Textbooks Online?

Ed Week has an interesting article here describing how the big 3 in textbook publishing are starting to move to digital forms of textbooks.  But the article also mentions teachers who are no longer using textbooks at all, but instead making up what is essentially a playlist from various Internet sites for their students to use.  Most of the comments supported that approach.

I really agree with Angela Engel.  I hope schools use this digital opportunity to free themselves on the Big 3 Textbook publishers.

Think of the opportunities for students and teachers!  There is so much wonderful content on the Internet now, much of it free.   Kids could participate in writing sites, could download books from Amazon (many of which are free), could read their local newspapers.  There are so many possibilities.

Plus I am wondering how the Big 3 are planning to price these digital versions of their textbooks.  I'll bet they are going to be charging for each download so they'll make a fortune.  At least with paper copies, they could only charge when the book was first sold.

School districts:  Resist the Big 3!!!