Getting Real
July 24, 2009
Educational professionals on the whole are a pleasant lot. You’re always ready to share an idea with a colleague or go the extra mile to help a struggling student. Your political skills with parents and school board members makes for discourse that is mostly agreeable—in public anyway.
That’s a problem. When it comes to truly advancing the debate over improving—okay, I’ll say it, salvaging—the U.S. education system, everyone is being too polite. In that spirit, there are articles this month that I expect will stoke conversation on Techlearning.com, and which we hope will advance the debate.
The first questions the validity of textbooks in a digital world. Is there anyone who can really argue the value of an out-of-date, overpriced, five-pound paperweight versus a well-designed and properly implemented digital curriculum? Anyone? Bueller? Our first feature this month is an excerpt from an upcoming report compiled by contributing editor Judy Salpeter and released by the folks at the CoSN that is essentially an epitaph for these hardbound anachronisms (“Textbook Deathwatch,” page 26). There’s no beating around the bush in this piece, which should make for a convenient handout for those who cling to the belief that if textbooks were good enough then they should be good enough now.
Other data indicate there is still much work to be done for the digital learner. The Software & Information Industry Association’s recent Vision for K-20 education survey findings (page 16) show slow progress. While America’s educational system improved on 17 out of 20 measures compared to 2008, education institutions are only 62 percent of the way toward achieving SIIA’s Vision K- 20 benchmark of 100 percent—just a one percent increase from the 2008 survey.
This issue provides articles to help your schools inch closer to this goal, from Lisa Nielson’s “Eight Ways to Use School Wikis” (page 32) to Darcy Moore’s “Get Ready for 1:1” (page 34).
I want to hear what you think about how schools are doing almost ten years into the 21st century. And don’t be polite about it!
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| COMMENTS (4) | | Deanna Stall - 08/12/2009 | | I have used an etextbook and loved the idea and ease of it. I am no longer in a classroom but if I was, I would never buy another hard copy textbook due to the interactive possibilities of the web. Textbooks of any kind will continue to be a crutch, driving curriculum until we as instructors learn to use them differently. An online textbook is no more engaging or effective if it isn't use as a tool to supplement student learning. |
| | Anna Saleme - 08/12/2009 | | We have a 1:1 program at my school and we use e-textbooks whenever we can. Our problem now lies in finding available, reliable e-texts. With the web-based platform that some of our e-texts come in, why would anyone choose a hard copy text that will be "out of date" in a few years over an e-text that can be d virtually overnight? Publishers and school districts just need to get on the bandwagon... |
| | Judy Kraft - 08/11/2009 | | I teach both computer literacy and honors math in a K-8 Parochial school and every attempt I have made to introduce/use/require e-materials always meets with resistance, mostly from parents. They prefer hard copy and many don't want their children on their computers...The transition will come, but I don't think it will happen anytime soon. |
| | Ross Learn - 08/11/2009 | | As a Technology Coordinator, I firmly believe that most "e-anything" is a good idea. I think the solution to e-textbooks will eventually be a reality. Its like anything that makes the transition to the "e-world", it needs time to get better.... if you look at the transition of the e-book, it took a lot of knocks and bumps before it became a workable solution. Given time, e-textbooks will make that transition, authors and publishers will get paid and everyone will be happy... |
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