I don't think he wants traditional E-books. What I imagine when I hear the phrase "open-source online textbooks", I think of websites where you can navigate through chapters, appendices, etc -- similar to how some texts are already available online (i.e. Peter Seibel's Practical Common Lisp, available not as an e-book but as a website, at http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/ )
Well the problem with that is you still need textbooks in the classroom. If he wants to replace actual textbooks he needs to find a way to put them in the classrom. That's going to require a reader
(There are actual studies, lots of them in fact, that show students learn more when they can follow along in a textbook so you couldn't solve the problem with a projector for example)
You could have computers for each student in the classroom, but I imagine that would be quite expensive.
I don't see the problem with a projector. The teacher can control what material is displayed, and can thus choose to display relevant material for the current lesson. Yes, this relies on the teacher knowing what they're doing, but the entire school system does anyways. If a student wants to have their own reference in class, it would be cheaper and more educational for the student to take notes on whatever topics they found interesting or wanted to have on paper.
I'd be interested to look at those studies, though.
I'll try to find a few online and post them here when I have more time. But the gist is that there's a cognitive advantage to reading which in turn means reading along causes the material to be absorbed better.
I've tried to think back to my own experience to verify the findings but I can't think of any definitive examples for or against
I don't know about those studies, but as a student I hated having to lug textbooks around but was lucky enough that my high school rarely if ever made it a requirement. The school and its students are doing well regardless. Maybe they could be doing even better, but at least they have light backpacks :)
With regards to the Governor's plan, this seems like a really good idea in general, and at least a sign that our Governor is willing to reform education in a meaningful (i.e. not by commissioning book committees of the type that Feynman derided) way.
