[ Thanks to Jason
Perlow for this link. ]
“Chris Dawson over at ZDNet Education wrote a great
post about what it would take to get Kindle-type devices or
paperless educational curricula to replace textbooks and reading
lists in elementary school and high school, and some of the
problems that would have to be addressed. Indeed, to get Kindles in
the hand of 5th graders, we’re going to have to think about
battle hardening the devices (think a companies like Motorola
Symbol Technologies or Panasonic’s Toughbook division stepping in
to help) and having them owned by the schools, because unless the
prices of these things drop to the point where the replacement
costs are roughly equivalent to what it currently costs to outfit
kids with textbooks and literature for a wear and tear lifetime of
3 to 5 years, it’s going to be a non-starter — kids are
going to lose these things and destroy them. This of course, is
assuming your kids don’t go to a school district where
textbooks are 30 years old because of budgetary
issues.”