The nation’s second-largest school district announced plans to issue free iPads next year to the 640,000 students in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
The $1 billion effort is in response to the growing and expensive problem of outdated textbooks. Each iPad will be pre-loaded with educational software and digital, which can be easily updated with new information as needed.
From EducationNews.org:
As part of the project, the school district will buy digital textbooks for the iPads through an arrangement with educational books publisher Pearson. The digital books is also projected to help the district save money over buying traditional paper-based textbooks.
Outdated textbooks are a problem for most schools, including many in Washington.
With the leadership of Rep. Reuven Carlyle, the Legislature approved HB 2337 during the 2012 session, which directed the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to create an open courseware program aligned with the new Common Core standards.
Washington state pays over $128 million per biennium in textbooks for K-12 schools. The average textbook is 7-11 years out of date. By contrast, open course materials are either free or inexpensive and online materials can be updated in real time.
As the tablet market grows, technology advances, and prices drop, it will probably only be a matter of time when Washington students are learning from tablets instead of ten-year-old textbooks. 