Thought Textbooks Would All Be Gone by Now? Well, Think Again

Editorial Projects in Education. 6935 Arlington Road Suite 100, Bethesda, MD 20814-5233. Tel: 800-346-1834; Tel: 301-280-3100; e-mail: customercare@epe.org; Web site: http://www.edweek.org/info/about/

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Textbooks; Social Sciences; Curriculum Development; History Instruction; Computer Uses in Education; Access to Computers; Web Sites; Multimedia Materials; Publishing Industry; Electronic Publishing

California; Florida

0277-4232

Compared with a couple of years ago, children in many California schools have one less tome to lug in their backpacks. Instead of standard textbooks, they use what publisher Pearson Education Inc. calls its "digital path" to California's elementary history and social sciences curriculum. Since the state school board approved it in November 2005, districts serving about half the state's students have bought the series, which combines online multimedia resources and activities with slim, printed "work-texts." This article reports that even though some schools and educators have embraced all-digital curriculum materials, the Golden State's experiment remains largely an exception. While the major scholastic textbook publishers now widely offer digital accessories such as CD-ROMs and Web sites as supplements to their core printed products, experts say that they are hardly rushing down the digital lane. Instead, the major publishers in the $6.2 billion elementary and secondary market are tiptoeing through a thicket of issues involving educator preferences, student access to technology, and state and local textbook-adoption practices. Taken together, analysts say, those forces are slowing what some thought would be a speedy transition from a market in which the printed word is king to a world dominated by digital delivery.

ERIC

2007

EJ775811