Not everyone's cheering as last textbooks leave Huntsville classrooms (al.com)

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By Lee Roop | [e-mail]
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on April 07, 2016 at 5:04 PM, updated April 07, 2016 at 5:05 PM

The last printed textbooks are being removed from Huntsville classrooms this spring, and that may prove as unpopular as the system's first steps toward digital learning four years ago.

Writing on his "Geek Palaver" website, blogger Russell Winn quotes a teacher as having "moved from frustrated to angry" at the news the classroom sets are going away.

The teacher says the system's transition to digital learning on laptops was "very difficult," and the classroom sets helped. They also helped when technical problems shut down the digital system twice in the 2014-15 school year, Winn wrote.

Schools spokesman Keith Ward said Thursday that the system agreed when it went digital to keep a classroom set for several years "to ease the transition," but removing the printed textbooks was always the plan.

Digital books are loaded on the laptops now and can be used without an Internet connection, Ward said. They can also be updated annually as opposed to the seven-year life of printed editions.
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more: http://www.al.com/news/huntsville/index.ssf/2016/04/more_textbooks_leaving_huntsvi.html




Much flamage in the comments section; people either are gung-ho to do *everything* digitally ASAP or consider it all a horrible mistake. Personally, I hate to think kids are going to be using keyboards and touchscreens almost exclusively from such an early age. The problem I've always encountered with "educational" software is that you have to spend a lot of effort learning to use the software that would be better devoted to learning the material. Then you change to a different class, or a different publisher, or a new release of the same software, and you have to learn it all over again.

Once you've learned how to use a book, you're pretty much set for life.