As the new school year quickly approaches I was reminded of the amount of time and effort we spend as a school preparing for textbook sales and distribution. We aren’t the only ones thinking about this with Amazon getting in the textbook rental business this week joining Chegg and many others. At the same time digital textbooks are once again threatening to make an entrance into education with Apple leading the new charge. Although I think the new platforms are interactive and make a textbook “cooler” (if that is even possible), while reducing the weight of a student’s backpack, I still get this feeling in my gut that we are still going about this all wrong. The power of the Internet is that we do not need someone to re-write material in textbook form. We need to get rid of textbook authors, publishers, and consumers and invest in content, graphic, and simulation curators. These experts could help vet, assemble, and connect the various authentic resources available on the web and create an ecosystem of information tailored for learning experiences. That would be worth paying for. – Hank Thiele, TL Advisor
