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eTextBookseTextBooksPosted Jul 26, 2006 21:33 UTC (Wed) by felixfix (subscriber, #242)Parent article: India rejects One Laptop Per Child (Register)
I had thought one of the main drivers economically for these was that storing ebooks on them instead of buying physical textbooks would save money in buying them, save hassle and money distributing them, and allow updates more often. These factors alone paid for the laptops, and having up to date texts for everyone, in their native language, rather than 30 year old foreign castoffs for a few, was all the moral justification you needed. I would even think that refusing to buy these would be almost criminal under certain circumstances. and if India is worried about being able to afford teachers, the economics would help.
There's also the idea that students can take their textbooks home with them, rather than having to lug around ten pounds of real books.
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eTextBooks Posted Jul 28, 2006 13:34 UTC (Fri) by illtyd (guest, #2124) [Link] So in addition to USD100 per student for laptops, the government is also supposed to divert money from building schools and paying teachers to digitise, translate and update textbooks as well?
There are some good points about the OLPC plan, but an "appropriate technology" approach to education and an understand of the budget impact of $100/student additional spending are note among them.
Sigh Posted Jul 28, 2006 14:15 UTC (Fri) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link] Read the other posts with actual numbers. The cost of the laptop plus the cost to acquire and electronically distribute eTextbooks is less than the cost to acquire and physically distribute real textbooks.
On top of that cost savings, the students don't have to carry around a pile of heavy physical books. They can now carry around hundreds of books.
Plus the books can be updated and actually relevant to the locale and the time, rather than out of date castoffs from a foreign country in a foreign language.
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