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California schools to say goodbye to textbooks
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This is how Arnold apparently feels about print media.
Looks like the days of backpacks looking bigger than some of the kids wearing them is over.
On Monday, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced to whom else, schoolchildren in Sacramento, that he plans to introduce an initiative that will make schools start trading in traditional print textbooks for digital ones.
The measure he is introducing is appropriately named the Digital Textbook Initiative and it will begin to focus on the core subjects of math and science. The proposal is centered on the fact that kids in school these days are more familiar with getting their information in digital form.
Oddly enough, Arnold used the examples of Twitter and Facebook, not sure what those have to do with learning but hey, they certainly are popular.
No love for MySpace or Friendster apparently.
He also brought up the notion that kids hate lugging around gigantic textbooks, bring them out for an hour and then have to carry them around campus for the rest of the day. (If your schools were anything like mine, you felt like a Sherpa out there sometimes.)
It is safe to say that kids are luckier than all of us were when we were in school.
According to the Govenator, California is the first state to propose such an initiative and remarked that it makes a lot of sense because Silicon Valley is based in the state meaning that we are on the forefront of technological innovation.
The brilliance here should be just seeping out of your monitor and onto your keyboard.
Really though, it actually makes a lot of sense. California is in the midst of a crippling budget crisis and the state government is trying to slash costs in any way it possibly can. We’re talking $24 billion dollars in debt here.
Wow.
So, how is this going to help?
Well, with the average price of a textbook hovering around $100 Arnie, says it will slash off somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 to $400 million dollars just for math and science text books alone. If the initiative were to expand to other school subjects, it would encompass several other hundreds of million dollars.
Although this is going to be met with tons of skepticism, kudos to the California government for coming up with an alternative that one, could benefit kids and two, save the state money.
A far cry from one writer’s opinion of them only mere weeks ago.
Enough with the sugar coating, the plan is going to potentially hampered with problems and since he didn’t elaborate too much, let’s take it upon ourselves to do it for him.
One, what schools will be covered under this? All of them? Some of them? And what will qualify schools to start getting rid of the paper textbooks to be replaced by digital ones?
Two, what company is going to supply this sort of technology to millions and millions of students state-wide? Is the government going to subsidize this? Is every student going to get a Kindle?
Three, why didn’t they make this switch a long time ago?
Four, are kindergarteners supposed to be able to work these electronics? Or will they, you know, keep some of those “books made of paper” aside in some cobwebbed corner for them?
The 5th graders will be having a field day with this, just picture it now:
“Paper reader! Paper reader!”
“Am not!”
Is this sort of environment healthy for children trying to learn?
In all seriousness, is this going to be starting with the high schools and moving down or what? Details would certainly be nice.
The great thing is that these are problems that can be easily solved if the government doesn’t blunder this like they have, well, lots of other things.
This will be great with a well-thought out model.
Its one thing for the Governor to say it but it’s another to actually put it into action. So there is only one thing left to say:
Come on, California, we can do this!
For more info: Contact Adam: admillios@gmail.com
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