South African Schools To Go Textbook Free 76
An anonymous reader writes "South African education authorities are about to embark on an ambitious plan to take their schools textbook free, using the familiar refrain of one-tablet-per-child to do so. The education minister in Gauteng (the province which covers Johannesburg and Pretoria) has announced a plan to model new schools in the area on Sunward Park, a government school which went all-digital at the start of 2012. Other schools in the state will then follow, along with a plan to extend the project nationally."
This always ends well.... (Score:3, Insightful)
South Africa, welcome to ridiculously marked up pdfs of textbooks, no way to "sell back" or "buy used," and licensing/broken device issues. Enjoy!
Re:This always ends well.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed, I think this is less a sign of progress and more a sign of texbook publishers cracking down on used books. School districts will initially think they're getting a great deal, until they realize that all the textbooks they thought they had "bought" will disappear the second they stop making their monthly licensing payments.
The sad truth about South Africa (Score:1)
I am from South Africa and I can tell you that the thing mentioned in TFA is but a fucking pipe dream
The corruption in South Africa is so fucking high that there are schools in South Africa that do not even get any fucking textbook !!
In fact, BBC did a program on its world service on this specific topic ---
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-... [bbc.com]
I suggest you guys go read it and judge for yourself how fucking not-funny it is for a South African like me to read that fucking pipe-dream (one tablet per student) menti
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The proper way to introduce tech like this is to deploy it to private schools first. I know that this approach is "elitist" and unpopular, but a small group of early adopters in a fenced-off environment is an ideal test population, and keeps the inherent value of the technology separate from unrelated external factors ("Tablets won't work because they will all get stolen!"). When hoi polloi see a new technology working in the elite population and being integrated into its culture, then it will be time to sp
Re:This always ends well.... (Score:4, Informative)
Actually in South Africa it is far worse than that. The government can't even get the textbooks it has already purchased to students. Tens of thousands of textbooks were lost in warehouses, were rain and wind destroyed many before they were even delivered and as it turns out audits showed that huge discrepancies in what was paid for and what was delivered.
For South Africa going "all digital" is more likely another opportunity for an increasingly corrupt ruling party to steal even more money from the existing system, which is bordering on collapse. Teachers aren't being paid, many school buildings don't have windows or desks, or even walls. To be sure that this is some kind of bad joke, its no secret that the country's electrical supply system is so spotty that it can't keep the lights on in most major cities, without constant power failures even for the homes of the wealthy, much less schools without electricity. Coupled with mounting evidence that computers can actually retard learning and you have the makings of another incredible mess, not to mention much missed opportunity for South African students.
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But that is the truth. Schools also need barbed wire fencing, security guards, .........
Your laptop, cellphone or device will be jacked before you know it
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The electricity is in short supply due to an increase in demand, but many power stations are being brought online with the largest dry-cooled power station in the world (Medupi) expected to come on-line in 2014.
The private sector did a stellar job bringing wind and solar energy to the grid with 37 turbines near Hopefield, 30 in Caledon, a large
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As always, there is plenty of free and superior course material. The real graft is at whatever level can issue the mandate that the latest and priciest must be used. Nothing but the best for our children, etc.
Already textbook-free ... (Score:1)
Much of SA seems already to be textbook-free, since the money which was intended for textbooks seems to have disappeared, while the textbooks seem not to have appeared. It's a long-running scandal of the current government.
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What used book market ? (Score:4, Informative)
South Africa, welcome to ridiculously marked up pdfs of textbooks, no way to "sell back" or "buy used," and licensing/broken device issues. Enjoy!
What "sell back" or "buy used"? K-12 schools seem to buy books and use them year after year until they disintegrate, well at least that was my experience.
The K-12 book market is very different than the college book market.
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It means huge amounts of government money and subsidies to buy these laptops and tablets, and many third party suppliers and publishers to negotiate with. The sheer amount of bribery and kickback opportunities is probably what drives this.
"I'll contribute to your compaign if you make our competitors illegal..."
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welcome to ridiculously marked up pdfs of textbooks
From the article about Sunward Park:
“Parents were already spending an average of R1 800 on textbooks every year anyway,” explains Thango, “We were able to sell two different tablets at the start, a seven inch one for R1 000 and a 10inch one for R2 000. Most of our textbooks come from MacMillan or Pearsons, and we were able to negotiate a big discount on three year licences for ebook versions, so it only costs R300 per learner per year.”
So, if the tablet only lasts 1 year and they get the 7-inch, they save R300 (US$28). If they have it for 4 years, they save R5000 (US$470)if they get the 7-inch or R4000 (US$375) if they get the 10-inch.
This also gives them the opportunity to evolve into not using e-books, perhaps at least for some classes. My daughter went to a charter school for middle school that doesn't use textbooks. They didn't get tablets but their classrooms had computers, and they had to have
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I'm old and I don't like this. Fuck progress.
I couldn't agree more about Slashdot curmudgeonery, but the real problem is when that quote comes from the mouths of teachers. Which it all too often does.
Based on my experience (10+ years) working in ICT in a developing country, I think that this plan is:
1) Very audacious; and
2) Very likely to fail. These things work well in micro scale (because of committed individuals), but are very hard to systematise, because of 'I'm old and I don't like this.'
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Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Textbooks aren't that important (Score:3)
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Re:Textbooks aren't that important (Score:4, Informative)
Best calculus book ever was Calculus Made Easy [gutenberg.org]. It really makes the subject as clear as possible. Everything since is filler.
"Thus [integral symbol] dx means the sum of all the little bits of x; or [integral symbol] dt means the sum of all the little bits of t. Ordinary mathematicians call this symbol “the integral of.” Now any fool can see that if x is considered as made up of a lot of little bits, each of which is called dx, if you add them all up together you get the sum of all the dx’s, (which is the same thing as the whole of x). The word “integral” simply means “the whole.”"
I may have to revise my earlier statement that a good freshman calculus text can last decades. This book may demonstrate that one can last over a century (1910 publication date).
Thanks.
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Best calculus book ever was Calculus Made Easy [gutenberg.org]. It really makes the subject as clear as possible. Everything since is filler.
That does look like a great text. 2nd edition in 1914!
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Feynman wrote about it once, when he was asked to review textbooks for children:
http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm
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We had textbooks growing up in junior high and high school. The math ones were generally excellent. The English were pretty good at exposing you to a wide variety of documents from a wide range of popular sources (everything from the Bible to Shakespeare to Robert Frost and ee cummings to Mark Twain and The Twilight Zone and everything in between).
The history textbooks were poor, giving a complete oversimplification of everything and completely devoid of the religious underpinnings of most of medieval Eur
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Most things in highschool are oversimplifications of the subject matter. There's no practical way around it, because you can't learn the advanced stuff until you learn the basics. Some people have something similar to the "little lie" (Pratchett) where you tell the untruth to prepare someone for something later (the truth, or a bigger lie). As in electrons orbiting a nucleus, a lie of course, but it helps the student learn the science and be prepared for the later idea that electrons aren't little balls
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Even if they only covered stuff that was already covered in the classroom, that's useful. Not every student is able to retain all that information and maintain full concentration. Typically nobody took class notes until college when I grew up, except to write down the homework assignments.
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The best "text books" I ever had were from professors who provided us with about 100-200 pages of course notes
The only point I ever saw in textbooks were the homework problems. It saves the instructor the trouble of coming up with good practice problems and the Teacher's Manual gives them the answers so they can grade the homework.
In the right direction (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know what the practice in South Africa is, but in the U.S., most public school textbooks are provided by the school. Students can't take notes in them or highlight them. That's still the major advantage for me for paper books: they're easier to annotate quickly and informally (particularly on a tablet). But if you can't do that, why do you need the paper book?
Textbooks from the past couple decades are ridiculously heavy, loading with unnecessary illustrations and other bulk which seem to be there simply for eye-candy for textbook adopting boards. (Completely unnecessary in an internet age when a teacher can project photos of just about anything up as necessary.) But this is beside the point.
I've seen many middle-school kids lugging around backpacks that weigh almost as much as they do. Is that really necessary?
With a tablet, it's not necessary anymore. Textbooks can be filled with not only illustrations but audio and video examples or animations, if needed. And that's not even exploring the possibility for new types of interactivity.
As I'm sure many will point out here, the concern is probably about licensing fees, which will probably require an annual fee to keep using textbooks. So, in the long-term, we need to move toward adoption of more free textbooks (or textbooks that can be simply downloaded, without requiring licensing), many of which already exist online. Heck, for many subjects (primary and secondary math, grammar, etc.), public domain PDF textbooks from 100 years ago would cover almost the same material, saving a lot of money to be spent toward, say, actual interactive apps that teach in innovative ways, along with the few concepts left out of the old textbooks.
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Physical Textbooks have one advantage that will never be replicated with digital ones:
Spatial Memory [wikipedia.org]
When I an open a textbook 3/4 of the way through I can use that fact as a mnemonic to help me remember "where" in the book the information is. With a digital "bookmark" I have no clue if I'm 25%, 50%, or 75% through. I am forced to rely on a working Search for the digital book.
I also like the fact that I can highlight my books. If students are unable to do that that is a hinderance to their learning.
Phys
Re:lugging around backpacks (Score:3)
I've seen many middle-school kids lugging around backpacks that weigh almost as much as they do. Is that really necessary?
Yes, it is. It's called exercise. And after completely destroying physical education, to protect fat kids from being heckled, it's the last bit of exercise kids get nowadays.
So go on ahead, take this away, too.
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Yes, it is. It's called exercise. And after completely destroying physical education, to protect fat kids from being heckled, it's the last bit of exercise kids get nowadays.
I knew when I wrote that line that it would bring at least one of you guys out to comment.
Look -- I completely and utterly agree with you that kids don't get enough exercise. There are all sorts of causes for this.
But the solution is not to force them to lug a large mass of stuff around in an unergonomic way while their bodies are still growing. There are all sorts of problems [nytimes.com] with this. (And sure, it is possible for kids to get reasonably designed backpacks that distribute the weight well, but even
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I'm all for having mandatory physical education or mandatory sports or whatever for kids
I don't like sports. I don't need to be taught how to do pushups or situps; I can learn that in five seconds. If you want to learn how to play a sport, voluntarily sign up for PE or learn to do it yourself. Educational institutions should be about bettering people's understanding of the universe around them, not about making them exercise. Don't waste my time with this junk, which one will never use if they leave school or after they graduate unless they really care.
This "I think it's a good idea, so it sho
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exploring the possibility for new types of interactivity
You mean candy crushing?
.
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I'ts about time (Score:2)
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Texbook free or textbook company free? (Score:2)
So far in the 23 years of schooling that my two daughters have attended there is a grand total of 1 textbook that came close to impressing me. Overall the textbook mostly sucked but its approach was refreshingly good and I suspect would have a very high long term retention rate.
At the same time I could make a fairly good list of some ex
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Are they going with opensource textbooks ...
Maybe not a lot of them at the moment, but a textbook only needs to be written once, 'published' for free and it can be used by everyone for ever afterwards. OK: not quite so simple since they will need to be updated for changing curriculum needs (especially things that change like the sciences) and will need to be translated into different languages. But an e-textbook done properly & you can do so many things that paper cannot: links to videos, links to stuff on the net, good searching, student annotat
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Every country should do this (Score:2)
It seems beyond bizarre that countries are able to specify in exacting detail what content books should contain and are able to write examination
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I wish countries would use public money to produce some ebooks for their schools. They could distribute it free as an epub file and there would be no royalties or copyright to care about, no heavy schoolbags, or parents / schools who have to buy them. Just some epubs on the end of a link, free to download and use on any tablet or ereader that supports the format.
It seems beyond bizarre that countries are able to specify in exacting detail what content books should contain and are able to write examination papers that test those subjects but they outsource the actual production (and copyright) of textbooks to somebody else.
Hear, hear! (or is that "Here, here!", or maybe "Hear, here!". Certainly not "Here, hear!", yes?)
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They got it bass awkward. (Score:2)
rolling blackouts = poor choice without lot batter (Score:2)
SA has lot's of rolling blackouts.
So it's an poor choice without lots battery's and back up power systems.
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Sounds great in theory... (Score:1)