[Svartalfiar]

Online textbooks are nearly useless. As difficult as it is to teach students to use print textbooks, even when they use e- or online books, they learn next to nothing.

I hate using digital textbooks, and am not really a fan of reading books online. You can't go back and reference certain stuff, you can;t flip through to find info you need, it's much harder to flip through to a certain page. The experience of using a physical textbook is much more conducive to learning than a computer screen. They're also much easier on the eyes, can be used anytime without annoying the wife in bed, are much more mobile, and so on. Hopefully most of the math, science, and civics courses keep using normal books instead of stupid online crap.

[Getready]

I was just about to post the same comment. Paper textbook allows you to associate info to a location in book. You can also scan at least 2 to 4 pages worth of “screen” pages. Very good if you are following a derivation of information. Put a marker in the index...much easier than pulling up new screen to look something else up. Best IMHO is a textbook with digital updates till new textbook....larger pages would give less expensive books with easy back and forth reading..

[HartleyMBaldwin]

And aside from all that, the students will ruin their computers with all that yellow highlighting marker on the screen.

[nicollo]

Glad to hear you say that about textbooks.

Our high schools have destroyed learning by dumbing down expectations for textbook learning. Yet, they are dependent on textbooks becuase the publishers create the overall curriculum and, especially, assessments — based on the textbooks, which teachers don’t use and students aren’t taught how to use.

Meanwhile, kids learn how not to learn independently and schools just reinforce it by deprecating homework grades, pushing “video learning” and online textbooks and running inanities such as “inverted classrooms.”

When I first became a high school teacher, I was appalled at the utter inability of my students to use a textbook. I bailed on the curriculum and spent a month teaching them to use the textbook. Suddenly, they showed up in class with prior knowledge that we could build upon rather than wasting classroom time building. And other teachers came up to me thanking me for getting their own students to start using their textbooks.

I left teaching to run an academic support service in part to save homework by teaching kids to learn to learn independently.

[GingisK]

I’m in the crowd that hates digital material. Two things that NEVER plague a proper book is battery life and media reader obsolescence. Factor in a good old EMP burst, and books would be the cornerstone of continuance of civilization.