Digital Division

In California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is calling for an end to print textbooks in schools. Thanks to Josette McEachern for posting about this Quill & Quire article on the Edmonton Law Libraries Association blog. There are various spins to this attempt at budget efficiency activism.

A couple of items from the various articles caught my eye:

On average, California schools have just one computer for every four children — a situation that prompted Education Week to give the state a D-minus this year for its use of education technology compared with other states.

From Associated Press

‘A world of up-to-date information fits easily into their pockets and on to their computer screens. So why are California’s public school students still forced to lug around antiquated, heavy, expensive text books?’ he said.

From Daily Mail

There is already plenty of textbook-ready material available on the Internet in the public domain or under open licenses, but the real challenge is compiling and editing it so that it will meet the state’s exacting standards. California is known for having the most demanding textbook evaluation practices in the country, with publishers forced to go to extreme lengths to meet state requirements. The arduous review process is forcing some publishing companies to stop selling books in the state and is also a factor that has contributed significantly to the rising cost of K-12 textbooks in California.

From ars technica

Simon F’s recent post adds an interesting perspective to the ideas of “modernizing” education. Is the goal of any level of education to meet knowledge needs? Disregarding the knee-jerk reaction to this seemingly radical financially motivated change, is the premise of open source knowledge feeding little minds really bad? If this idea comes to fruition and the trend is followed, what does it mean for the law student of the future? What would Bernard Hibbitts say?

I leave you with this quote from Governor Schwarzennegger:

“California is home to software giants, bioscience research pioneers and first-class university systems known around the world. But our students still learn from instructional materials in formats made possible by Gutenberg’s printing press”

From Canoe.ca Technology