Ask HN, Could online textbooks "reasonably" replace print books in high school?

I'm on a parental advisory council for my daughter's high school. At our last meeting we discussed spending $30,000 just to supplement lost or damaged books. There are about 1500 students total. The school has a large supply of computers and very good internet access. I've been able to find various materials online, especially for math and computer topics. Still, I wonder if it would be practical to encourage the entire school to move in that direction. Does anyone here know of an internet site I could use as a resource or, better yet, an example of a school moving to online books?

Thanks

I did some advocacy in a project that was supported under my last startup, http://www.opentextbook.org/

A huge amount of the cost is in publisher fees rather than material cost. And the quality is appalling at times - check out Richard Feynman's writings about just how bad it can get (panels of textbook reviewers recommending books that were blank other than a book cover). The quality of online sources is great, but physical books are going to be necessary for a long time.

To that end, check out connexions (here's a video detailing what it's about: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_baraniuk_on_open_...) for very high quality stuff. There are certainly some areas which don't need expensive copyrighted textbooks.

Please keep us up to date on your findings, this is a topic dear to a lot of the hn crowd.

I'm working through my high school chemistry, physics, and biology textbooks in a self-directed manner, as I hope to challenge my provincial exams without taking the associated courses.

Working from PDF copies of my textbooks has proven surprisingly comfortable, and has offered benefits over their dead-tree brethren. Though my first read of the material is usually in the paper version of the book (if only so that I may escape my computer chair), my second note-taking pass is always from the digital copy, for I've found taking notes easier when the material is on-screen and adjacent to my text editor. Taking screenshots of illuminating diagrams and inserting them into my notes is much faster than re-sketching the diagrams by hand. The ability to search the book's text rather than thumbing through an index is appreciated. The PDF version of my physics textbook is made available on its associated Web site ( http://physicssource.ca/ ) -- the electronic copy provided there is the latest printing, which resolves numerous ambiguities and errors present in my paper copy's earlier printing.

The only downside I've encountered is the manner in which an electronic textbook tethers me to my computer. In your daughter's school's case, I doubt that this would prove a handicap to most students, so long as they were given access to their textbooks outside of school. Ideally, the textbook should be provided in an open format such as PDF or HTML -- not one of the proprietary, DRM-encumbered formats favoured by some publishers.

I believe we need to reinvent schools, that students need to be able to self-teach using online dynamic material (as opposed to static textbooks). Teachers would design courses from mashups and assist students individually in their progress. Students would also have group assignments, team activities, etc...

A few links that should help you in your quest: http://textbase.com/Overview.html http://www.smarthistory.org/pop-art.html http://www.chem.arizona.edu/~salzmanr/480a/480ants/physchem.... http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-07-09-open-textb... http://www.math.gatech.edu/~cain/textbooks/onlinebooks.html http://www.opentextbook.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_textbooks http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page

Thank you. That is some good material.