US Dept. of Education (@usedgov) Secretary Arne Duncan is calling for America to move as fast as possible away from printed textbooks and toward digital ones. “Over the next few years, textbooks should be obsolete,” he declared last week at the National Press Club (@PressClubDC).
Referring primarily to grades K-12, but having implications on the college level as well, Duncan says he’s concerned about competing with other countries whose students are academically leaving behind their US counterparts.
South Korea, which consistently outperforms the US in educational outcomes, is moving far faster than the US in adopting digital learning environments. One of the most wired countries in the world, South Korea has set a goal to go fully digital with its textbooks by 2015....
The transition to digital involves much more than scanning books and uploading them to computers, tablet devices or e-readers. Proponents describe a comprehensive shift to immersive, online learning experiences that engage students in a way a textbook never could.
The Secretary has made the call before, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle in September.
Read Hack College’s coverage, “Education Secretary Calls for Print Textbooks to Become Obsolete.”
Also see our previous blogpost, “USA Goal: A Digital Textbook for Every US Student.”
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