No More Textbooks Or, A Digital Curriculum

This post:
http://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/part-1-going-digital-ten-points-to-consider-when-transforming-towards-digital-curriculum/
from Michael Gorman's 21st Century Educational Technology and Learning Blog (http://21centuryedtech.wordpress) should be a must-read for all teachers and administrators.

If you're attached to your Kindle or Ipad--and your kid uses it too in his spare time after school or on the weekends,  then you may very well know that books and yes, textbooks are from a by-gone era.  I recently went into a Borders where everything was 20 to 30% off.  I was excited to walk around the store and see what I could get for a discount.  As I looked at the shelves and aisles of books, I was struck with this thought--why do I want to buy these books when I could easily get them on my Ipad Kindle App and carry all of them around with me in a slim/sleek tablet?  I wandered over to the knick-knack area where there are bookmarks, pens, pencil cases and notebooks hoping to find something to purchase.  There wasn't anything of interest there--I have a Droid phone so all lists and To-Dos are easily stored on my phone.  So, while it's sad that Borders is going out of business and/or filed bankruptcy and is closing many stores, I honestly thought--are bookstores, things of the past?  Will we look at them in years to come like people wearing hats and gloves in the 1950s--where did all the milliners go?

Michael Gorman notes that curriculum for centuries in education has been driven via the textbook.  Whether you were lucky enough to get a new textbook in your school or a ten-year old one--that is what you got in your classroom.  I remember when my daughter entered elementary school ten years ago and the motto of her school was--"we don't use textbooks!"  That was new, different and quite revolutionary for teachers to structure learning around xeroxes, novels, science experiments and museums in the 90s.  In today's world where information is king, it is really unrealistic to use textbooks in the classroom.  How can a student of today study about the recent Egypt revolution?  Is their a textbook for kids about the meaning of people's changing relationships via technology--or, why the phone may not ring in your home anymore?--but, your cell phone is beeping and vibrating.

Gorman notes that it's not easy to "go digital." You need professional development for teachers, access for schools, time, familiarity with PBL, STEM and the ISTE standards, among other things.
I especially like Gorman's no. 10--"A digital curriculum must allow students to be at the center of their education with the teacher actively facilitating and orchestrating real student learning.  Such a curriculum allows students to contribute and design outcomes. It gives students the necessary ”Drive” (Daniel Pink) to become actively involved and take charge of their education."  What do you think?  Are textbooks dead?  Should all schools go digital?