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South Korea to go completely digital for textbooks by 2015
South Korea's elementary-level educational materials will all be digitized by the year 2014. The entire school curriculum will be delivered on an array of computers, smartphones, and tablets by 2015. The country's Education Ministry even wants to hold nationwide academic tests online according to eSchool News.
The ministry has yet to announce the make or model of the devices it plans to purchase. That being said, it has revealed a budget of $2.4 billion for buying the devices and digitizing material for them.
Some schools are already using textbooks on laptops. As for tablets, the South Korean government has a lot of options to choose from. The frontrunner is likely something from the Galaxy Tab series (either the original 7-inch, or the new Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 8.9 devices), given that the line is manufactured by the South Korean electronics giant Samsung.
The move will likely reignite the age-old debate about whether or not students learn better when using printed material versus digital screens. Furthermore, there's the issue of whether or not devices smaller form factors are as effective as current textbooks, which tend to have significantly more area on each page. Oh, and there's also the fact the devices can serve as a great distraction from being used as textbooks.
This could be great news for Samsung and its competitors. If the program is a success for South Korea, other countries and their governments will likely follow suit, eventually. The result will be a relatively small, but steady new revenue stream for companies that produce mobile devices with large-enough screens for reading textbooks.
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User Comments (14)
Post a comment|
edison5do
on July 4, 2011 2:37 PM |
Thatīs a nice move... But that will never go to the 3rd world countries... Sad... |
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Rick
on July 4, 2011 2:42 PM |
edison5do said: Thatīs a nice move... But that will never go to the 3rd world countries... Sad... Or some of the first world ones either... |
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yRaz
on July 4, 2011 3:11 PM |
"but teacher, my dog ate my battery!!!!" |
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Holyscrap
on July 4, 2011 3:19 PM |
+1 on that. And about (The result will be a relatively small,...) i think the result will be big if other countries follow suite since it will greatly increase demand for such devices which , in the end, will result in these devices getting cheaper. |
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insect
on July 4, 2011 3:50 PM |
As a teacher, I would LOVE to have this! No more worrying about students losing textbooks (for which I get chewed out...) or having to collect/hand out textbooks. Also... the excuse of "I picked up the wrong book this morning" won't work! The collection thing is more important though as I rarely use the book and generally just tell them to leave it at home for support on whatever we are studying. |
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Rasta211
on July 4, 2011 4:15 PM |
Uh oh my Notebook got hacked! |
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Guest
on July 4, 2011 8:22 PM |
Our fat kids won't have to carry around 30 lbs. of books |
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Guest
on July 5, 2011 1:11 AM |
And every boy is gonna have a computer?, even the most poor ones?. I don't think this is gonna happen. |
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mailpup
on July 5, 2011 2:01 AM |
Seems just as easy to lose a portable device as a textbook and if you drop a book, it won't be subject to breakage like a handheld. |
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Guest
on July 5, 2011 8:29 AM |
S Korea is so far ahead compared to the rest of the world it's not even funny anymore. I'm in university and am having to shell out hundreds for (used) textbooks and elementary school kids are getting convertible tablet PCs? Come on rest of world, it's time to catch up. |
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mattfrompa
on July 5, 2011 11:20 AM |
my textbook has a virus that deletes all of my homework when I complete it and animates a dog chewing papers. |
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arkantos
on July 6, 2011 1:39 AM |
this is very good! it will save some tress somehow. no more heavy textbooks to carry. and the rest of the world should adapt to it. |
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Guest
on July 7, 2011 6:53 AM |
i reckon its a bad idea. simply because it allows the kids to do a number of other things, i have a laptop which i can use at school but i never do as its very distracting and i find i don't learn as much if i use it. also whilst there'll be no more 'the dog ate my book' there'll be even more 'my tablets not working' Simply put its a large waste of money to degrade the quality of learning. |
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Horace Bowers
on November 30, 2011 9:42 AM |
In the inner city the students need constant reminders to stay on task. The use of a tablet is a tremendous concept. It will never work, however, at our "At Risk Schools." Sad |
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