Virginia Glatzer's List: Digital Texts

• Wednesday challenged schools and companies to get digital textbooks in students' hands within five years.
• many schools lack the broadband capacity or the computers or tablets to adopt the technology, and finding the money to go completely digital is difficult for many schools in tough economic time
• Do we want kids walking around with 50-pound backpacks and every book in those backpacks costing 50, 60, 70 dollars and many of them being out of date? Or, do we want students walking around with a mobile device that has much more content than was even imaginable a couple years ago and can be constantly updated?
• when they get to something they don't know, the device can let them explore: It can show them what a word means
• video explanations to help with homework, they can interact with molecules, and they can manipulate a digital globe to see stories and data about countrie

• "We're not talking about the print-based textbook now being digital. We're talking about a much more robust and interactive and engaging environment to support learning," Cator said.

4 more annotations...

• You have to be literate to use the internet effectively. By focusing children's enthusiasm for online exploration and expression on powerful educational tools, parents and teachers can promote literacy alongside technology.