You are Never Alone

In 2001 I was part of a South Australian study group which went to NECC and took the opportunity to visit a number of American educational institutions.
One of the schools we visited was Steel Canyon High, a new school about to open. In particular we visited the library which at that stage was almost book-less. The reason was that all the school text books were to be e-textbooks. The system would be that each student would have an e-bookreader, and simply take it to the library to have the term’s text books loaded on.

Among the reasons behind this scheme:

• to reduce the size of the backpacks of books students were carrying - this was, and still is, a great concern in Australia
• to enable the purchase of parts of appropriate books where they were available. Very few text books actually cover an entire course. There are usually chapters that never used, and other topics not covered in the printed text
• to enable the use of current course materials. In some subjects course materials go out of date quickly. Economics text books, information technology books, are two cases here. An e-textbook chapter can be updated easily and then made available online for schools to download.
• Using e-textbooks rather than printed would be of ecological benefit.

At the Leading a Digital School conference last week I found myself sitting at a table of teachers and text book publishers, and it does appear that in Australia we have made little progress in this area.

Part of the problem must be the fact that we have not yet seen the emergence of a reliable e-bookreader that is not a brick, and which has the tools that it would be nice for an e-book reader to have. Certainly the Microsoft e-bookreader we were shown in 2001 has never really made it here in Australia. There are laptops that could work as well, although the original Microsoft e-book reader had features like being able to book mark pages, highlight text, make notes in the margin etc. As someone at the dinner table last weekend pointed out schools in Australia are not going to buy both an e-book reader and a laptop.

I was reminded of this issue this morning by an article in e SCHOOL NEWS. A recent study has pointed out that many digital textbooks are over-priced, and even when the price is right, there aren’t currently enough options. Apparently there are some schemes which give the student the right to access the book for a limited time period - when the period expires, the student can no longer access the book.

I did think my dinner companions the other night did not have a very clear vision of what an e-textbook could be. There was really nothing interactive in the pdf and CD/DVD versions they were describing.

Meanwhile Steel Canyon High seems to have stuck with its e-backpack scheme, although these days its library also houses recognisable books.

So should we be looking at e-textbooks as part of the Digital Education Revolution? Are there any schools creating their own e-textbooks or using any of the current limited offerings?

I’ve found a couple of links that may be of interest:

• JISC Libraries of the Future - an online debate
• Learning Light - an e-learning centre