School Officials: iPads Won't Replace Textbooks Soon

Replacing textbooks with tablets is still an impractical dream, according to some of the top school officials in the county. But the potential is growing each day.

Last week, Apple made an announcement about partnering with top school textbook publishers in the country to offer textbook apps for iPad owners. Tablets like the iPad can hold thousands of books, and stand poised to overtake bulky, paper books—so long as school systems can afford them.

But that dream hasn’t arrived yet.

Some schools have invited iPads into classrooms on a smaller scale. Prince George County Public Schools used a $1.3 million stimulus grant from the federal government to provide iPads to 3,000 students at four of its Title I middle schools, The Baltimore Sun reported.

Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) officials say they have been investigating the possibility of integrating the devices in the classroom for almost a decade, but they’ve still not found the right fit.

“The end goal is that every student would have such a device,” said Greg Barlow, chief information officer for AACPS. “But how we get there is going to be challenging, especially in this fiscal climate.”

Barlow said the announcement from Apple was exciting news to people in his field. Publishers becoming more receptive to electronic publishing would create a new landscape for textbooks, he said.

But the price point is still not right, Barlow said.

Current model iPads start at $499. The average PC costs the school system around the same price but lasts longer than a tablet, and are more functional in a school setting, Barlow said.

“At this point it doesn’t seem to be a replacement of our desktops and laptops, but an additional item, and there’s certainly no budget for that right now," Barlow said.

Once the price of these devices hits the sub-$200 range, Barlow said they could then take a serious look at the potential of integrating them in the classroom.

Moving to some kind of tablet or e-reader format would make certain parts of the education process easier, said Val Emrich, the instructional technology manager for AACPS.

“We know that students don’t want to carry around these big tomes all day. But there’s more to it than that,” Emrich said.

Testing for students has progressively moved away from papers and pencils and into the digital age. Scheduling students to access computers for tests has become a headache for some schools, Emrich said.

If each student had access to a personal device, the problem suddenly goes away.

The long-term goal, Barlow said, is that each student has a device he or she can take home. That could extend what educators call the learning day, the amount of time each student spends in school.

“They could start doing work on the bus, finish it at home. They could even start taking two languages, one at school, and one at home,” Barlow said. “We’re absolutely getting closer to that dream."

junior said the books he uses in classes often have no covers. They're also subject to the graffiti and markings of the hundreds of students who used the book before him.

Escobosa said he believes a shift to tablets would be good, so long as it doesn’t segregate students.

“I can see few real downsides," he said. "The real issue would be in the case of those students without the means to access an online text, students without access to computers, iPads, etc. So a full-on removal of paper textbooks wouldn't be feasible, but a slow integration of e-books into schools would probably be better received."

To that end, Barlow said the school system has been discussing allowing students to bring their own iPads and devices to school for use in class. But they’re still working out the kinks. Monitoring and restricting Internet activity on the devices is currently out of the school system’s league.

“We're looking into it, but there’s a lot of pitfalls in there,” Barlow said. “It's something at least worth looking at, because that could knock down funding requirements if students could bring their own.”

So far, most are in favor of replacing textbooks. How do you feel?