From NPR: Discussion on the Digital Future of Textbooks

On Tuesday 1/24/12, the NPR program OnPoint (hosted by Tom Ashbrook) hosted a discussion about the Digital Future of Textbooks (http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/01/24/future-of-textbooks) with guests John Bailey, Katie Ash and yours truly. Here is the show description:

The revolution brewing in your child’s backpack. One little computer tablet may soon replace all those big old textbooks.

Apple employees demonstrate interactive features of iBooks 2 for iPad, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012 in New York. IBooks 2 will be able to display books with videos and other interactive features. (AP)

It hits in middle school.  The twenty-pound school backpack.  Loaded with notepads and pencils and gear and – above all – textbooks.  Big old heavy paper-and-ink textbooks loaded with math lessons and history and diagrams of frog intestines.  It sounds so 20th Century.

Now, there’s a push on to throw out the textbooks and load everything a young student needs onto one little nifty tablet computer.  Weighs just a pound.  Carries the world.  As many digital textbooks as you like.  Ready to dazzle.  Will they work?
This hour, On Point:  when textbooks go digital, go tablet.

The OnPoint podcast will be available for the next 2 weeks, however the stream will always be available via the OnPoint website. If you happen to listen, please consider leaving a comment with your thoughts.