Are textbooks really necessary?

[rivrrat]

I haven't read the whole thread, but here's the thing: They need to do both lectures and reading. Different people learn in different ways. I need to read something. I don't do so well with lectures. So, I do think they are necessary. It's a tool for learning and children need all the tools they can get, IMO.

Now, the question MIGHT be... should they give out Kindles instead with all of their textbooks on it?

 

[Alastor]

I haven't read the whole thread, but here's the thing: They need to do both lectures and reading. Different people learn in different ways. I need to read something. I don't do so well with lectures. So, I do think they are necessary. It's a tool for learning and children need all the tools they can get, IMO.

Now, the question MIGHT be... should they give out Kindles instead with all of their textbooks on it?

I agree completely that literacy is a must in every classroom. They have to be reading and writing; often. We're in complete agreement.

I also agree that different people learn in different ways. Research on multiple intelligences is pretty abundant and it's kind of interesting - it makes the classroom more fun and engaging for both the teacher and the student as well.

So yes, reading must be present in the classroom. Every classroom.

It does not have to be a textbook, however.



As to Kindles... The problem isn't the cost of the physical item. Textbooks don't cost what they cost because of the material it takes to print them. Again, we're talking about 500 pages or so for a textbook. People aren't paying for the paper and the binding. If they did, it'd cost about 10 bucks. Tops.

The cost is not for the item. The cost is for the content.

Moving to a Kindle system wouldn't alleviate or remedy that cost. It might make it slightly less expensive (although the Kindle itself would cost money, and students break things very quickly). Even under the best of circumstances it wouldn't have a major impact on the cost of the textbooks however, because the physical item is not what they're charging for in the first place. It's the content.

 

[Aunt Spiker]

I stepped away from this thread for quite some time - but you raise a good point. The cost of these alternative means might make them more expensive.
Everything has it's ups and downs and nothing is actually free.

Computer-based learning: computer maintenance, the cost of the computer itself, and other things necessary - like keyboards, a mouse, printer (including ink, paper) - it can add up. Especially when you consider that students, like you said, aren't the most careful with electronics.

Chapter books, magazines and workbooks, copied materials: the cost of the items itself might be cheaper in comparison to a textbook, but it would still cost money - and you would need to provide the supplies yearly/semesterly.

Internet/Kindle: same issues as with computers, but also adding the cost and extra maintenance for networking.

A textbook: upfront cost to purchase. You buy it once and can reuse it considerably over several years. . .the only time at which this isn't true is for college courses. . .the cost is considerably higher, here, because less of them are produced and sold. And, of course, at some point it will become a *bit* outdated.

 

[Hoplite]

I stepped away from this thread for quite some time - but you raise a good point. The cost of these alternative means might make them more expensive.
Everything has it's ups and downs and nothing is actually free.

Computer-based learning: computer maintenance, the cost of the computer itself, and other things necessary - like keyboards, a mouse, printer (including ink, paper) - it can add up. Especially when you consider that students, like you said, aren't the most careful with electronics.

It also has to be considered that not every student has access to or the ability to use computers or the internet.

Chapter books, magazines and workbooks, copied materials: the cost of the items itself might be cheaper in comparison to a textbook, but it would still cost money - and you would need to provide the supplies yearly/semesterly.

It also must be taken into account that wide-scale copying of already printed materials raises copyright issues. It's generally accepted that teachers will copy some copyrighted material for use in their lessons, but copyright holders tend to frown on large scale printing of hundreds of copies of works which they own the intellectual property rights to.

Internet/Kindle: same issues as with computers, but also adding the cost and extra maintenance for networking.

And the fact that the technology doesnt actualy work that well. New Kindles may work better, but the first Kindle I got my hands on was terrible.

A textbook: upfront cost to purchase. You buy it once and can reuse it considerably over several years. . .the only time at which this isn't true is for college courses. . .the cost is considerably higher, here, because less of them are produced and sold. And, of course, at some point it will become a *bit* outdated.

This, to me, seems to be the most cost-effective and reliable option.

 

[Bodi]

I do not think that throwing money at the education system is the only way to fix it, however. I do think that there are a lot of things we could do to make the schools better, and money is one of those things.

I'm also not even advocating more money being used for the schools (though that too is a good idea). What I'm saying is that the money we already spend on textbooks I could use far more effectively in other ways.

I hope this clarifies my stance somewhat. I think you and I agree more than we disagree, Bodhisattva. I think my reaction to some of the more ignorant and hostile remarks in the thread may have caused that situation to arise. I hope this remedies that to some extent.

[/QUOTE]

Completely clarifies your position. Thank you. I hear you and understand. I agree that money could be better spent, but I think that before textbooks go, union representatives and ridiculous programs and grants should be reduced. Textbooks directly benefit students. A lady I know that makes $200,000 a year job for relatively little work as a second language state instructor is idiotic. She kinda agrees, but does it regardless.

At $130 bucks per pop per year (the cost of one textbook) I can do an amazing amount of printing. A ream of paper is what? $5?

Toner is $79 per cartridge that does 1000 pages, and that's on my personal printer at home. The school has a much more efficient printer and gets products at a reduced rate because they buy in bulk.

So even if I use 1,000 activity sheets per student per year (which is absurd), I'd be spending $95 on that student - saving $35 each - even though my personal printer is far less efficient than what I'd actually use - the school's printer.

The reality is though, that I'm not going to give out 1,000 activity sheets to each student each year. I'm not going to print remotely that many items.

Yeah, printing gets expensive - but nowhere near what a textbook costs.

But students are not given new $130 textbooks each year. They are purchased, used and then saved for subsequent years. Additionally, textbooks have all sorts of instructional activites for ELL or computers, ideas for projects, websites for information as well as being usefull for independent. learning. The McDougal Littell "The Americans" Textbook, for example... good stuff.

Bodhisattva

I have no idea, nor did I mean to imply one way or the other on your personal stance.

I was simply responding to the dismissive comment that "Most students go to school because they have to and for no other reason."

I don't think that's remotely accurate, and I don't think it's a fair statement to make. It sounds like a blanket statement that might be made by someone who doesn't actually work with the students, so I said as much

That statement is no more untrue than saying that most adults go to work because they have to and for no other reason. If you gave them a choice, would a kid rather go to school, or hang out at the park, play video games, surf, paintball, etc etc etc? Ask your students. I have. That does not mean that they don't mind, or don't understand why they come to school, but if the question is presented properly, I have yet to meet any person, literally, in the world that would rather go to work or school than to do what they wanted to do, all things being equal, like money. And that is not a factor for kids, just adults.

I am keeping my position within the context of one or the other. Not in the context of reality, so to speak. It is obviously unrealistic to have millions of kids just doing what they want with no supervision. They also understand that, but in the context of "what if" I stand by my statement.

Just so we are on the same page, I have taught for well over ten years in multiple countries and multiple socio-economic situations. From gang infested inner-city extension school for Oakland, CA to posh private schools. I currently am teaching in New Zealand at an average school, meaning the range of kids and families cover the spectrum of all socio-economic ranges.

Sometimes, just location alters a teachers percpetion of things like textbooks simply due to the districts choice in what to buy and nothing more. The districts I worked for made good choices IMO.

Understood. We're mincing words. I try to clearly define those phrases because, oddly enough, I teach Economics including the notions of regulated and unregulated markets - and yeah, to a high school student that's learning Adam Smith for the first time it really does need to be clarified.

The phrase "relative free market" is more clear to students, and I've gotten in the habit of using it. If I taught advanced Econ at the college level, I wouldn't. I teach ninth through 12th grade, however. Most of these students can't even spell laissez-faire capitalism, much less know what the Hell it means.

Hell, I can barely spell laissez-faire capitalism...

In any case, to answer your specific question, "I use the phrase relative free market to make it clear that we're not talking about the unbridled Invisible Hand theory."

Understood. I was just trying to catch you on the use of the word and nothing else... it was a word game.

I agree that money is not the only solution. I do agree that it is one of the necessary solutions, however.

Yes, money can and does help dramatically. Agreed.

I think there has been some misunderstanding then, possibly because of the staunch reaction I had to Hoplites asinine and ill-informed remarks. I attempted to clarify that in the last couple of posts, but it seems fair that I still have work to do, so here goes:

Fair enough...

Textbooks are pretty much a total waste. This is a statement I made and I stand by it. Ideally, I'd get three textbooks each semester for all four of my classes. The teacher's edition, one student version for my classroom, and one student version to take home so I could work on it (because yes, we really do spend a lot of time working on these things outside of the classroom).

The other 147 textbooks, I do not want, do not need, but do want the resources I could have in their place with the $19,500 that they cost.

Textbooks do suck.

We disagree on that point, at least. They are not the best thing in the world, but they are far from sucking. I think that they have a lot to offer. I rarely use them, except in math.

I hope this clarifies my stance somewhat. I think you and I agree more than we disagree, Bodhisattva. I think my reaction to some of the more ignorant and hostile remarks in the thread may have caused that situation to arise. I hope this remedies that to some extent.

I think that must be it. I grasped onto what seemed like extreme ideas, but I was evidently taking them out of context since I was not seeing your conversation with the other person clearly enough. All good!

 

[Bodi]

Yeah, that wasn't the case at my school. AP classes were hard, and getting a B in an AP class was as good as getting a high A in a regular class.

Ours sound as if they were even more difficult. We were doing DBQ's as well, and a kid getting an A in a college prep class would have been lucky to be able to get a B in our AP class. C's were more like it...

Now we have G&T classes. Very independent program that allows for a lot of student creativity and flexibility.

 

[Your Star]

Ours sound as if they were even more difficult. We were doing DBQ's as well, and a kid getting an A in a college prep class would have been lucky to be able to get a B in our AP class. C's were more like it...

Now we have G&T classes. Very independent program that allows for a lot of student creativity and flexibility.

Oh, we did DBQ's, we did FRQ's, we took so many tests, and did so many things now that I look back I can't believe I wasn't overwhelmed. I wrote so many essays it's not even funny. I remember me and my friends joking to other kids who weren't in the AP class about how they needed to shut up when complaining about doing school work. That they couldn't last a day in our class. Though with all that work it was very rewarding, and even though I may have gotten some B's in AP classes I took, getting that 101 average in AP European History was one of the highlights of my academic career.

 

[Bodi]

Oh, we did DBQ's, we did FRQ's, we took so many tests, and did so many things now that I look back I can't believe I wasn't overwhelmed. I wrote so many essays it's not even funny. I remember me and my friends joking to other kids who weren't in the AP class about how they needed to shut up when complaining about doing school work. That they couldn't last a day in our class. Though with all that work it was very rewarding, and even though I may have gotten some B's in AP classes I took, getting that 101 average in AP European History was one of the highlights of my academic career.

I don't know why I said that, just the tone of your comment I guess. I am sure all AP classes are pretty much the same. Yeah, we told kids to shut up too, they had no frickin idea. We were doing research projects and essays at the libraries during weekends and then hear some dork complain that they had to do 20 questions of math on some random weekday afternoon. What a joke.

 

[Your Star]

I don't know why I said that, just the tone of your comment I guess. I am sure all AP classes are pretty much the same. Yeah, we told kids to shut up too, they had no frickin idea. We were doing research projects and essays at the libraries during weekends and then hear some dork complain that they had to do 20 questions of math on some random weekday afternoon. What a joke.

Yeah, I think all AP teachers have to have their yearly course plan approved by the College Board to ensure the rigor of the course.

And making fun of the kids not in AP classes was a pastime for me and my friends

 

[Simba]

Is it absolutely, positively necessary for the students to have textbooks?

I mean, can't the teachers just be provided with the information they are required to teach, and then, teach it to the students?

In history, the teachers lectures, and the students take notes, and give custom-made tests.
In math, the teachers show students how to work the problems, and issue homework assignments that the teacher writes, herself.
In English, she can show how to correct sentences, yadda yadda yadda. She can write her own tests.

With textbooks as expensive as they are, are they even really necessary? Couldn't they just do it without textbooks? Just lectures and custom-made tests?

Hell no. Have them go back to stiffin' stool for trail and watchin' tribe medicine men cast bones for insight. *winks*

 

[imagep]

They are to some, not to others. Except for a few math classes and classes that was very homework-dependent, I never bought books for my classes. Or if I did, I did the "one-older" method. If my economics book was in its 11th edition, I'd go to Amazon and buy the 10th. For one of my finance books, the current edition on Amazon was 185 bucks (used but great shape) and the book's previous edition was 9 bucks. I bought the 9 buck book. If you feel a need to study, it's almost identical. They may have just added a few words and changed chapters around.

And if you need to do homework, just do like I did - tell the professor you "left your book somewhere" and see if he will make a copy or post it on BlackBoard.

Same here! Only it was a lot harder back then because Amazone didn't exist. I sometimes bought older versions of textbooks at thrift stores or yardsales. Also, sometimes I skipped the textbook, and just bought the study guide that accompanied the text book. The study guide had pretty much all the same content, just condensed, and the study guids were way cheaper than the textbooks.

 

[imagep]

OK, I came into this topic a little late, but I did skim through all of the posts. Here's my take on things...

Textbooks, as in the big thick boring books that have some homework questions in the back each chapter are not necessarily needed in that form. But teaching materials are definitely needed. So is standardization of base subject matter just to keep the teachers on track teaching the core curriculum for their subject - I have had teachers who wandered so far from the subject that we essentially learned nothing in the class about the subject.

When I was a business student in college, one of my accounting classes was taught in an elementary education classroom. Us business students, and even the professor, would sometimes make fun of all of the little pieces of construction paper that were always all over the floor and we amused ourselves at the bulletin board which was changed almost daily. It seemed to us that the education majors were more into playing with rounded scissors than doing any serious learning. Now both my parents were teachers, and my son who is currently a rising senior in high school has intent on becoming a teacher, so I have some basic understanding of teaching as a profession, and I realize that bulletin boards can be an important teaching tool and a stimulator to the mind. But when I hear a teacher saying how he/she had to work so hard and stay after classes to make the bulletin board, I am absolutely disgusted. Not with the teacher, but with a system that wastes the valuable time of our teachers. I am of the belief that teachers need to be teaching, not making collages or cutting letters out of poster paper.

I am the lone graphics art professional sandwich in-between two generations of teachers. But my experience in mass producing graphic arts has given me the expertise to realize that things such as bulletin boards should be mass produced. It takes time to carefully think through the design and layout of a bulletin board. It takes time to setup the production of a bulletin board whether a teacher is creating it by hand or whether it is being mass produced. The vast majority of the cost of any graphic production is in the setup. After an item is setup, the cost of reproducing it with modern high volume production equipment is almost nothing compared to the cost of design and setup. Graphic reproduction is dirt cheap, but design and setup is expensive. So why not spend a few hours designing high quality bulletin boards, with a team consisting of one or more graphic designers, one or more education experts, and a real life teacher of that particular subject and topic. Then mass reproduce these bulletin boards so that the cost to the school is only a few bucks, and the time cost to the teacher is only 10 minutes to change them out. They could even been produced in such a manner that they can be removed whole and reused again and again.

When I was in school, I had some terrible teachers, some great teachers, and a whole lot of average teachers. Some classes I learned a lot, some classes I learned nothing. Back then we did have "film strips" and the occasional grainy 30 year old movie that some of the weaker teachers would utilize. I was thankful when bad teachers used these aids. These days, we have multimillion dollar productions made by the discovery channel or the learning channel and other private educational video producers. I can watch a 1 hour show on the Discovery or History channel and remember nearly 100% of what I watch. Those shows make learning fun and as interesting as a funny movie or a sitcom.

The past couple of years my state has made an attempt to develop a system of teaching online. It even started an on-line school in which students can enroll in (with its own mascot and school dances and activities). There is an online lesson for each school day and subject and grade level. I don't think that it worked out so well, its way too big of an undertaking to have it fine tuned in a year, but it has potential. What I didn't like about it was that there was no "dual enrollment" element. Students either had to be enrolled in the online school, or they had to go to a brick and mortar school. Where I really thought that the online classes would have been most helpful is as an additional source of education, to supplement what the students learned in school - not to replace real schools.

Some posters on this thread made some very valid points about the usefulness of the school and public libraries in education; others made good points about the usefulness of the internet in education. Some pointed out how different students learned differently. A couple of posters explained the value of field trips. I also noted the comments about how long teachers had to spend creating original lesson plans and arranging for educational activities. Those are all very valid points.

So what does all of that have to do with textbooks? Absolutely everything. In a day in age when we have the technology to do almost everything except for filling students head with knowledge by some type of sci-fi brainwave transfer, why do we waste the time of our teachers creating day to day curriculum? This stuff can be mass produced for just a few bucks!!! Far less expensive than the cost of having to pay teachers higher salaries because they have to spend hours of their own time developing teaching aids.

What I would like to see is the teacher would come to his/her classroom the day before school starts and there in the middle of the classroom is a year's worth of curriculum in a crate. The crate would be full of shrink-wrapped packages, one package for each teaching day, and each package containing an appropriate number of tests and handouts and a teacher reference sheet. I was talking to a friend of mine who is a teacher and she was very much against that idea. She started explaining that each student learns differently and that the teacher had to gauge and determine what worked best for him/her and his/her particular group of students. I explain that is exactly why the teacher needed a "curriculum in a box". While a particular teacher may not be able to spend 40 hours creating a variety of materials and resources to teach a single days curriculum, we could most certainly spend 40 hours (or more) creating and putting together all this material which would then be utilized by tens of thousands of teachers who are all teaching that particular days topic.

Imagine a teacher opening up the package that is labeled "Day 1 of 6th grade level American History". It could contain a 30 minute professionally produced DVD with professional actors and a professional narrator discussing Columbus's quest to get support to travel to the Indies. It could contain a pop quiz so that the teacher could find out what the students retained from the video. It could contain a mini-play that the students could act out in class along with a burger king style Queen Isabella crown and a paper Christopher Columbus costume. It could contain enough notes sheets to hand out to each student, it could contain a list of outside resources such as TV programming about the topic and age appropriate books and internet sites that discuss the topic. It could contain instructions for detailed games that utilized the day's topic. It could contain visual aids of the way the ships used to look or the way people used to dress, or the correct spelling of the terms/names/dates being taught. It could contain anything that the teacher could possibly need. Now that it no way limits how the teacher used the materials, maybe the teacher decides that she/he can do better with a live lecture than the video. Maybe the teacher decides not to use the pop test. Maybe the teacher brings his/her own reference materials. Utilization of the materials would be up to teacher discretion, but at least the teacher would have access to hours and hours of careful curriculum design, at a cost to the tax payer of far less than an hour of the teacher's time.

That doesn't eliminate the textbook per say, I would assume that some sort of bound textbook would be included with the material, but it would be much more like a "study guide" than an old fashioned boring textbook. It would contain all the most important points, but in a condensed format. The minimal stuff that each student should perminately retain to pass the class and to be at least somewhat knowledgeable about the subject. The study guide could also contain references to all of the material in that days lesson so that students who were not able to attend class could still keep up with class and access those materials via an internet site that is specifically developed to be part of the "curriculum in a box"

 

[ScottD]

When I went through school the only class I had textbooks in was Math. We mainly just copied notes in our other classes.

 

[Jomiarias]

Textbooks WERE neccesary. Now there is internet. Maybe, as Scott D says, Math is the only subject were textbooks are still and will always be absolutely neccesary.

 

[Edward_L._Sin]

The necessity of textbooks depends essentially on the form of class in which the student is entered. As a young student, I can't evaluate the necessity of textbooks for universities, but, as a person who has taken and does take AP classes, I do attest that textbooks are absolutely necessary for such classes. No matter how well or how many lectures the teacher makes in an AP class, independent studies into the textbook are central to such a class, because, ultimately, I will not be analyzed by the standards of my teacher but by the standards of the college board in examination over whether I actually get those college credits or not, even though I would get regularly tested by my teacher on her standards as well. However, in terms of my regular classes or honors classes, the necessity of the textbooks really just depends on a case-by-case basis for subjects. For example, my physics textbook was central to my studies, when I had to take my physics class, but my PE teacher never did have any of us read our health textbooks at all. Truthfully, the students and parents should ascertain for themselves the necessity of a textbook for a particular class as an individual preference, and, of course, the relatively new technology of the internet could be an alternative to a textbook, but the issue of credible sources and synthetic material for all students, of course, comes into discussion.

 

[MKULTRABOY]

Textbooks are generally necessary, or at least a course packet with excerpts from textbooks. I had a class recently with no textbook and teacher authored 'notes'. It was the worst class of my life. Textbooks make life lovely if you ask me.

 

[R. Shackleferd]

The manufactured necessity of the textbook is what pisses me off. A textbook should be a study guide, not a book you're required to buy because it has homework assignments in them. The materials used in making textbooks are also very unnecessary, especially since we've got pdf's and such now. Textbooks should not cost hundreds of dollars. What's wrong with making textbooks similar to newspapers? You can print nice graphs and colorful images on a newspaper now. Instead we've got these big thick heavy monsters with thick premium glossy magazine-like pages. Textbooks absolutely suck.

 

[CompSciGuy]

Textbooks are actually optional for the majority of my classes, but I tend to buy them anyway. They're great for those of us who aren't fantastic note takers or have trouble paying attention to lecture while taking notes. Also, it's a lifesaver for classes taught by foreign uninterested graduate students. A good alternative to buying a textbook for some classes though is the smart pen. It has a built in mic, and records all the notes you take with a little sensor built in. Great device.

 

[Josie]

Textbooks WERE neccesary. Now there is internet. Maybe, as Scott D says, Math is the only subject were textbooks are still and will always be absolutely neccesary.

I teach math with worksheets, manipulatives and charts. No textbook.

 

[Hoplite]

OK, I came into this topic a little late, but I did skim through all of the posts. Here's my take on things...

Textbooks, as in the big thick boring books that have some homework questions in the back each chapter are not necessarily needed in that form. But teaching materials are definitely needed. So is standardization of base subject matter just to keep the teachers on track teaching the core curriculum for their subject - I have had teachers who wandered so far from the subject that we essentially learned nothing in the class about the subject.

When I was a business student in college, one of my accounting classes was taught in an elementary education classroom. Us business students, and even the professor, would sometimes make fun of all of the little pieces of construction paper that were always all over the floor and we amused ourselves at the bulletin board which was changed almost daily. It seemed to us that the education majors were more into playing with rounded scissors than doing any serious learning. Now both my parents were teachers, and my son who is currently a rising senior in high school has intent on becoming a teacher, so I have some basic understanding of teaching as a profession, and I realize that bulletin boards can be an important teaching tool and a stimulator to the mind. But when I hear a teacher saying how he/she had to work so hard and stay after classes to make the bulletin board, I am absolutely disgusted. Not with the teacher, but with a system that wastes the valuable time of our teachers. I am of the belief that teachers need to be teaching, not making collages or cutting letters out of poster paper.

I feel compelled to point out that teaching past elementary school rarely involves long and involved bulletin board projects.

 

[imagep]

Sure. But they are required in some schools (at least at my son's high school). My son's band teacher pays someone to make one because they are required in every classroom and he feels that it is a waste of his teaching time to make one. Bulletin boards isn't really the full issue, that was just an example of something that could be mass produced far more effeciently than having individual teachers coming up with their own unique design. If teachers want to spend hours coming up with their own individualized and unique learning aids and curriculum, then great, but it is not really cost effective.

 

[theangryamerican]

Some of the earliest knowledge was passed down only in the oral tradition... Then mankind developed written language, allowing information to be preserved and taught in a consistent form to future generations.


Just saying.

 

[Bodi]

I teach math with worksheets, manipulatives and charts. No textbook.

I teach math with textbooks, but only because my HOD insists on this. I would not use the textbook as much otherwise. I also teach Social Sciences and we don't use a textbook at all besides my teacher edition as a guideline and that the students never see... wouldn't even consider suing one there.

 

[Aunt Spiker]

While reading this article that someone posted and was discussed elsewhere (The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty) I took note that Paul Romer started a non-textbook education program called Aplia

Romer . . . Starting in 2001, he began to channel his energy into a start-up software company that he named Aplia. . . . Romer’s father, Roy, a former governor of Colorado, had just begun running the Los Angeles school system. As a proponent of technology, the younger Romer was embarrassed that educators such as himself had barely used computers to boost their own productivity.

Like Romer’s research, his company was radical. It created teaching materials that could be accessed online by collegiate economics students, challenging the dead-tree model of the textbook-industrial complex. At first, Romer was told that his approach was crazy. Students were used to paying a fortune for textbooks and then getting the accompanying homework problems at a trivial cost; Romer’s little start-up presumed to invert custom. Sooner or later, Romer insisted, textbooks would be electronic, at which point they would be copied and shared. By contrast, access to online homework problems could be metered successfully on the Web, because the sale of the homework could be bundled with automatic, online grading. Professors would be drawn to the system, and to assigning Aplia’s online texts. And those who had stinted on handing out exercises because of the grading time required would now feel free to assign more, with the result that students would make faster progress. By the time Romer sold Aplia in 2007, students had submitted 200 million answers to its online problems

Now - that's interesting. Romer looked at the 'textbook-dependency' and cam up to an alternative.

how successful is the alternative? I'm not sure - I'm still reading up on it - but it sounds like they've really tried to deal with all the quirks and make it a workable solution.

 

[Hoplite]

It's an interesting idea, but you still have the problem of limited mobility, limited accessibility, and lack of skill to use.

Something I would like to see explored is the concept of using durable plastics to make textbooks instead of paper. That way you can get more mileage out of a textbook and it can (hopefully) be recycled once it's been phased out.