Apple Unveils E-Textbook Strategy for K-12

To me, it was only a matter of time before this step into the future of education was taken. Finally, textbooks will be available for purchase through the App Store for Apple Products. 


Okay, maybe I'm the only one excited about this, but I'm used to having to buy ALL of my own textbooks. For those lovely, heavy, hardcover books, I spent over $700 freshman year alone to purchase my books, due to the extreme cost of shipping a package weighing in at sixty-two pounds. And sure, maybe there are PDFs of texts that have been scanned into someone's computer for illegal sharing through the internet; however, I'd more than like to be able to have such useful resources readily available wherever I go, and not have to worry about weather or not I can carry four books home each night to study.


I feel as if Apple has taken an important step. As author Jason Tomassini reports, Apple Inc. has signed their deal with McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, all publishers whom I believe that the High School uses books from. Schools and districts are going to be able to buy licenses for a set amount of copies of the texts which would normally sell for $14.99 or less in the iBooks store, or so Apple has said. Both companies will get a share of the profits, and Apple is working to turn the eTextbooks from simple PDFs or pictures of the pages into inter-active books, with supplementary materials, videos, and other features you really can't get from a bounded stack of papers.


This time around in the technological advancements, Apple isn't really hurting this market; rather, it's believed that through this advancement, the education market will benefit. 


Whether it does or doesn't, I do know that my desire to purchase an iPad has now increased greatly.


http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/01/20/18apple.html

Published 20 Jan. 2012

Term Two, Week Ten. (Jan. 15-Jan. 21, 2012) Post Two.