[IAEP] Some Comments on Digital Textbooks In California

[James Simmons]

Caryl,

I can certainly understand expecting the worst here.  I do think the 
idea has potential, even if it takes awhile to achieve it.

My niece went to the Illinois Math and Science Academy, a public 
boarding school for gifted kids.  One of the things that impressed me 
about this school was that they don't use textbooks at all.  The 
teachers create all the class materials.  Her father's complaint about 
the school was that, "The teachers don't teach!"  I don't think anyone 
missed having textbooks, though.

Creating textbooks has a lot of politics involved in it.  School boards 
cannot be offended by anything in History or Biology textbooks, and the 
dumbest, most easily offended school boards in the country end up 
choosing what textbooks get used by most of the country.  A couple of 
years ago I took a vacation in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, etc.  I 
learned a lot of things about U.S. History that I wish I had learned as 
a kid.  For instance, the first ships in the U.S. Navy were captured 
from the British by pirates.  In colonial Williamsburg, church 
attendance was required by law, and you could be punished for arriving 
late.  If you wanted to attend a church other than the official one you 
could only do that with permission from the government, and you still 
had to tithe to the official church.  What is the likelihood of any of 
that information making it into a high school textbook? 

I read a story that a Biology teacher got in trouble for pointing out 
that men and women have the same number of ribs!  Mike Huckabee claimed 
during the last election that most of the signers of the Declaration of 
Independence were clergymen, and *nobody* corrected him.

Having digital textbooks might be a way to get around that, because 
different states could publish their own books at a low cost.  States 
could use each other's books, etc.  I'm not saying it would be easy but 
it would be possible.  The school boards in Texas and elsewhere would 
not be able to hijack the whole process.  Eventually this should lead to 
better textbooks.

If the books were in the public domain (and they should be) then cheap 
printed copies of the textbooks should also be available.

James Simmons

> Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 09:53:04 -0700
> From: Caryl Bigenho <cbigenho at hotmail.com>
> Subject: [IAEP] Some Comments on Digital Textbooks In California
> To: Community Support Volunteers -- who help respond t
> 	<support-gang at lists.laptop.org>, IAEP SugarLabs
> 	<iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>
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> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>
> Hi...
> Adam Holt alerted me to Gov. Schwarzenegger's proposal to go digital with textbooks statewide in California high schools, starting with math and science this year.  Here is my retired teacher's view of the situation...
>
>
> (See: http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/fact-sheet/12455/)
>
>
> The Good:
>
>
> Textbooks can be up to date and, hopefully, will be.
>
>
> The Bad
>
> Gov. Schwarzenegger suggests teachers can "print out pages for students who do not have computers."  Who pays?  Probably the teachers!  This really shows no commitment to supplying the schools with computers
>
> The Ugly
>
>
> Textbook publishing is a big, competitive business.  Lots of profits are to be made in publishing textbooks.  What incentive will there be to publish free online books? You can bet they will not be free for long.
> Hummmmm...Maybe we do need Jerry Brown to run for governor.  He had a huge commitment to educational technology when he was in office.
> Any comments?
> Caryl