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Who needs a bulky textbook?
Florida schools prepare for a state-mandated shift from print to digital textbooks by 2015
A new state mandate requires Florida schools to make all print textbooks digital in four years.
Students at Clearwater High School in Pinellas County, Fla., don’t carry backpacks with bulky textbooks anymore: This school year, students traded in their math and English books, science workbook, and several novels for the 10-ounce, 8-inch-by-5-inch electronic reader, Kindle.
If Rebecca Fleck won the lottery for the Highlands County School District in central Florida, she’d probably hand every county student a Kindle, a laptop, or an iPad as well.
While local schools don’t have the money to go that far quite yet, they have brought the digital world into their classrooms in big and small ways—from online links that students use for research, to probes or computer accessories for testing pH levels, temperatures, or levels of dissolved oxygen.
Propelling this change is the understanding that this is a more relevant way to teach to a generation of students who use multimedia in their everyday lives, said Fleck, the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction.
There’s also a new state mandate, which requires Florida schools to make all print textbooks digital in four years. The state Legislature passed it this year, and Gov. Rick Scott signed the measure May 26.
Highlands County has gotten the ball rolling through a pilot program that will make 10th-grade biology next year fully digital. How that goes will shape the school district’s approach to going digital in other subjects.
One Response to Who needs a bulky textbook?
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msajma01
May 31, 2011 at 8:56 pm
With an alarming number of student issued electronic devices being trashed by students, it is economically impractical. The costs of repair or replacement are going out of sight! If eBooks were available to students on-line at school and when they are at home, fine. Otherwise, forget eBooks. It is true that too many students are bringing their skate boards to school, but never their textbooks. Permissive school officials who look the other way of such student behavior have turned the purpose of school on its head!
msajma01
May 31, 2011 at 8:56 pm
With an alarming number of student issued electronic devices being trashed by students, it is economically impractical. The costs of repair or replacement are going out of sight! If eBooks were available to students on-line at school and when they are at home, fine. Otherwise, forget eBooks. It is true that too many students are bringing their skate boards to school, but never their textbooks. Permissive school officials who look the other way of such student behavior have turned the purpose of school on its head!