The Educated Guess » Riverside Unified in vanguard of digital texts:
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger drew national attention last May when he proclaimed a free digital textbook initiative. He caught a second wave of publicity three months later when he declared that 10 of the vetted digital science and math texts were well aligned to state standards and were ready for downloading.
Since then, it’s been pretty much of a dud, which is not all that surprising. August was too close to the opening of school for most schools to switch textbooks – even for free. And the cash-strapped state was offering no incentives and, more importantly, no training for teachers on how to integrate them into the classroom."
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger drew national attention last May when he proclaimed a free digital textbook initiative. He caught a second wave of publicity three months later when he declared that 10 of the vetted digital science and math texts were well aligned to state standards and were ready for downloading.
Since then, it’s been pretty much of a dud, which is not all that surprising. August was too close to the opening of school for most schools to switch textbooks – even for free. And the cash-strapped state was offering no incentives and, more importantly, no training for teachers on how to integrate them into the classroom."
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Perhaps more disappointing is a general expectation by the public that any initiative show immediate and dramatic results. Revolutions are rarely so transparent. The Governor may be catching publicity from this movement, but the real story is that textbook publishers (Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and others) are dying to get out of the printing business. The Digital Textbook Initiative, conducted and paid for by CLRN, is only one step on the journey to transform learning materials. Many more details on my blog.
ReplyDeleteBrian Bridges
Director, CLRN