The end of textbooks
One school in Arizona has taken a fairly drastic step in using technology to help its students. Empire High School, just outside of Tucson, is issuing Apple iBook laptops to all of its students. What is unique about that, you may ask? Well, nothing is overly unique about issuing laptops to students, as over 1000 districts around the U.S. issue laptops to their students each year.
What is unique is that the school also eliminated all textbooks. Students now carry only their laptop in their backpack and connect wirelessly to the school’s network to view digital versions of books and other materials for each class. Of course, you may be thinking that the students would take advantage of the technology to do nothing but instant message their friends, send e-mail, and play games throughout the school day. But, central filtering software on the network keep their laptops focused on school and less on “distractions.”
One interesting observation from the faculty is that while the students were great at using e-mail and playing games on their laptops, their overall skills in using applications such as Microsoft Word and the Internet for more than a basic search were somewhat limited. So, in addition to teaching normal subject matter such as social studies and math, they also had to teach some basic computer skills. Students seem to be embracing the new “bookless” school as there is already a waiting list to enroll and many students love the fact that they can complete and turn in all of their homework online.
And teachers love it as well because all homework is automatically checked for plagiarism against online sources and also checked against other student’s work. “If you copy from your buddy, it’s going to get caught,” said one teacher at the school.
So, are all books truly an endangered species at the school? Not quite as there still is a real library with real books and teachers still assign outside reading. So, unless the students have a large pet at home with an iron stomach, it would seem that the only item on the endangered list at the school is the classic phrase, “The dog ate my homework.”
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