In Digital World, Textbooks Face Extinction

Across the globe, the push for more open-ended, digital learning tools has sparked the debate about whether printed textbooks will live to see another decade, the New York Times reports.

From M.I.T. to King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia, universities worldwide have started using and sharing open-source courses. Also at the high school level, more and more students use laptops to do their work, download podcasts to listen to lectures and learn English, history and science lessons by clicking a button instead of flipping a page.

In this digital era, the printed textbook is showing its age, and some educators believe that digital materials -- an assembly of free courseware, educational games, videos, Web projects, etc. -- could soon be going the way of the dinosaur.

“Kids are wired differently these days,” said Sheryl R. Abshire, chief technology officer for the Calcasieu Parish school system in Lake Charles, La. “They’re digitally nimble ... Teachers need digital resources to find those documents, those blogs, those wikis that get them beyond the plain vanilla curriculum in the textbooks.”

In an Arizona school district, a Beyond Textbooks initiative encourages teachers to create and share lessons that may include PowerPoint presentations, as well as videos and online research materials.

This summer in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger launched an unprecedented initiative to replace some high school math and science textbooks with free digital versions.

As the digital wave hits, the traditional textbook publishers are the most at risk. These companies that have been producing printed textbooks for decades now must shift their focus if they hope to survive.

Pearson, the nation's largest one, submitted four texts as part of California's digital textbook initiative, which are available online as free supplements to the texts. In the state, most of the digital texts came from CK-12 Foundation, a nonprofit group that develops free "flexbooks," which can be customized to meet state standards and tailored to curriculums. 

“We’re still in a brick-and-mortar, 30-students-to-1-teacher paradigm,” said William M. Habermehl, superintendent of Orange County schools, “but we need to get out of that framework to having 200 or 300 kids taking courses online, at night, 24/7, whenever they want.”

Money is a critical hurdle in some areas. Even though so many of the online courseware is free, many students and school districts do not have access to computers or cannot afford a smartphone, a Kindle electronic reader -- tools that make digital learning possible. In that case, educators see the digital movement as an ongoing evolution that will start small and balloon as time goes by. Either way, education leaders say, schools all over the world need to get ready for technology to take over.

“We should be bracing ourselves for way more interactive, way more engaging videos, activities and games,” said Marina Leight, Converge's editor in chief.

For the complete story, visit www.nytimes.com.