Arnie terminates school books

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Arnie terminates school books

Sky News - 9th June 2009

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090609/twl ... d0ae9.html

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is planning to phase out textbooks in schools and use internet texts instead.

Schwarznegger wants to save money by cutting out what he calls "heavy" and "antiquated" books that cost the state nearly £218m last year.

He believes California's tech-savvy youngsters will quickly adapt to learning online.

"Today, our kids get their information from the internet, downloaded onto their iPods, and in Twitter feeds to their cell phones," he said.

"So why are California's public school students still forced to lug around antiquated, heavy, expensive textbooks?"

From the beginning of the next school year in August, maths and science students in the state's high schools will have access to selected online texts.

Schwarzenegger stresses the new technology will better prepare students because it can be updated and will not become out of date.

But there are fears the governor has been won over by the economic benefits.

California is saddled with debt and facing a £15.13bn gap in the state budget.

Schwarzenegger has been forced to scrap any state funding projects drawn up since March 1 this year.

...

Sounds like a bad idea to phase out paper text books, I think that the school library should always keep a range of decent texts on every subject taught at the school.

The paper texts need to be chosen with care to find ones which are readable by school kids.

It might be a good idea to give the kids access to on line texts, but the problem I see with a kid using a PC to study is that the PC is oftein used to play. It would be a bit like me trying to do my work while relaxing with some music on, in a deck chair with my wife next to me while also having ice cream to eat. Too many distractions from the work at hand => nothing useful done.

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I think it's a good idea considering the 16 billion dollar debt.

There are many things that are not on the internet. Even Google News Archive and Google Books are far from complete.

I don't think it's a very good idea. I mean fair enough they have to cut costs but I don't think internet texts will be as reliable. Plus I like textbooks better than reading online because textbooks don't hurt my eyes as much and I like to sit nice and comfy with a textbook.

In the long run, bad idea. Books have their own value, and reading things from a computer screen isn't always convenient.

BOOO

It might be a good idea if they take some of the £218m they don't spend on texts to develop online curricula. But if they merely drop texts without developing a decent alternative, it won't improve education.

I love Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/

I don't really like having to read a book on the computer screen but I have read so many fine books that I never would have read because they are out of print.

There are authors that I like. Am I going to pay $20 or $30 or more for a hard bound book that will take me two hours to read?

A few years ago salesmen would try to sell you an Encyclopedia Britannica for several thousand dollars.

I got a free copy with my last computer.

The public school textbook "racket" as I refer to it is not cost effective and spends way too much time on politically correct and flashy methods to educate students. I tutored High School students in Math and found that the newer textbooks in math were full of nice color pictures on nearly every page. The books cost more than the non-color books that I used 20-30 years ago.

So far, in California, when a politician states that some new policy will cost x amount of dollars or save x amount of dollars the politician turns out to be wrong. In the long run I do not see any quick savings with the Governator's latest decision. Technology is great but will never replace a book in your lap. No batteries, no wi-fi, no education. And, will the dept. of education be paying for eye exams now?

This is going to be a bad idea in the long run, since in some of the poorer areas, students might not have internet access at home, putting them at an even more of a disadvantage. Books also have value, especially in English classes where reading is a major part of the class. One other issue is that kids might use the computers as another excuse to goof off during class, surfing the internet for example, than actually learning. Online bullying is already a problem in society today, and with schools now having to do everything online, it's just another way for the schoolyard bully to torment their victims.

I'm not opposed to online learning at all, in some cases, it can be good as when I took a class in college on political campaign persuasion that was only offered during election season. We still met in the classroom a couple of times a week, but since we were studying current events, there really is no textbook.

Let's phase out the importance of reading a book. Great idea Governator! Sure, the internet is a great tool for information, however, I highly doubt that school kids would have the ability to comprehend the distinction between factual websites and people's opinions.

Nice witty comment Ruveyn, and quite relevant i'd say. On the other hand, why not just have all those books scanned and put on a website? =/ it's not that hard....

Give every kid a kindle reader... one kindle costs less than a year's worth of textbooks...

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