Governor Schwarzenegger has a plan to make California the first state in the nation to provide its schools with free digital textbooks. The initiative would start this fall with online materials for high school math and science classes. The Governor explained his thinking in an op-ed in the San Jose Mercury:
California is home to software giants, bioscience research pioneers and first-class university systems known around the world. But our students still learn from instructional materials in formats made possible by Gutenberg's printing press.
It's nonsensical -- and expensive -- to look to traditional hard-bound books when information today is so readily available in electronic form. Especially now, when our school districts are strapped for cash and our state budget deficit is forcing further cuts to classrooms, we must do everything we can to untie educators' hands and free up dollars so that schools can do more with fewer resources.
The Governor is right that this effort could easily turn out to have a significant long-term impact on public education.
For one thing -- and much like a similar effort now underway in the state's community colleges -- it could save Californians money as well as leverage the investment already paid for with tax-payer dollars. The K-12 school system now spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year on traditional textbooks, even though free or lower-cost alternatives could be easily developed and distributed online. Additionally, most teachers in California already have access to computers, so it is not as if brand new technology is needed. And, it's not as if most of our students aren't already tech savvy.
School districts, educators, and individual authors across the country have put a wealth of resources on the Web (including lesson plans, teaching guides, and primary source materials in history, literature, math, science, and other subject areas). Many of these resources are well-designed and offer more dynamic and current material than conventional textbooks that students currently have access to.
Perhaps even more important is the potential impact on student learning when teachers become more actively engaged in the sharing and reuse of curriculum materials. What's truly innovative about the Governor's plan, and what could make it a national model to support effective use of educational technology, is its support for "open-source" textbooks--i.e., online resources that have alternative copyright licensing, meaning that teachers can freely share and adapt to meet their local needs.
For example, say that a history teacher is looking for material that would supplement the textbook on the American Revolution. In an open-source world, it's easy for the teacher to go online, find additional materials or text, and modify what they are using. Or if a unit on photosynthesis turns out to be too simple for this year's biology class. Why not just add a few extra pages of more advanced material? Additionally, imagine that the teacher can now offer that to other teachers, so that the wheel will not need to be reinvented the next time by yet another teacher.
No doubt, some teachers will stick to the textbook as is--for example, the novice teacher might be more likely to appreciate the page-by-page structure that a static textbook provides. However, many others will revel in the opportunity to share favorite materials online, update old ones, try out new ones, and talk with colleagues about what works, what doesn't, and why.
That's the sort of conversation that should occur among professionals in any field, and it's the kind of collegial exchange and professional discretion that has been missing in schools for some time.
In the case of technology, it's true that we need to be realistic. It does cost money to support the necessary technology infrastructure for an effort like this. But now is an opportunity to leverage what we have already spent, both in terms of technology as well as in what teachers already bring to the table. Classroom instruction is difficult and sometimes unpredictable work, and teachers cannot and should not be taken out of the equation. Rather than always trying to "teacher proof" the classroom, that is, telling educators which course content to focus on when, we can improve teaching and learning by allowing teachers to have access to high-quality materials and tools and the professional leeway to exercise their pedagogical judgment.
If the Governor's initiative delivers on its promise to provide teachers with open-source digital textbooks, that's not to say that all will be smooth sailing from then on. For the past years, I've been involved with providing free-to-use education resources at the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education. We've experienced some of the growing pains. We know that, inevitably, some schools will be challenged to strengthen the materials of their teachers that might be poorly designed, or that need to be aligned to curriculum standards as they evolve over time. This continuous improvement is, in fact, the beauty of open source education.
It's not as if open-source textbooks will do away with oversight, though. Administrators and school boards will still provide input, direction, and--when necessary--veto power over instructional decision that does not meet their quality criteria, for example. And in any case, that's a small price to pay for the chance to build a more independent and intellectually rewarding culture of collaboration and sharing in California's schools.
Given the tremendous potential to leverage costs already spent and the efforts of teachers in curriculum development, what free digital textbooks can offer the state over time is huge. And, given the flexibility they provide teachers and students, this one's a no-brainer. The Governor's initiative deserves to be watched closely and supported without hesitation if we are really serious about not giving up on innovation in education.
But the problem I see is replacing all written materials with computers. It has been found that the human brain has circuitry that combines the thinking processes and physical activity. I don't think typing reinforces learning as writing does. This is reminiscent of the debate about rote learning in math versus teaching mathematical logic. What was missed in that debate was most students don't have photographic memories, they need repetition to learn mathematics. Math is a language, you can't teach the logical structure of a language and expect someone to be conversant in it without practice. The user won't be conversant if they have to translate from one language to another; they must be able to think in the newe language. That's why Americans do so poorly in international comparisons
Some military systems are shielded against electromagnetic pulse though I doubt that much of any other electronics are.
The great potential I see for online resources is that teachers and students could print worksheets that meet each student's individual needs. It could allow for more independent student-driven work, while saving the teacher time at the copy machine. I could see it working well for math because the student could copy the problem down from the screen and solve it with a pen and paper. An interactive math program could also be a good accompanying resource to that, where students do some work on paper and some work online with the software telling them if an answer is wrong and why.
I use a music textbook that allows the teacher to buy one book and photocopy packets for the kids. It's great to see an author and publisher agreeing to give teachers more freedom to photocopy instead of buying hundreds of books. We should avoid being copyright fascists in education as its ultimate cost is to the quality of education. The publishers can still profit well from loosening copyright rules, as teachers could buy a larger variety of materials from them rather than buying hundreds of copies of only one resource.
If we are going all out for digital textbooks within public education (especially K-12), then this would be a huge investment up front. And that's just in terms of building a serviceable infrastructure and sufficient database. Then factor all the long-tail needs, like replacement of hardware, maintenance/personnel for system management, plus the potentially huge costs of changing online architectures to adapt to the unpredictable practices of the students and teachers who use them. I find it naive to think that this solution would be a money saver, even if there was a glowing solution with durable e-readers.
All that said, I agree that this is a good direction. I just don't think Gov. Schwarzenegger will be reducing costs. Transitions are messy.
Simply rediculous and harmful and I hope for the young people wanting to study the portable textbook never goes out of circulation.
High tech. has and is going all to far and will be the albatross of the next generation.
Also, digital resources cannot be read on the bus on the way to or from school (unless the student has her/his own laptop, which even fewer students have).
Some digital resources are designed to be easily printed and distributed to students. But given the nature of how many students handle resources, these would then be "one use" which not only increases the copying budget for the schools, but increases paper consumption when compared to textbooks.
Many educators have presented "one laptop per student" plans, but given the life of breakable objects in the hands of students, these plans would be much more expensive than textbooks. And laptop batteries drain, so if a student were using her/his laptop frequently during the day, the school needs to install electricity at every desk.
Open source educational resources are a valuable part of the education toolkit, but let's not jump on board an inequitable train just to support them.