting age problems, consider weight. Not everyone has a locker, not everyone has enough time to get to their locker, and not everyone can safely use a locker (one razorblade from a pencil sharpener tossed through the vent and you're zero tolerance food).

Re:OLPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone ever read their entire 8th grade math book even in the 8th grade?

On Slashdot? I would expect a large minority to have done so. I certainly did. Also Grades 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12 and all three of Grade 13.

Re:OLPC?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

And the schools will charge the printing costs to the California Government, costing $360 million. Problem solved.

Okay, but what about the old way? What if a flaming meteorite hits the warehouses where all the books are stored and burns them? Imagine the cost then!!

Re:OLPC?

[kbielefe]

I was thinking something more along the lines of this. Seriously. A bigger screen would be in order, but other than that, I say throw out all the assumptions of needing networking, rechargeable batteries, modern displays, etc. and I bet you could mass produce something that will suffice to replace a textbook for around $50 or less. Want something nicer? Save up your allowance.

Re:OLPC?

[businessnerd]

I think you are underestimating how quickly textbooks genuinely need replacing. You seem to assume that the estimated costs for text books for a year means replacing every book so that no student ever has to learn from a used book. I think it is safe to say that the California public schools have a pretty good handle on what books cost them on a yearly basis. Books fall apart. Brand new books fall apart. You are going to have to replace some. This costs money. Just estimating, but I suspect 60% of a batch of brand new books will make it four years before the are just unusable.

You should also reconsider your opinion on whether primary and secondary school textbooks need updating. A lot has changed in the past 20 years. For example:

History - Who discovered America? Outdated history books will tell you Christopher Columbus, end of story. Updated history books will mention the vikings. They may also have a better answer for how you can discover a continent that already has people on it.

Math - While math itself has not changed much, I imagine the methods for teaching it have changed quite a bit. This goes for every subject. Apparently the way I was taught how to do long division is no longer being taught.

Literature - Yes you are going to stick to SOME of the classics, but if a better book comes along, shouldn't that be taught instead? This is subjective, but the teachers have a lot of say in what gets read. Plus, going back to the replacement cost issue, small paperbacks probably have the shortest life-span of all.

Science - You say there have been no significant advances in science in the past 20 years that would warrant a change in the text books. Wow. That is impressive for a Slashdot user. Well a good place to start proving you wrong would be in astronomy. Pretty sure 20 years ago they were saying Pluto is the 9th planet. Not only that, but there are not other planets known outside of our solar system. Now, Pluto is not a planet and it is generally accepted that there are many planets outside of our solar system. When I was in 6th grade (I'm 25) my science textbook was already laughably out of date. In a chapter about computers, they were referred to as something we might be seeing more of in the future. It also predicted that in the future computers might be small enough to fit inside a briefcase. By this point, not only were laptops pretty common, but there was a desktop computer in almost every classroom. Luckily that book was replaced the following year. These are two examples, there are so many more.

Re:OLPC?

[kbielefe]

Civics are pretty much unchanged over the past 50 years, if not more (there are still two houses in congress, 50 states, and presidential elections every four years).

Umm...50 years ago there were only 49 states, and all but the newest textbooks would have still said 48. (Sorry, couldn't resist, but at least I didn't crack a joke about two out of three not being bad for a public school teacher).

Re:OLPC?

[the phantom]

My marine science textbook had one of those "by the way..." sections dedicated to pointing out why the giant squid, as in those things we now classify as larger than normal squid but smaller than colossal squid, was a myth and could not possibly exist.

Sometimes, things like that do need to be updated. However, that is one piece of information in a whole book, and it is trivia at that (i.e. it is not part of the core knowledge that one is supposed to get from the book). During the next update cycle, a book that does not include that bit of trivia can be selected. In the meantime, a well-informed (i.e. good) teacher will use that section as a "teachable moment," and a bad teacher will continue to be a bad teacher, and either teach it as fact or ignore it. Again, I really don't see the need to be constantly updating textbooks at the high school level.

Discounting age problems, consider weight. Not everyone has a locker, not everyone has enough time to get to their locker, and not everyone can safely use a locker (one razorblade from a pencil sharpener tossed through the vent and you're zero tolerance food).

You have brought up two objections here. The first is that books are heavy, and the second is that lockers aren't always available or useable.

Yes, books are heavy, and I think that a lot of instructors rely too much on students having their books with them at all times. There are several possible solutions. First, books stay in the classroom. In districts where funding is short, this is often what happens, so that several sections of one class can all use the same textbooks. The easily solves the weight problem, as students are not required to take books with them (in fact, they are actively discouraged). This may make homework harder to complete, as the student doesn't have a reference to work from, but students can stay after school, come in early, or make use of allocated study time.

It is also possible to hand out textbooks at the beginning of the semester, and have students keep those at home. Then, during class, an instructor can lecture from a book that is projected for the class (in my district, most high school classrooms have ELMOs), or an extra set of books can be kept in the classroom. This probably more directly addresses the problem of weight, because that problem automatically assumes that every student has a copy of the text.

Conveniently enough, these also address the problem of locker access, though I think that students complaining about getting to their lockers is more of an excuse than a real problem in most schools. Perhaps in some very large inner-city schools, it is a problem, but there are no schools in my area where the 5 minute pass time is insufficient for getting from one class to another with time left over to his one's locker. And, before you complain that I don't know what I'm talking about, I have take a stopwatch and timed how long it takes for me to get from one end of campus to another when the halls are full of students. There is plenty of time.

Re:OLPC?

[the phantom]

1. I am a math teacher, not a civics teacher. :P
2. Hawaii was admitted as a state in August of 1959. That is more than 49.5 years ago, thus close enough to 50 as to make no nevermind. I chose to use 50 years rather than 49 because it is a nicer number. I like zeros. ;)
3. If I were teaching in 1960, I would be perfectly happy with a 5-10 year old civics text. Things would be substantially the same, and I could very easily point out in my lectures that some details had changed (i.e. that Hawaii and Alaska had become states). One doesn't throw out an entire book because one paragraph is incorrect.

Re:OLPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

shut up asshole

Re:OLPC?

[mdarksbane]

You act as though the students are teaching themselves out of the textbook. Textbooks are to supplement a teacher, not to replace one. They exist so that a teacher can say "go read this chapter" and expect the student to come to class with a good grasp of the basics.

Who 'discovered America has not changed, only our current spin on it. I'm sure any competent teacher is perfectly able to tell students about the different trips to America, or to skip the whole "discovered" bit entirely. The details like that are not the important part of the story - the following explorers and their impact on American culture (both native and current) are the important part of the story.

As for math, I know that I am perfectly capable of doing long division. My mother works as a teacher, and she has seen very little actual benefit to the newer methods of teaching maths. They have generally been adopted for political reasons rather than scientific ones.

I would say that nothing in literature should displace a classic work until at least 20-30 years after its publication - few works are probably judged without the perspective of history.

Whether or not pluto is a planet was a political decision and a random fact, not science - it's an arbitrary distinction. And when did you learn about computers in a science class? High school science is about basic biology, physics, chemistry, geology, and the scientific method. These fields have not changed at the introductory level. I'm not saying the schools shouldn't buy a new computer and lab instructions to use it, I'm saying they don't need a new textbook for everyone to run that lab.

I see it that any minor changes such as you mention are better addressed by the teacher than updated materials. Who cares if the kids read that Columbus discovered America if the teacher clarifies that this was a Euro-centric view held at one point.

As for books not lasting very long... you must have gone to very different schools. I remember less than one book a year being damaged in my classes, from elementary school on up. We were still using fifteen year old books in some cases that were still in good shape - I remember the teacher admonishing us to be careful with them, because they were out of print and she liked them better than the newer literature books she'd seen.

Re:OLPC?

[donny77]

I believe these numbers, but there are some caveats. First urban and rural can be tricky. My school District reports as urban as our schools are physically located in an urban area. However we bus students from rural areas to our schools. Urban doesn't mean smack in the middle of San Fransisco.

Second this is for California, and in California we have this thing called the Williams Act which was part of a settlement of a lawsuit filled against the California Department of Education. Per the Williams Act, our school must ensure each student has access to a book at home, and one at school. This means for every classroom that teaches math, we need the number of periods +1 textbooks for that classroom. How does this work with eTextbooks? Is the student having Internet access at home, access to the book? What if there are three kids in the family and they all need to do homework, thus view their individual textbooks? What if they don't have Internet Access? What if they don't have a computer? Access at school is not good enough under the California law.

Re:OLPC?

[hazem]

Printouts are good for worksheets (which you throw away anyway), and books that you won't actually use, and maybe specialist topics (where 30 people in the world will read it), and for stuff that goes out of date the moment it's printed (like most economics, these days), but not Math and Science.

I take it you never had the pleasure of being the 5th or 6th student to use a particular hard-cover textbook issued by the school? If you did, you'd know how badly most kids treat the books and how they're often filled with markings, torn pages, stains (god knows what), and are generally unpleasant to use. Some in the worst shape were the math and science books.

Re:OLPC?

[that this is not und]

Books for primary and secondary education do not go 'out of date' in two years. It might seem that way because the publishers have figured out superficial ways of introducing planned-obsolescence into their product, but an algebra textbook from 35 years ago is perfectly suitable for use today. Even science textbooks are adequate, because the science taught in primary and secondary education is basic science. 'Leading edge' science can be introduced with supplementary materials.

Really, the 'textbooks are obsolete' deal is a swindle by the publishers.

Re:OLPC?

[ShakaUVM]

Incorrect!!!!! I'm at work right now and can't get to it, but I have the US Department of Education statistics (through 2006) breakdown of Internet access in schools. The lowest access demographic is still near 95%. That means, on the average, the WORST demographic in the US still has a 95% access rate.

Sure, that doesn't do anything for that other 5% without access, but it's time to move beyond the myth of the "digital divide".

The digital divide is both truth and fiction. Truth in that I am really serious about backcountry schools having to provide showers to students here in "affluent" San Diego County because they can't shower where they live. Internet access in these families is - as you can imagine - trivially low. Fiction in that kids that don't have computers at home really aren't hurt very much when it comes to "computer literacy" skills. Honestly, it doesn't take long to learn to use a computer, and kids pick it up no problem even if they don't have a computer with internet access in their house.

But I wasn't talking about internet access in schools. I was talking about internet access in the *home*. As someone who has written numerous grants for various school districts in San Diego and Imperial Counties, I'm quite aware of the pretty severe needs kids in these districts have. What benefit are e-textbooks to kids if there is one computer per classroom? Do you seriously want just one kid to be able to read at a time? And only in school, not after school (since he has to take the bus home) or at home?

Without internet access, you lose a lot of the value-added of electronic textbooks (
Textbooks cost about $10 per student per class/subject per year, IIRC. So let's call it $50/kid/year. If we say a $100 OLPC lasts about 4 years (accounting for theft and damage), that'a $25 per year. How much are the licensing fees for textbooks? If it's less than $5/subject/year then it's a win.

But reading from an LCD is inferior to reading from paper. A Kindle is more readable, but also more expensive. It probably would work out to more than paper texts.

Re:OLPC?

[bdo19]

Agreed - Printing is much cheaper than buying a hard bound version.

You're assuming that the textbook companies are going to GIVE California schools the rights to use electronic versions of their books, and to print as many copies as they'd like.

Re:OLPC?

[syousef]

Science - There have been no scientific advances in the last twenty years that will actually be covered in secondary school. The old scientific literature, combined with a few periodicals for some of the "wow" factor of modern science, should be fine.

Yeah, who needs to know about Dark Matter/Energy, Optical disks, LCD technology, Computing, Mobile Telephony, Advances in Medical Science (trivial stuff like heart transplants and sight saving eye surgery)

Could you have said anything more foolish?

For a lot of subjects, yes, the latest and greatest is not that important and the state of the art does not appear at primary or high school level. Access to that material for advanced students would still be a good thing, but you can get away with less. However science is one area where the pace doesn't quit and the advances aren't always covered well in popular magazines. (Sure you could get subscriptions to Scientific American, Astronomy etc. but they're expensive too and the information is then scattered).

The other thing is that language itself changes. Download an 18th Century math or science text from Gutenberg and tell me if you'd want to give that to YOUR child to learn with.

Re:OLPC?

[mdarksbane]

You learned about about dark matter, optical discs, mobile telephony, eye surgeries in your high school and elementary *textbooks*? Really? All I ever got were mitosis, the periodic table, and kinematics.

Neat tech advances are already taught as side projects - as "go learn for yourself and write a report" or "here's an interesting article" sort of things. All the examples you mention are not in most textbooks, and if they are, they are one small subheading next to a chart.

I'm not saying kids don't need to know these things - I'm saying they aren't part of the core education that a textbook provides. Having them do a book report one of Stephen Hawking's books will do a much better job of teaching about Dark Matter than buying everyone in the classroom a new textbook that *might* mention it for a paragraph.

Re:OLPC?

[Trahloc]

>Really, the 'textbooks are obsolete' deal is a swindle by the publishers.

Wouldn't it be great to get rid of them then? Make their entire industry obsolete? Instead of spending a few billion dollars (for the entire USA textbook industry). Wouldn't it be better to instead spend a billion the first year and a few hundred million a year thereafter hiring experts in the field to notate and write the textbooks and make them freely available? With a 'national' textbook as the basis each state could then spend a 1/10 of their normal book buying budget modifying it for their particular state? Yeah it might mean its easier for creationists to add their spin on a science textbook but if that means my kids get a better education because the school I send them to removes that bs, all the better.

Re:OLPC?

[Trahloc]

Your just supporting my wish for that industry to become obsolete. I just focused on the paper side as its the easiest to calculate cost for.

Re:OLPC?

[Teancum]

If you get books once in a decade wouldn't it be nice to be able to have a new book every year?

Not particularly. Mathematics at the high school level has not changed much in the last 100 years. New books serve basically two purposes: they include new pedagogical ideas (sometimes good, sometimes bad), and they contain new problem sets. In terms of pedagogy, I can get the same information by attending in-service and university classes.

I have seen a change in mathematics over the past couple of decades.... both from the perspective of pushing those students who excel to harder levels of mathematics and improved advance placement curriculum to doing stuff on the middle school level that was previously only done in high schools (and correspondingly tougher content in high school). Yes, this is subtle and not quite so obvious, but it is there.

On the whole, the introduction of computers and advanced calculators (heck, just calculators instead of slide rules) has also made a huge impact in terms of how the material in most textbooks has been presented. Much more emphasis has been placed on understanding the processes of how to come up with the answers than trying to necessarily become human computers (an actual career path before the 1940's). If you grabbed a high school textbook from the 1920's, you would note some substantial differences between what is presented there vs. what is currently taught. Yeah, you might lament that some theory and practice from back then is lost, but I think you might be surprised.

All this said, most of the major differences over the past 30 years or so have been with style over substance in terms of the textbook industry. Color printing has become incredibly cheap (compared to 40 years ago) where every page of modern textbooks has gone through a 4-color printing process. With this, for mathematical textbooks, is increased use of multi-colored graphs and charts, textbooks that have a much more free-flowing form (math textbooks from the 1920's were incredibly terse and from a modern perspective very difficult to read), and include "politically correct" commentaries that are often biographies of minorities and things that might even be called social studies that are found in the middle of a math textbook.

Do I think that all of this change has been for the better? No. I do think some things have been watered down and lost over the last century. But a textbook printed 100 years ago certainly wouldn't work in today's education market based on the goals of current school boards and state standards of curriculum.

BTW, I do agree with you on the general premise that most mathematical textbooks don't need to be updated nearly so often as the publishers try to cram down a new edition, and that the basic concepts of mathematics are timeless and aren't going to be changed on the high school level due to new discoveries by full time mathematical researchers (they do exist). Some minor tweaks to high school mathematical curricula might include increased emphasis on discrete mathematics, set and graph theory, but that is something you could debate in general and isn't necessarily going to be something that has to be changed every year.

Re:OLPC?

[the phantom]

I think perhaps you and several other posters have misunderstood what I said. I never suggested that we should still be using 100 year old textbooks. I have many such texts (I like old books, especially text books, and have a small collection of them, though I admit that most of them are at more of a college level), and certainly would never want to inflict them upon my students. My point was not that we should be using 100 year old texts, but rather that things don't change that quickly, and a 10 year old text would be quite alright. Honestly, very little has changed in the last 10 years with regards to how mathematics is taught in the high school classroom. Look at a 10 year old text, and you will still see sections on using calculators, and biographies of important mathematicians (minorities and women included). These sections might be different from a modern text, and may be less substantial, but they will still be there.

Then, compare the 10 year old book to a 20 year old book. Again, there will be minor differences, but they will be mostly the same. Generally speaking, textbooks evolve over time. Compare this year's book to a 100 year old book, and you are going to see thousands of accumulated changes to pedagogy, material, and additional content. But these changes happen incrementally, and are less obvious and less important over a 10 year time span.

Again, I am responding primarily to the argument that having yearly revisions would be a blessing. I mean, who wouldn't want up-to-the-minute material? However, I tend to think it would be more of a curse. On the pro side, we have better updated material, which I have asserted doesn't really matter, as the material does not change that quickly. On the con side, there are all of the problems associated with new revisions, such as new course preparations, and an issue that I haven't even gotten into above, namely the typos and incorrect math that appear in new revisions (every new revision tends to include new problems; many of these new problems contain typographical errors that render the solution or the problem incorrect; while errata exist, it takes time to build them up, or to make notes in one's own copy of the text).

I have never once said that we should not buy new books from time to time. Rather, I just don't see what the point of updating texts every year is. From my perspective, it is likely to cause more problems that it solves.

Re:OLPC?

[the phantom]

First off, technology != science. That covers about half of your examples. Second, most of the rest of those examples are really not appropriate for an introductory level science class. High school science is about (or, at least, should be about) introducing students to the scientific method, and a scientific way of thinking, as well as giving students the basic background that they will need in specific areas so that when and if they go on to college, they have some basic understanding to build from. Dark matter has no bearing on the Newtonian physics experiments conducted in high school. Bleeding edge face transplants have no bearing on the frog dissections of high school biology. These are trivia. Yes, they are interesting. Yes, such trivia might pique some students' interest. However, they are not the part of the core of the curriculum, and 10 year old books also have interesting trivia.

Finally, you seem to be assuming that I would like to teach out of an 18th century text. I don't think I ever suggested that. Rather, I suggested that a 10 year old text is quite fine. You are arguing against a straw man. The language does not change that much in 10 years, and neither does the material covered in a high school classroom.

Re:OLPC?

[vertinox]

History - at least in my school, we almost never covered anything more current than world war II. I don't think what happened in the American Revolution has changed significantly in five years. And really current events should be using current journalism rather than a textbook anyway.

I'm not sure how old you are, but I had a recent conversation that reminds me of how things change even with history.

I was sitting on the couch watching history channel with my significant other about the meteor that killed the dinosaurs, and she turns to me and says "Do you remember growing up that they taught us in school they really didn't know what happened to the dinosaurs?"

And I thought to myself since it had been a few decades and I said "Wow. You're right. All I can remember is them saying they thought it might have been an ice age, but no one really knew what happened to them."

So yes, even history can change dramatically as we find out more information down the road.

Re:OLPC?

[Anonymous Coward]

Easily the biggest problem I see with this is that there are not enough IT professionals to go around for the school system - at least not where I went to school. One guy was in charge of maintaining the network in 5 different high schools and 6 different middle schools. Now... if you figure the networks alone kept him busy long hours most days and the schools regularly lost their connections for days at a time while he fought with the county over stupid red-tape policies that were blocking incorrect ports and causing network outages - then you want to factor in netbooks for each student? LOL..... funny man you are Arnold.

If you figure the cost to hire a network tech to help maintain all of that IT at each school per year is around $60,000 (maybe higher - cost of living in Cali is through the freakin roof, or so I hear).

There is NO WAY that this will be cheaper than text books. Not to mention the fact that it's damn hard to learn from a computer screen - for me at least. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a sharp drop in test scores as a result of this move. It's just to difficult to read a mathematics text on a tiny little netbook screen. Imagine trying to teach yourself calculus... or worse yet - a math with long multi-page proofs, on such a limited medium.

I'm as much for using new technology in the classroom as the next person - but this idea just seems poorly planned... a result of bureaucrats, not IT professionals, making this decision.

My take - ask the parents to pay a portion of the textbook fee. 75$ per year from the parents isn't that much to ask really (only slightly more than the cost of your average video game... and little Timmy has plenty of those these days... all on his parent's dime). Round it up to $100 and use the excess to pay for those students who's parents legitimately don't have the means to pay. Problem solved. Sure - parents will gripe about it... but hey - when their taxes are reduced because of it, that griping will subside I would suspect.

Thoughts?

Now all we need is

[Chrisq]

Now all we need is for them to come up with a suitable set of "Intelligent Design Approved" e-books, giving an "unbiased" account of how the WASPs civilised the Native Americans and continue to spread democracy and freedom in