"How 'Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm?" (After They've Seen Paree)

APS spends $11.3M on "techbooks" instead of textbooks,
Journal editorial, link, APS website, link.

Were Yogi Berra around (the quote is variously attributed) he would point to the "box of Pandoras" the APS School Board has opened; they are going to teach some students how to access information electronically, to become independent learners, while at the same time trying to control what they access and the rate at which they access it.

It is clear, the board intends to fold e-reading into their antiquated and obsolete model for education. The techbooks will be used as another fancier whip to be laid on the flanks of the dead horse called cemetery seating; every student on the same page, in the same (e)book, on the same day.

Someone else first pointed out, there is no stopping an idea whose time has come. And there will be no stopping engaged learns who figure out how to get to everything at once, rather than plodding along in classrooms with five rows of six desks (real or electronic) with 30 other students. How are we going to keep them on the farm, in their seats and on the same page, once they've seen Paree; the ability to be on any page, in any book, and on any day?

In an age where even the least sophisticated devices have access to nearly the entire wealth of human knowledge, the APS School Board has decided to buy for students instead, separate e-books for every subject. They will buy a book each for chemistry, physics, science, ...

Though each book comes with "videos, interactive lessons, educational games, reading passages and glossaries", they carry only the one subject. Videos, interactive lessons, educational games, reading passages and glossaries for any other subject will cost (taxpayers) more.

Nearly always a step behind everyone else, the "leadership" of the APS will dip into the future of education buying e-readers with integral speed and scope limiting governors. Instead of providing "the richest learning activities" by means of a machine that can access any subject, they've decided to buy machines dedicated to individual subjects; one "book" for each class.

Am I really the only one who sees the thought of a backpack full of e-readers, each for a different subject, as some how missing the point of e-readers?