South Korea will introduce tablets in school

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2011/0706/In-South-Korea-all-textbooks-will-be-e-books-by-2015

A step into the real 21st century or a slick move to promote the production of domestic electro gadget companies? You make the judgement. I will give you the facts.

The Ministry of Education in South Korea has announced that it's planning to spend 2+ billion dollars to furnish all Korean students with digital schoolbooks. The goal is to substitute all paper schoolbooks and other materials with digital ones by 2015 so everything the pupil needs could be contained in a small bag. A laptop bag maybe or even smaller. Or why not in the coat.

They will use the cloud computing technology which is becoming very popular these days, and will compress all the needed information into this notebook. The pen and paper could become part of history. The new education system will use many various multimedia sources instead, including video, audio, interactive systems, etc...

The Korean experts in pedagogy believe that this innovation will make life easier for the kids, especially having in mind that the concerns about their eyes being exposed to prolonged screen radiation is now moot, thanks to the new technologies we see nowadays in things like Kindle. Also there's no way they would "forget how to write" as some comments have alleged around the forums. Just on the contrary. When high quality technology is used properly things become more optimised and start to look much better. Moreover, this innovation will make things particularly easier for kids who for some reason cannot attend classes in person (because they are sick, disabled, live far away, their parent's car is broken, etc etc). And so they will not lag behind the class in studying the school material.

Even from an economic standpoint such a reform is beneficial, because the expenses for re-publishing and re-distribution of various schoolbooks, notebooks, materials and drawing tools by far exceed the one-time supply of such a digital tablet (mind you, these will come free for the pupils). In most cases the student will be using just one such gadget for their entire school "career", so you can see how much money will be spared.

Apart from being financially great, the idea is also ecologically orientated. By digitalising this sphere, South Korea is turning into one of the "greenest" countries regarding the use of paper. As a whole this reform looks like pulled from a sci-fi movie. But this is no surprise in the case of South Korea. Such are most other things which this super-modern country does.

Comments

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

What's the effective lifespan of those tablet computers?

Also, if they're anything like regular computers and laptops, they create all sorts of toxic waste both in their manufacture and disposal so I'm not sure how green that is.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, I am not an expert in paper production and/or digital gadgets production, but as a teacher in elementary I can tell you that there are tons of paper currently being wasted for schoolbooks.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I know that paper manufacture isn't very "green" either but it is recyclable. My concerns are with the short life spans of our gadgets.

A secondary issue is the near-illiteracy of young adults I work with. Almost no one under the age of 25 seems to be able to write legibly, a problem I see worsening with increased computer usage.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

I really love the leapfrog effect, and South Korea has made huge use of it. It sucks that the US is stuck as the "early adopter" with crappy telecoms, crappy computer manufacturers, crappy overpriced cell phones, etc.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

Despair not. Several US states, including Texas and Florida, have moved towards adopting this innovation in combination with the standard paper textbooks.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Interesting side note (noticed in the links below that article).
http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2010/0406/The-e-book-revolution-hits-North-Korea

E-books go rampant in North Korea. W00t!

[aelf.livejournal.com]

'In most cases the student will be using just one such gadget for their entire school "career"'

Hardly. It'll get broken, lost, outdated, stolen. The odds of something lasting effectively for more than 4 or 5 years are vanishingly low.

To determine the "greenness" and economic savings of such a move, the environmental costs of manufacturing and supporting the devices need to be considered. A tablet will require more support than a book. The general costs will need to be considered. While the book no longer has to be printed, it still has its creation and distribution costs.

I'm not against tablets. My daughter's school uses them beginning in middle school. But they aren't the be-all and end-all that you seem to be suggesting. And I'd be quite nervous about putting one in the hands of a 5 year old, when that child can almost be counted on to forget to bring home her winter coat ... when it's snowing.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

I see your point, and I am not willing to suggest that this technology should be manna from heaven. I think it should be used in supplement to the conventional school tools. Of course kids should have some "digital literacy" if you see what I mean. And I do not agree with what some are saying that the e-books are killing books and reading in general. It will never disappear, but surely part of it will transform.

[aelf.livejournal.com]

I am a huge fan of e-books since I credit the Nook with getting my reluctant reader to read. Being able to set spacing and font size, and have her not have to be intimidated by the size of a book were both critical pieces in getting her to become a reader.

But I also love dead tree format, and I think there's something to be said with letting my now-8 year old take a book down to the creek where she can sit on a rock and read. If the book gets ruined? No big deal. She's not taking the Nook, though.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

A tablet PC costs about $150, not even as much as books and tools for one year of school. I think it should only be used intensively after learning to read and write though.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

I would think it a positive development and the cost seems reasonable. Kids are often overburdened with books, this will make their life easier, and they are already often more familiar with computers and mobile phones than with traditional text-reading and text-writing. Not that those aren't useful, but there are better ways to learn and communicate than 15th century media supports, and also many more knowledge/real-world skills that can be learned on an intelligent device.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

I am often stunned by the computer skills of my semi-adopted sons (8, 8, 7 years old) and their school-mates... At times I suspect they could teach me things rather than the opposite!

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

One of the forgotten advantages is that kids don't have to carry around 20Kg worth of books anymore. That's going to save some backs.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

South Korea has always amazed me... It is the country which has made PC gaming a profession. And a very highly paid one!

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

I live there. It's not bad, but it's also a nation that removed almost all public trash bins from city streets. So people are MORE likely to just dump their trash on the ground.

[404.livejournal.com]

e-books are a waste of time and money. There are so many advantages of a real book over an e-book its not funny, and the e-readers are a mess right now and unless there is some sort of technological leap forward in the future, I will stick with a paper book.

*I own a nook and an ipad. Neither I found are good for reading for long periods.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

I still remain unclear about why you find them unsuitable for reading.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

*I own a nook and an ipad. Neither I found are good for reading for long periods.

I couldn't disagree more. I love the Kindle experience - in some ways MORE than a paper book for non-research purposes.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Say goodbye to the good old fight with school books...

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

I am surprising myself with how curmudgeonly I feel about this topic, considering how tied I am to my laptop and smartphone, and considering that I'd sell a kidney for a Kindle, but...I look at this with sadness and melancholy. Maybe I'm nuts but, practical considerations aside, there's just something lost in the learning experience when everything is consumed via an electronic screen. For me, there is a great difference between actually holding a book in my hands and reading it, and reading text on a screen. Anecdotal evidence, I know, and I also know I'm a weird one, but still, it makes me sad to see this.

I also just am opposed to the overuse of technology in the classroom. Sure, maybe it works for some people, but in my undergraduate and graduate school years I've witnessed technology be more of a hindrance than a help. On the teaching side, professors with fancy-schmancy tech suites in the classroom eventually come to depend on them entirely, until class times devolves into a series of giant PowerPoint presentations with little or any actual lecturing or explanation.

On the learning side, professors who allow the use of laptops in the classroom are doing a giant disservice to their students; rules and dire warnings of punishment aside, in my law school classes (very few professors at Wichita State allowed laptop use during class) on any given day at least 50% of my classmates are screwing around on the internet instead of paying attention. While I frankly don't care if they flunk out because of this (and several have), it puts a higher burden on the rest of us who actually are paying attention and who actually bother to prepare for class.

Don't even get me started on research, writing, and using libraries.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Your smart phone can probably kindle.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

My IT lecturer during my teaching degree had this big thing that if you can do something without a computer, you shouldn't use a computer. Technology in the classroom is amazing, but it's not some magic pill that will turn crap teachers with poor resources into superstars.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

My partner's boy started using the iPad at school this year. For a $550 investment, we save over $600 a year in textbooks (they use the iPad for 2 years before moving on to laptops). I was a bit skeptical at first; I have a thing about technology in the classroom, it has to enhance, not replace. It seems like it's going pretty well, we have a lot fewer problems with forgotten text books :P

[nano-muse.livejournal.com]

*looks at big backpack and pile of textbooks*

God I wish my school would do that...