Wow.
That's really all I can say: wow.
Textbooks have always been somewhat of a dilemma. Publishers conduct complete overhauls of current textbooks or come out with new and innovative ones every five years when school systems go through their adoption periods. This is fine...except with history books. History is almost completely null and void within days if not minutes.
Students today have access to technology at every turn: TVs, game consoles, computers, cell phones, laptops, iPads, tablets, etc.
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| Photo courtesy of Apple. |
Even in schools, the tides are turning in education. There are computers, SMART boards, laptops, and a myriad of other technological advances. In our school we have had digital access to the stories and lessons digitally that we could allow the students to access from home. So it was only a matter of time when textbooks would be completely digital.
And leave it to Apple to have textbooks available on iTunes.
Apple has worked with leading curriculum publishing companies like McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin, and Pearson to offer classroom textbooks for the iPad.
As a former independent consultant for a major publishing company, this huge announcement is monumental! When new revisions are made, they can be done instantly, and to low costs for schools.
Wow.
Bravo, Apple. You never cease to amaze me.
I wonder how this will effect the publishers. How much of their profit is made from up-charging the cost of the books and shipment?
ReplyDeleteDon't you worry about them....they will get theirs! Don't forget that now they will charge for schools to have site licenses on books...not to mention they will probably charge a fee for downloading the revisions.
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