Wow, fucking awesome Star Trek reference!

Haven't been able to find he clip yet, but this is pretty awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGwicjGAW…

I, and most of the other college professors I know, ban laptops and iPads in the classroom. I've tried all kinds of other policies, but the temptation to be checking your facebook page (or stumble, or fail blog, or e-mail, or WoW or...) is just too temping for college students to resist. Anytime I let them open their laptops -- even for taking notes on a lecture -- they're dinking around on the web instead of paying attention. So I'm forced to make them take notes with pen and paper, which is annoying for everyone.

I wonder how this pervasive problem will be affected when textbooks are all on the laptop/iPad. Will professors have to be saying, "NO, you cannot look at your e-textbook during class"?

I wonder how the profs of the immanent future will deal with this problem.

Then again, perhaps physically present teachers will be replaced by the Skyping-it-in variety, where students can be at home playing video games and masturbating while "in class".

I actually really hate this idea. I have found that I have to have a physical copy of something in my hands to really digest it, and that part of the way I recall information I have read, is based on where it is placed on the page and the shape of the paragraphs and pictures around it.

I can't be the only person out there whose brain just shuts down when confronted with a single paned wall of information. Even though there will be photos in the e-textbooks and all that, it isn't the same for the part of my brain that requires tangible information sources to absorb the material.

@3 I imagine future profs will do what many past & present ones have done: either make the class interesting enough to hold the attention of the people paying a ransom to enroll, or stop giving a damn if they still refuse to pay attention.

I'm so excited that state legislatures are now going to provide iPads to every student so they can experience the joy of new ebook availability. Everyone is soooo into long-term education investments these days. What a radiant future!

@4 is correct and in good company. One-hundred percent of my students—this is not an exaggeration—despise the eBook my school requires for one of the classes I teach. Every quarter I spend a portion of the first class fielding questions about how they can get a refund for a learning tool they don't use and find less efficient than a hard copy book.

As someone who teaches from and is required to participate in learning sessions from both hard copy and eBooks, I have to agree with my students. Despite all the bells and whistles of eBooks, learning online is simply more challenging (and I'm not even talking about the times when their internet is down, when the entire eBook system/program is down and how often images and other sections found in hard copy versions are frequently retracted from ebooks—although the technical factors make both teaching and learning doubly challenging).

In addition, students only get the "rights" to an ebook for three or so years, whereas for $25 more they can have the textbook for life.

Goldy: Try taking an online class alongside an on-campus class, in particular one that uses a text book. The learning experience and takeaway are profoundly different. I think you'd change your tune if you were speaking from experience.

As Paul pointed out, the price of these is $499 plus $14.99 each book. Not just $14.99, unless we're assuming that every student already has an iPad. I agree, however, that the future of textbooks will be something like this.

Goldy, it remains amazing what you dig up to whine about. The response here from educators is great to see, but it should be obvious for anyone with half a brain left to see their argument w/o having to explicitly state it.

But then again, you're planning on driving your daughter around at her whim for the rest of your life, so Whine On, Whiner!

We do not live in a "a world full of iPads and laptop computers".

@3 - I remember once trying to read a textbook during a lecture, and the professor scolded me. Under what scenario would one need a textbook in class - I mean, outside of detention?

Class should be all about the lecture; the textbook is a supplement to be read outside of class. After all, a projector can bring up an illustration or problem from book during the lecture. I'm probably missing something, but I don't see any impact on continuing a computer ban once e-textbooks are the norm.

I did have a teacher in high school who sometimes would have us read silently in class rather that prepare a lecture. Also, in college, I took a course that had "open-book" exams. I'd be happy to see both of those lazy practices die.

Reading on Endgaget, it doesnt look like theyre forcing any compression as textbooks can be anywhere from 800mb to 2.7 gb. Thats obscene for just text and basic illustrations. A PDF of Stephen Kings 'The Stand' isnt much more than 100 mb.

16 GB iPads wont hold much. Sure theres iCloud, but you shoudlnt be forced to have a WiFi connection just to read a book.

Well, maybe I should have stuck with my original headline: "Textbooks Have Bee Reinvented, Whether You Like It or Not."

Look, I don't much enjoy the e-book experience either, and I don't own an iPad or Kindle or Nook. But come back in 10-15 years and tell me that I'm wrong.

(And by the way, I don't ever remember lugging textbooks to college lectures... though to be fair, I was a history major, so apart from a few introductory science classes, I didn't have many textbooks.)

I thought iClickers were supposed to help ensure students participated in class as well?

I see these kids turtling there way their school from time to time. When and why did sending kids home every night with 35lbs worth of books start? I'm in the last half of my 30's and I don't think my I ever noticed the weight of my backpack during my school-going years.

iPads might not be the answer, but a dedicated e-reader would be an improvement. However, I don't see publishers giving huge price breaks simply for moving away from physical books, especially if those eventually become their primary offerings.

Frankly, I'm happy to see this change happening. I have no problem reading digital texts (JSTOR is my bestie), and the prospect of embedded videos and high resolution images, or links to such content online are exciting to me. Being able to link to referenced and supporting material is another feature I hope to see, in addition to being able to easily annotate the text, and extract properly formatted references (MLA, Chicago, etc...). Despite the problems we see in today's e-books, I think the e-textbook has potential utility far exceeding that of a regular textbook.

I read "not unusual to own two homes" and quit reading.

Yeah, I think it is a little unusual. I don't know anyone with two homes.

Have you SEEN e-textbooks?

"if not better--represented on an LCD screen". Not. E-textbooks have a powerful tendency to look like shit. If you're using a Kindle, unusably so. In fact, some observers think e-readers are worse devices for textbooks than for any other kind of book -- things with lots of charts and stuff, and with a strong need for usable notes, bibliography, and index, and maybe other features that suck on e-books, like glossaries and stuff.

E-book navigation is spectacularly awful compared to the ability to stick bookmarks or post-its in a real book, to flip back to that map, or that highlighted section.

The last textbook I bought, for second-year Spanish six months ago, cost a whopping THREE HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS, or a mere $175 unbound with three-ring-binder punches. Couldn't believe it. But the e-version wouldn't have been tempting, even at $15.

@18, Goldy's daughter does not own two homes, you misread the first sentence, Goldy's daughter HAS two homes, which, considering how many children have divorced parents, is not uncommon at all.

@20.

(slaps forehead) Ok, I feel stupid.

Let me read the article now.

Ok, now that I read the article, I completely agree.

I wish we had this when I was in school, if not for anything but the WEIGHT of a backpack! I only weighed like 90 pounds in school, it was work carrying those bastards around all day!

I wouldn't want to use a tablet, but would prefer a MacBook Pro.

@19, the important thing about e-textbooks isn't what they are now, but what they can be. For non-academic texts I much prefer paper books, but I have found it incredibly helpful to read academic texts in a digital format. It's much easier to quote and reference from a stack documents on my desktop than a stack of documents on my physical desk. It's also much easier to search a digital text for specific words or ideas than a traditional paper text. Maybe e-readers and e-textbooks aren't where they need to be to be as useful as one would expect, but in a few years they could be.

Has anyone in the comments even seen the Apple commercial? They are waaaay better than Kindle books, waaaay better than any ebooks that are available currently. Apple has completely revolutionized the textbook market.
As a current full time student, I would LOVE to be able to have all my books on an iPad. And furthermore, I have only had a few professors that didn't allow computers in class. Also, with the iPad textbooks, I don't believe you need internet except to download.

Watch the video before hating on Goldy.

http://www.apple.com/education/#video-te…