WASHINGTON
(AP) -- Worried your kids spend too much time with their faces buried in
a computer screen? Their schoolwork may soon depend on it.
Education
Secretary Arne Duncan called Tuesday for the nation to move as fast as
possible away from printed textbooks and toward digital ones. "Over the
next few years, textbooks should be obsolete," he declared.
It's
not just a matter of keeping up with the times, Duncan said in remarks
to the National Press Club. It's about keeping up with other countries
whose students are leaving their American counterparts in the dust.
South
Korea, which consistently outperforms the U.S. when it comes to
educational outcomes, is moving far faster than the U.S. in adopting
digital learning environments. One of the most wired countries in the
world, South Korea has set a goal to go fully digital with its textbooks
by 2015.
"The world is changing," Duncan said. "This has to be where we go as a country."
The
transition to digital involves much more than scanning books and
uploading them to computers, tablet devices or e-readers. Proponents
describe a comprehensive shift to immersive, online learning experiences
that engage students in a way a textbook never could.
A
student studying algebra might click to watch a video clip explaining a
new concept or property. If they get stuck, interactive help features
could figure out the problem. Personalized quizzes ensure they're not
missing anything - and if they are, bring them up to speed before they
move on to the next lesson. Social networking allows students to
interact with teachers and each other even when school isn't in session.
Using
digital textbooks, schools can save money on hard copies and get
updated material to students more quickly. School districts may also be
able to pick and choose their curriculum buffet-style. A district might
choose one publisher's top-notch chapter on Shakespeare, but follow it
with another publisher's section on Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet
Letter."
But adopting digital textbooks isn't
as easy as a directive from Washington. States set their own processes
for selecting and purchasing textbooks that match their needs.
Over
the last two years, at least 22 states have taken major strides toward
digital textbooks, said Douglas Levin, executive director of the State
Educational Technology Directors Association. Until recently, Levin
said, states struggled to collaborate because each had its own
curricular standards, a particular burden for smaller states. That
burden has been eased now that 48 states and the District of Columbia
have adopted the Common Core standards, a set of uniform benchmarks for
math and reading.
"There are opportunities for the federal government to encourage states and districts not to reinvent the wheel," Levin said.
A
school district in Huntsville, Ala., launched an effort over the summer
to become the first district to transition fully to digital textbooks.
To do that, the district must first ensure every student has either a
laptop or a tablet computer. In California, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a
pair of bills in September aiming to make his state a national leader in
electronic college textbooks.
Still, many
districts, already buckling from diminished budgets, don't have the
bandwidth or the equipment to make digital materials available to every
student. That's created a new challenge for the educational publishing
industry as it works to market products to district across the
technological spectrum.
"We haven't produced
anything that's print-only in over three years. One hundred percent of
what we have is available to school districts electronically," said
Vineet Madan, senior vice president of new ventures for McGraw-Hill
Education.
A central tension in the movement
toward digital materials is what it means for textbook publishers whose
profits rely on replacing old, worn-out textbooks with new ones. Yet to
be seen is whether textbooks, like music, will become easy to steal or
copy without payment, or whether the industry will find new ways to make
money off of teaching materials.
Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
