California To Move To Online Textbooks 468
Hugh Pickens writes "Last year California spent $350m on textbooks so facing a state budget shortfall of $24.3 billion, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has unveiled a plan to save money by phasing out 'antiquated, heavy, expensive textbooks' in favor of internet aids. Schwarzenegger believes internet activities such as Facebook, Twitter and downloading to iPods show that young people are the first to adopt new online technologies and that the internet is the best way to learn in classrooms so from the beginning of the school year in August, math and science students in California's high schools will have access to online texts that have passed an academic standards review. 'It's nonsensical — and expensive — to look to traditional hard-bound books when information today is so readily available in electronic form,' writes Schwarzenegger. 'As the music and newspaper industries will attest, those who adapt quickly to changing consumer and business demands will thrive in our increasingly digital society and worldwide economy. Digital textbooks can help us achieve those goals and ensure that California's students continue to thrive in the global marketplace.'"
Re:OLPC? (Score:3, Interesting)
Publishers have had it too easy (Score:3, Interesting)
The way textbooks are pushing above $100, I'm not surprised. Publishers have made a mint and have tried their best to hamper the second hard market. This is a positive change.
Re:No its not... (Score:5, Interesting)
online lectures, not books (Score:3, Interesting)
Online books are not a very good idea. Books are still better for reading and studying, and the technology for ebooks is still not good enough to mimic all features of real books. Video, on the other hand, is already good enough to have online lectures. I know, because my university does it, and I took some classes where I only went to the classroom to take the tests. I watched all lectures at my own pace in the comfort of my room, and I feel it made no difference whatsoever. Actually, I am sometimes bored in a classroom lecture and wished I could just press the pause button on the teacher, go for a coffe and come back without missing anything. So, I find online lectures just as effective as live lectures but much more convenient, and the interactive aspect can also be taken care of by using email and online forums. So, I think the Governor should re-examine the issue and maybe get rid of schools but keep the books. I am not kidding.
Unfortunately (Score:4, Interesting)
If California wasn't basically broke I might believe this hype (not really), but a better solution might be to set up a cost effective textbook publishing operation. Publishing is one of the areas where you are dependent on heavy fixed plant which has well defined operating costs. Therefore, competition can tend to raise prices because of the costs involved in marketing, sales, administration and (ahem) kickbacks, which are multiplied across every entrant. How about competitive tender to write textbooks, and competitive tender to print them? And, when the concept is proven, competitive tender to make them available on-line?
Re:On-line content needs to be leveraged according (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean like this?
http://www.mathcs.clarku.edu/~djoyce/java/elements/elements.html [clarku.edu]
Agree completely that ebooks (and readers) need to move beyond a static representation / recreation of a printed text (though in doing this they need to preserve niceties of fine book typography such as avoiding orphans and widows, preventing stacks, have decent justification algorithms (why isn't there an ebook reader program which uses TeX's algorithm) and use nice typefaces which are legible and readable).
Rather a shame Tim Berners Lee didn't use TeXview.app as inspiration for worldwideweb.app rather than TextEdit.app.
William
Re:OLPC? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No its not... (Score:3, Interesting)
California can buy rights to whatever they want. If the state is taking control they are a huge market. This problem is not insolvable.
I'd like to see how it works (Score:3, Interesting)
While it sounds good, the logistics of providing access will be a nightmare. Simply expecting kids to have internet access / laptops won't cut it; that's a lawsuit waiting to happen. Books, while not cheap, are much more durable and can be expected to last a lot longer. The value of a 10 year old text as a teaching aid is suspect; but the life cycle costs is less than electronic.
Publishers now have a reason to update books more rapidly - remove the production costs for hardcover books and they can "outdate" books much faster; plus try to force per student per year licenses on districts.
Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.
Re:Bait and Switch (Score:5, Interesting)
This is exactly what happened in one of my classes. The professor thought it would be a good idea to switch to an on-line version of the text book, then some smart-ass started asking the sales rep from the publisher hard questions.
How much does it cost? $95 (the paper one was $100)
Can I re-sell it at the end of the year? No
Will I have access to the text after the class has ended? No
I didn't convince everyone, but about 10% of the other heads in the class were nodding as the publisher's castle of wishes and pretty clouds was blown away. Of course, the professor took me aside and said that I needed to "quit interrupting the class and undermining his authority."
Dual-edged sword (Score:4, Interesting)
I see this as a quick fix, but it's using some strong medicine.
Putting it into .pdf form (or whatever form they might fancy) will only inhibit the ability to think. You can't write down notes in the margins, even if you can highlight sections of text. This is analogous to freehand drawing vs computer aided drawing (creativity vs productivity). The single exception I can think of is taking pictures out of the .pdf's (if the DRM allows it).
By suddenly moving away from textbooks, we're moving further away from an old part of the brain, which has aided us in learning ever since humanity learned to tell stories from wall paintings. In general, computers can inhibit the brain processes that aid us in mental growth, mostly because it prevents the mind from subconsciously dwelling on a topic for extended periods. Computerized reading devices (Kindle-type products) would fare much better, but those require an investment that California may not be willing to buck up.
I'm not saying this can't work, but I am saying that it would work for people who have adapted to it (which most of the system there has not). What I'm also saying is that creativity within the 'new school' students will plummet. For people to adapt best to this change in learning mediums, they should start from a young age. You can expect old dogs to learn new tricks works, but does it work well enough?
Something I will stress though: there will be people who cotton to this new medium fairly well, and there will be those who won't. I personally would feel that (if I were a child again) I would end up in the camp who wouldn't, mostly because of the subculture that will show up around this policy change. (I went through textbooks very quickly as a child, it wouldn't be in my interests to be "stuck with" the rest of the class simply because of DRM issues)
There will be good aspects to this though: social life will figure out ways to conform to these electronic resources. Instant messaging is proof of this.
Say what you will about doodles being good, or doodles being bad, or even a philosophical debate over things like television and such; but not everything that technology's subcultures has brought us has been benign. While this new policy does sound benign to the regular person, it will affect people both positively and negatively. It needs to be respected as a dual-edged sword, instead of a stress-borne whim.
Re:Textbooks (Score:2, Interesting)
Gas prices have gone up, but the state can't raise taxes to pay for them, so they cut transportation services.
Costs of living have gone up, but the state can't raise taxes so they fire teachers.
CA has a system that is guaranteed to fail. I lived there for a long time, taxes are incredibly low, and services are incredibly shitty. Education is lousy (CA is below average in per-pupil spending, though above average in per-capita income), infrastructure is dangerously inadequate (CA is dead last in funds spent for transportation).
While the rest of the country was booming in the Clinton years, CA could'nt raise any revenue, and now they're paying for it.
History gets longer every year (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless I haven't been paying attention, Geometry [...] hasn't changed much in the last few years
A proof of the Kepler conjecture [wikipedia.org] (face-centered cubic is the closest packing of spheres) showed up about a decade ago.
Calculus
There have been several different formulations of calculus in terms of different infinitesimal frameworks, in addition to the traditional limits framework.
WWII
History gets longer every year: Cold War (Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Apollo program, breakup and reunification of Germany), Woodstock, Bosnia, WTO, EU, World Trade Center, Afghanistan, Iraq. And we appear to be heading for a Korean War II. And there's still research into how each side won or lost.
Re:ha (Score:4, Interesting)
No you are confusing two documents:
1) US constitution which sets out the authorities of branches of the federal government
2) The California which sets out the authorities of branches of the federal government
A federal judge is governed by the US constitution but not the California constitution even when ruling in California (I'm oversimplifying a bit here). We were discussing this in terms of a bankruptcy of California which means a Federal judge would be ruling hence prop 13 is not binding on him/her.
Re:Mod parent up (Score:4, Interesting)
Outdated textbooks are horrible. It's not the facts that are left behind it's the relevance to the current student. A math problem created in the 90s about some topic relevant to a student then will leave a student in the year 2020 wondering how useful math is really...
Question:
"There are two cars traveling the same distance of 100 miles, one car gets 10 MPG the other gets 20 MPG. How many gallons of gas will each car need to arrive at their destination?"
Answer:
"My car is electric and we just plug it in at night. It goes 300 miles on a charge."
Re:OLPC? (Score:2, Interesting)
I was took printshop when I was in highschool. I'm sure just about all school districts have access to a printshop or a neighbor school district does so your right on the money. High school students these days if I recall *have* to do community service to graduate. So have them help print the school books for the district and count that time towards the community service.
Re:OLPC? (Score:4, Interesting)
Agreed - Printing is much cheaper than buying a hard bound version.
The problem with this argument is that printouts are not likely to be used multiple years in a row. The cost of a hard bound book is distributed over a period of many years (sometimes as much as 15), whereas you'll be reprinting almost every year.
My take on it is this:
Average junior high books:
Language Arts
Science
Math
Social Studies
Maybe Foreign Language/Art/or Music
At $100 a book, that's $500 per student initial investment. Expected lifespan, say 7 years? So rounded up to ~$75 per student per year.
At $250 per netbook, that's half the initial investment. Expected lifespan, say 3-4 years? So rounded up to ~$75 per student per year.
So their is probably minimal cost savings.
Primary benefits: Increased technology in the classroom, constantly updated online textbook material, saved some trees
Drawbacks: Stolen/damaged netbooks, netbook lifespan may be optimistic, school network infrastructure will need upgrades also
Can anyone think of more pros/cons?
Given the trend toward technology in the workplace, I think it's a good idea. But I don't think it will save money.
Re:OLPC? (Score:3, Interesting)
Open Source Textbooks (Score:2, Interesting)
Open source textbook resources might be a way around dealing with uber-expensive licensing models. If even a fraction of the vitality seen on some open source projects were to be expended on open source textbooks, teachers would have some great resources at their disposal. The availability of a variety of approaches to explaining some of the basics (like middle school algebra) could make all the difference in the world to a kid who doesn't "get it" from the explanation in a single textbook. And those texts that need to be updated frequently, would be.
Furthermore, local control of the learning materials would be enhanced, as parents, teachers and school districts could decide what material is best-suited to their kids, rather than having some faceless group of ivory-tower bureaucrats in a far-off city deciding that for them.
Here are a few of the resources I found in a quick search -- I'm sure there are other projects out there.
Re:No its not... (Score:3, Interesting)
While most of what you said I'd agree with, this part struck a nerve. If the cost of textbooks is so high in order to pay the authors for their time invested, why do the 2nd, 3rd, 4th (etc) editions all cost the same when the only thing done is to fix a few typos and change the end of chapter questions a bit. And on top of that, it's not like mathematics or the physical sciences have changes THAT much over the past few decades to require so many new textbooks and/or editions.
I hope the electronic books work, somehow.
I'm participating in this as an author. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm participating in the CLRN Free Digital Textbook Initiative [clrn.org] as the author of a physics book [lightandmatter.com]. When this was discussed on slashdot recently [slashdot.org], I posted skeptically. The same day, I got an email from Brian Bridges, the director of CLRN, saying that he'd seen my slashdot post, and he wanted to reassure me that it really was going to happen. They'd already made a list of potential candidates who they wanted submissions from, and I was on it. I had to go through my books and figure out how they correlated with the list of topics (Word document) [clrn.org] that the state standards say are supposed to be covered in high school physics. Then there was a process where I had to set up an account on their server, fill out some online forms, and upload the Word file showing how my topics correlated with the standards.
There does seem to be somewhat of a fog of uncertainty surrounding this whole thing. One thing I've noticed is that although Schwarzenegger has named three top-level state education officials who are supposed to carry this out, some of these people are actually his political opponents. In case anyone hasn't noticed, this is all motivated by the hellish California state budget situation. This article [arstechnica.com] has some useful information about California's dysfunctional textbook selection system, and a previous, unsuccessful free-textbook effort called COSTP, where the state tried to produce a history textbook via wikibooks.org [wikibooks.org]. The present effort seems to be doing a pretty good job of eliminating the bureaucratic obstacles; Bridges sent me a detailed email explaining how to fill out all the forms, saying what it was safe to leave blank, etc.
One thing that I wasn't very clear on before was whether they envisioned this as something that would involve traditional textbook publishers, individual authors who'd put their own stuff on the web, or both. Although I'm sure they don't want to arbitrarily tell certain private entities, like the traditional publishers, that they can't participate, it seems clear to me now that it's aimed at the nontraditional folks like me. Note the word "free" in the name of the initiative [clrn.org]. No traditional publisher is going to give their book away for free in digital form. It's true that the big college and high school textbook publishers are very actively involved in an effort to distribute a lot of their books in digital form, but not for free. From what I've observed at the community college where I teach, the idea seems to be to get students to rent DRM'd textbooks. When the student stops paying the rent, they can no longer use the book. This would have the effect of eliminating the used book market, which the publishers hate with a passion. (That's the reason they bring out new editions so frequently.) So no, I don't think any traditional publishers will participate. The general picture really does seem to be that they're doing this as an alternative to the traditional publishers. Further circumstantial evidence comes from the fact that the state has already tried to do a collaboration with wikibooks. One big question in my mind is whether there will be a giant push-back from the traditional publishers to keep this from happening. Seems like a no-brainer if it really advances to the stage where their market is threatened.
A lot of the slashdot posts so far have been about the issue of how students will access the books. Since the initiative has "Free" in the name, I don't think we're going to see too many barriers to access here (rentals, DRM, logging in to a web site to access the book, etc.). Taking my own books as
Re:ha (Score:1, Interesting)
The American Civil War says your wrong.
Federal > State until otherwise noted.
The key is libre, not online. (Score:3, Interesting)
Many people have complained that textbooks online are not going to be cheaper, easier, or as friendly as printed books.
If I had a pdf of a text book that I could legally print out and give to my students, then I could print them myself, and still provide them with books for a fraction of what their current text book costs.
And I could fix them - if say, someone spilled juice on pages 8-20, I could reprint just those pages, or when someone spots a typo, or just plain wrong information, then I could update just that part.
Plus those students who can read an electronic version can have a copy for home and leave the printed version in class.
And they could keep a copy for their entire life, if they ever wanted to refer back to it.
Re:Prop 13 limits increases (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:OLPC? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's been true for decades that more US households have color television than running water. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if more households have internet access than running water.