
Schwarzenegger pushes for open source, online math and science textbooks.  - vaksel
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Economy/story?id=7827997
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Adlai
I _really_ like the idea. However, there's a brief note in the article which
isn't really addressed in detail: students need computer access to use an on-
line text. Although computer access is increasing, poorer students wouldn't
have the same amount of access (if any) as students from better-off families.

I can think of a few ways to lessen this problem. One would be to ensure that
public libraries are freely accessible to students, and offer Internet access
for students who don't have it at home. Another option would be to allow
students to print out, at school, relevant materials from on-line texts. The
second solution would be very expensive in the long run, so I'd say that some
form of the first solution needs to be put into effect for the Governator's
proposal to succeed.

~~~
pmorici
Or just give every student an eReader ie: Kindle in 1st grade and they can use
it through every grade. You break you kindle you are SOL.

~~~
blhack
I don't know about _that_.

My kindle seems pretty sturdy (okay, no it doesn't)...but have you ever seen
how destructive a 3rd grader can be?

I predict that, if this was tried, not a single kindle would make it through
elementary school.

~~~
enomar
Not to mention that many would be stolen.

~~~
gaius
OLPC has a solution to that, IIRC each unit needs to be regularly in contact
with a base station at the school or it disables itself. Or you could just
have remote disabling on-demand like BlackBerry.

~~~
patio11
I'm tempted to mention "that is hardware DRM". Why am I tempted? Because some
of the audience will realize "Uh oh, doomed to failure" and some of the
audience will say "NO, NO, IT ISN'T DRM. That is to prevent bad people from
stealing stuff. DRM prevents _me_ from ... That isn't DRM!"

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TomOfTTB
Again this is an example of people who have no idea what is actually going on
in schools trying to make policy without consulting those who do know what
goes on in schools.

The problem with e-books in schools below the College level is the readers get
broken. High School age and below kids tend to be careless. They throw their
back packs down, play keep away with them, etc... So traditional e-book
readers don't work.

That said, as someone responsible for the IT needs of a school, I've been
experimenting with one of these:
[http://www.peeweepc.com/store/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=70...](http://www.peeweepc.com/store/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=70&idcategory=2)

The Ruggedized nature and tablet mode seem to make it possible (again I'm
still experimenting and am a little nervous about the hinge at this point). So
don't get me wrong, I think a solution exists. But the Governor just wants an
immediate cheap solution and that's not the way e-books are going to happen.

~~~
jsz0
Textbooks aren't invincible either. A rugged education oriented e-book reader
may end up costing less than replacing textbooks on a regular basis as they
become damaged and outdated.

~~~
blhack
My biggest disappointment, when I got my kindle, was how flimsy the thing
feels...

I was dreaming about a device that was going to travel with me everywhere I
went (the way my old palm pilots, which are what I used to use for ebooks,
did)...

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menloparkbum
Sadly, I'm so cynical about anything that has to do with public education and
state politics that whenever I read a story like this, the first thing I think
of is how much money the vendor mentioned in the article is going to get paid
for their shitty enterprise e-textbook software.

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jcl
Textbook publishing is a juggernaut, and California is one of its big movers.
Here's a great article that appeared on HN a month ago explaining the
industry's inner workings:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=598523>

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kragen
Some of the comments here are about the excessive cost of ebook readers, or
the fragility of the devices. But typical college textbooks cost US$100 or
more. At that rate, a new EeePC costs 2.5 textbooks, and an OLPC XO would
costs even less if they were available for sale. Even if elementary and high
school textbooks cost less (down to US$50 maybe? They're still all-glossy
four-color-printed quarto-sized hardcovers sewn in signatures, aren't they?)
you could afford to buy a new netbook per year per student — assuming you
can't make do with a used two-year-old smartphone.

That's assuming, of course, that the textbook costs are related to printing
the things, not writing them or extracting rents from schools.

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johnnybgoode
See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=648717>

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TriinT
At first, I thought this was a great idea. Then I realized that not everyone
has easy access to computers. Poorer kids might be left behind. One can print
e-books, but that sometimes ends up costing quite a bit, too.

This might sound crazy, but didn't the Soviets solve this problem decades ago?
The commies believed that education should be for all, and they had amazing
math and physics books which were also really cheap!! And this were GREAT
books. Stuff written by Landau & Lifschitz, Arnol'd, Gelfand, etc. These books
were translated to Spanish so that the Cubans and other Latin-Americans could
read them. They were translated to Portuguese so people in Brazil had access
to good books at affordable prices. Why is it that only in the U.S. can't
people have access to good books at affordable prices? Is the textbook
cartel's lobbying that powerful???

~~~
philwelch
And each book had three chapters about Marxist-Leninist theory at the
beginning!

~~~
sireat
Actually, the amount of propaganda in Soviet hard-core science books was very
small, in fact, math books didn't have any, that I can remember.

