USA TODAY: Students at Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, N.Y., will access all 40 textbooks in the school’s curriculum using a laptop or tablet…
That backpack is going to be much lighter this year. Stepinac in White Plains has become one of the first high schools in the country to drop all textbooks like dead weight and replace them with a “digital library.” When students started classes Monday, they were zipping to an app or website on their tablet or laptop and had instant access to all 40 texts in the Stepinac curriculum, not to mention all sorts of note-taking, highlighting and interactive features.
Stepinac officials worked for a year with Pearson, the education company that has long dominated the textbook world, to design and create a unique digital library that is bound to be studied by other private and public schools… (more)
Excellent ! The next step is to have the ability to replay the lessons in case the students missed something during class and assign credit when the homework is “turned in”.
The issue with electronic textbooks is that the publishers charge nearly as much for each user as they do for a hard copy.
Their explanation is “Intellectual Property”, but when adding the cost and maintenance of a computer, tablet, or reading device the cost per student for each text can be significantly higher than that of a paper book.
The idea is a great one, especially if they can replay lessons if they missed class for being sick, or whatever. But what about students who can not afford computers, laptops, tablets, etc.? Are they going to provide them for the students so they have access? What about those same students that may not have a way to use the internet at home and have no way to get to a place with free wi-fi or even the library?
EDITOR: We assume that tablet type computers would be distributed to students as part of the program.