Textbooks are dead! Long live textbooks!

Apple’s hyped release of its iBooks2 for iPad has reignited the debate over technology and the “reinvention” of education. The company’s partnership with curriculum monoliths, including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson, will deliver slick, interactive additions to titles sold on the iBookstore at relatively inexpensive prices ($14.99 or less). The free iBooks Author tool also gives educators the ability to DIY their own curricula with the same ease as working with Garageband and iPhoto.. Critics say these tools do nothing more than reinforce old teaching paradigms.