[CALIBK12] California opens the door to free open source digital textbooks

[kznadalin]

Just one thought:  How will the content providers stay in business?  They will need to sell an electronic license to each school district or something, or they will go belly-up.  I love the notion of e-textbooks, but would like to see it happen in a sustainable fashion so we don't build an infrastructure that later falls apart.
Best,
Karen


On May 8, 2009, at 7:52:30 AM, calibk12-request at lists.sjsu.edu wrote:

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 19:22:11 -0700
From: "Jeanne Nelson" <porschej at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [CALIBK12] California opens the door to free open source
digital textbooks
To: <calibk12 at lists.sjsu.edu>
Message-ID: <967B502CC5CC4563AC4D6DD4EDF172D9 at yoursz6x6sefxo>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hello everyone,

Weighing in on the discussion, when you issue four or five texts to a high
school student, you are issuing the price of a Kindle, and digital textbooks
do not get lost or damaged or returned late. The Kindle may be lost or
damaged, but I anticipate the cost will go down dramatically, like every
other technology.

I was amused to notice that these free digital materials target math and
science, right after California has completed their adoption of texts in
both subject areas. Now, if these digital materials had targeted language
arts, the next adoption area, I'd have been really excited! There would
actually be a cost savings.

The Kindle has the additional advantage of controlling the print size, and I
believe audio is also provided. You probably know that today, Amazon
announced their textbook version of the Kindle, and agreements with Pearson
and Cengage for texts.

Jeanne Nelson, Ed.D.
Murrieta Valley USD
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