Arnold Schwarzenegger - man of vision?

Guest blogger Kim Thomas is impressed by the Governor of California....

"Arnold Schwarzenegger’s announcement that he intends to replace paper textbooks with digital textbooks will confirm the view of many that he is nothing more than a Philistine. Those of who us who care about education tend to revere print books and the thought that schools might do away with them altogether makes us throw our hands up in horror.

But we’d be wrong to do so.  If reports are correct, Schwarzenegger intends to provide Californian schoolchildren with an ebook reader – a device, such as the Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle, that can hold the equivalent of 160 books. Such devices, which cost about £200, are light and portable and have screens that are much gentler on the eye than the typical computer screen.

Think of the benefits. Currently textbooks go out of date very quickly, and schools have to decide whether to replace them frequently, at a high cost, or struggle on for years with out-of-date books. I don’t know about you, but when I was in school, some of my textbooks were years old. When an electronic textbook gets out-of-date, however, you can download a new one very easily.

Then there’s the issue of damage. Pages in print books get torn and dog-eared, pupils write on the covers and drop the books in puddles. It’s not possible to do that with electronic textbooks – though you could, in principle, damage the ebook reader itself. A small contribution or deposit from each pupil would help address that problem.

Finally, imagine how much easier it would be to carry a single ebook reader around rather than 10 or 15 books – which, invariably, get lost or left at home. Pupils could find the book they needed whenever they wanted it, and could search across titles to find the specific information they were looking for.
In fact, there’s very little to dislike about Schwarzenegger’s proposal. Far from being a Philistine, the man looks something like a visionary."

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Comments

[Fran]

I guess you're right, but there's just something about a book that's aesthetically right. I'm an English teacher, and my opinion is that the newer text books are dramatically dumbed down anyway. I often use older ones because I teach higher ability kids and they're not patronised by them. It's just that the 80s hairstyles and orange walls in the pictures take some explaining ...

[s]

Maybe one day an E-reader will replace paper textbooks. However, as the Mother of a history and science mad dyslexic daughter, I can't help feeling it will be a long time until the screens are up to the illustration rich, limited text two page spreads of the best modern children's reference books.
In the short term transferring these to an interactive form, readable on the wider screen of a lap top seems a far more acheiveble aim.

[Wendy V]

I agree with S that the richness of illustrated text books is hard to emulate on-screen, as is the flicking back and forth.

Another issue is economic, and similar to the one facing newspapers to some extent: once content moves online it is so much harder to earn money from it. So where will the incentive be to produce high-quality updated texts?

And it makes plagiarism a whole lot easier...

[Hettie]

I always underline important text in textbooks and like to write notes or draw graphs to understand connections better on the pages. These Kindle like devices will probably let you do the same, but you only need to drop them once to damage them... Books *are* more durable.

[sho]

When I saw the article my first reaction, as an avid reader and proud owner of many well-thumbed books, was "OH NO!"

However, having had a cup of tea, read the article and considered it a little, all I can say is how much I admire the vision.

Currently these types of e-reader aren't too funky and flashy - certainly text-books and story books for younger children hugely benefit from colour illustrations, and many text-books would be next-to useless without them. However, flexible screens are not that far in the future and I can certainly envisage a time when we can have a fold-out reader, maybe around the size of a paperback, which will give full colour text and illustrations - who knows, maybe even moving pictures and sound.

The initial cost will probably raise a few eyebrows, but I think the technology is stable enough. And if this comes off, the content providers will soon come up with more and more until we have an overabundance and wonder what we did before e-books.

As for the issue of copyright and licencing, I suppose it will work along the same lines as schools and businesses taking out software licences for X number of users. Updated content would be similarly available for either a flat fee or subscription.

After all - how many schools use one text book and pass photocopies around the children?

[Kim]

Thanks for the interesting comments. I should say that, although I like the idea in principle, there are some unanswered questions.

I've never used a Sony Reader or a Kindle (the latter aren't available in the UK yet) so I don't know how durable they are, though the indications are they're pretty tough, as this drop test shows:

http://www.blogkindle.com/2008/07/kindle-drop-test/

When I've interviewed schools where the children have been given laptops or PDAs, they generally say that the children take good care of them. You'd hope the same would be true here, but we may have to wait and see.

It's not even clear yet whether he'll go for the ebook reader option or just go for digital versions that can be read on laptops. I hope it's the former - I don't think it's fair on students to have to spend longer staring at a laptop screen than is strictly necessary. Reports I've seen suggest that ebook reader screens are much easier to look at than traditional computer screens.

I think Sho is right about the business model - it will be some kind of licensing deal. And ebooks are much cheaper to produce than print books.

The other great use for ebook readers is out-of-copyright books. An English literature student could download 100 or so works of Victorian literature for no cost at all. That would certainly appeal to me.

I think it will be interesting to see how the California experiment pans out - if it's successful, I can imagine it being adopted over here. Especially if the price of the ebook readers drops.

[sho]

You never know, Victorian literature may well come back into fashion as did a lot of the classics after the Net Book Price agreement (or whatever it was called) was abolished in the UK and suddenly very reasonably priced paperbacks appeared everywhere.

If there is a way to download what's on Project Gutenberg, for instance, onto an e-book I'd definitely want to have one.

[Hol]

I'm not convinced that the readers wouldn't become the latest "must steal" along with iPods and the like, but more than that...

I'm young and thus very comfortable with/used to using both paper and electronic sources. But I always find that my eyes glaze over and I start skim reading a lot quicker when reading on screen. My retention levels and attention span are lower. I am a bookworm of the highest order and have been known to devour entire books in the space of an afternoon, so if even I have trouble concentrating on screens I do wonder whether kids are going to be able to either. There is something that just feels more substantial about reading a book.

[Kim]

Hol, that's a good point. I tend to skim read more on screen too. Have you tried the ebook readers, though? I'm curious to see how different they are from reading from an ordinary computer screen.

[Micky]

I want to see Arnie acting again!

[Sho]

I only skim (book or on the screen) when the content isn't really grabbing me. (or if the writing isn't interesting me as much as the desire to see where the story is going)

As an expat Brit I spend a lot of my reading time looking at newspapers and other online articles, and apart from the fact that it ties me to my desk, it's not as bad as I thought it would be.

I do wonder about an e-reader in the bath though...

As for the must-steal item aspect, that is worrying. But there is fairly simple hard/software out there that can combat it (I'm thinking about fingerprint readers specifically)

Of course, for every security measure, there is an equal and opposite hacker measure (eventually) but that's how life is these days.

You never know, it might just get the 'yoof of today' to take a bit more care of their things.

Hopefully this scheme will take off and some European city/county/state will emulate it.

[Estella Philipp Von Köln]

As a self-confessed e-book geek and LSE student, I agree whole heartedly with the message sent out by Schwarzenegger. It is clear that the days of wasting money upon expensive, rapidly out dated, hard-bound textbooks will soon become something consigned to the (digital) history books of the future - once educators, students and publishers alike began to recognize and harness the full power of 21st Century technology.

The guys at bookboon.com for example publish a huge range of textbooks available to download free of charge in a pdf e-book format with no registration. They are already offering a 100% free textbook solution for students, colleges and universities designed for the digital age.

Just like Arnie has said, his kids are as comfortable with a mouse as he was with his crayon so not only is every title available from bookboon.com but now it is also possible to obtain every book through the newly developed facebook app http://apps.facebook.com/bookboon

Those of you that think us e-books converts are all wrong should perhaps check out some of the academic stuff from the guys at bookboon before you totally make you mind up…

[Will]

Visionary my arse. Less environment-damaging paper usage and schoolkid's convenience is second in motivation to the long term money saving of the scheme.

[Matt]

So Arnie's in bed with the industry lobbyists again...
This doesn't make much sense at all for the proclaimed reasons of cost savings.
How long is the expected lifetime of the gadget? Two years? Three? Maybe five at most? Half of them will probably break down after 2 years at most. Or the vendor will push a new model. A good textbook lasts for 10 years. As for environmentally friendly -- paper is recyclable, those things aren't. They're plastics and electronics with batteries, basically hazardous waste, like all computers and TVs.
Their main advantage is that the children would have to carry less and that the content can be updated easily. That's all about there is to it.

[Calum]

Carrying loads of books is good exercise, and America is statistically the fattest country in the world, also home of most top fast food chains

[Kathy]

Most of you commenters seem to live in a nirvana that is *not* California. What Arnie is actually proposing is this: e-textbooks will be provided by free by whomever is willing to provide them (he has sent this to tender already, responses due next month. Almost surely this will not cover the currently approved curriculum for California students, so how this can be handled remains to be seen) and he will look to provide exactly NO technology to enable reading said e-textbooks. So, for schools which don't have a laptop for every kid (virtually every school), the teachers will instead have to print the sections they want students to read, as home computer coverage for California public school students is nothing even close to approaching 100%. By doing this, Arnie is hoping to cut into his $24.3B deficit for 2009-2010. I don't see how this can possibly succeed except in the richest few school districts, and even there we should expect problems. It's short-sighted, poorly thought through, and reactionary.

I believe every educational authority needs to be thinking about long-term e-learning strategies. It's just that Arnie is not doing that here.

[Igor]

Nothing beats paper. All the advantages of electronic devices come to nothing when it comes to the act of reading/studying itself. It is much easier to read and learn from paper books.

[MIke]

An interesting initiative. However, my concern is that technology becomes obsolete very quickly. The danger is that since we are shifting so much information from hardcopy to electronic format, in the event of any major catastrophe (fire, plague,flood, etc.) valuable information will be either lost or inaccessible to future generations.

[Jarett]

Calum,

While I'm not debating that America is a country full of overweight people, you should probably mention which statistic you're speaking about. Statistically speaking (percentage-wise) Australia is not the fattest country on the planet (26% to 25% in the US).

That said, carrying the amount of textbooks needed for a night's worth of homework is not necessarily good exercise. It often leads to back problems for younger children who cannot support the weight and is driving an initiative for backpacks that look more like airport luggage and can be rolled. This device could eliminate this ridiculous idea altogether!

Arnie's plan may not be completely thought through, but at least he's looking to the future and trying to assess a problem California has secretly had for years. Way to go Governator!

[jarett]

And I should learn to proof my writing! Not should read now in the first paragraph. Shows my wonderful British eductation!

[John]

Why not ask the teachers and teaching professionals, these people should have day to day contact with the kids so should be greater position to know and understand the benefits for either. It strikes me that this development can be reflected against commerce using emails. So sucessful is the digital communication platform, business only wants digital records.

[Nick]

And what about the future of fiction in the new Schwarzenegger world order? If that
second-rate actor and bodybuilder gets his way, before long there’ll be websites offering fiction downloads for free. With the result that no money will mean no readable authors. Just more celebrity ‘memoirs’ and mass-market airport-stocked ‘potboilers’. Boring, one-dimensional with little character development & heavy-handed plotting. Hard copy books are already threatened on all sides by the internet and mobile phone let alone the Kindle and Sony e-Reader. Soon we’ll simply plug little electrodes to our temples to download books and we’ll all be heading to hell in a handcart straight into our brains. Yes, if we’re not careful the hard copy book will lead to the ex-book. And a world of no more worthwhile books or libraries to stock them. Books that prompt discussion and debate. Like for example one I just read. Not another bit of the latest mislit or celebrity fiction but something that made me stop and think. Isn't that after all the real reason why we read? (Incidentally that novel’s called The De Clerambault Code by Nora Johnson but there are lots more on Amazon). Schwarzeneggar should stick to exercising his muscles. He and his movies won’t last, books will. Nick

[Chris]

Rather ironic is it not that people are choosing to support the printed word over the electronic screen via an online forum which they are reading rather than buying a newspaper... Haven't really thought too deeply about it, have you. I'm afraid in practical terms Arnie is right on the money. People have to stop getting misty-eyed over the ways of previous generations. Would you prefer to go back to 35mm camera film rather than having digital cameras? Get into the 21st Century - it's actually a rather fun place to be.

[Graeme]

The thing that most of you aren't realizing is that most textbooks last maybe 2 years at most before they are "outdated" and then "updated" and school boards are forced to buy new ones. The cost of replacing thousands of textbooks each year is crippling. ereader type devices, bought in mass volumes will probably cost roughly the same as one text per student and yet will hold dozens perhaps hundreds of titles. Yes they will break and get lost, but texts are lost, left on buses, some are vandalized so the loss would probably even out. I'm sure that eventually the costs will start to rise as companies figure out a way to screw taxpayers/school boards out of money like they currently do for texts books. But until that time I think that this is a good idea. At least give it a pilot in a moderate area school to see how it works in real life. The sad thing is that the printed book is soon to be relegated to collectors only and the cost will rise far above what it already is. And I'm sure that at some point more and more authors are going to release electronic versions where you buy a licence to use it, just like with software or electronic downloads of cds. So we have to enjoy the paper book while we can, and hope that it remains around for a time still, while realizing that progress is in the handheld device and we all have to move forward at some point.

[Kim Righetti]

Every teacher in California loathes this man. His cuts in Education are draconian. Besides cutting health services and wanting to let 18,000 felons out of jail onto public streets,he has threatened to shut down the entire government. Send him back to the soundstage.

[Jason]

Arnie is right of course!
Those who say "they cant read off a computer screen properly" NO YOU cant, 5 yr old kids are not set in their ways, so CAN!
Out of date books are teaching kids incorrect answers, tech books are somewhat out of date/obsolete after 2 years.
Books as Exercise? Kids get back trouble from carrying too many books that they "carry" with them their WHOLE lives.
Money saved will not just disappear, im sure it will be used somewhere and books can still be provided for special needs cases, just give the general populace the readers.
But that is not what ye are against, we like the feel of a book, what about the author, er.. not about you! its about the kids in a state going broke!!!!!