I Love Online Textbooks! (Kind of)

Each year, I buy new book covers in anticipation of the textbooks I will have to carry around for 9 months.  But in the past few years, online textbooks have become available.  Theoretically, I should be thrilled; my AP bioloy book could just gather dusk at home, my AP US history book could remained unopened, but they don't.  Every day, I lug at least one 1000 page textbook to and from school because for me, online textbooks aren't practical yet.  I couldn't use them in study hall because I have no way of accessing them, and there's just something about taking notes from a screen that throws me off.  But if we're going to make this transition to any degree, we should be thrilled and completely embrace it.

Compared to most of my friends, my technology is very limited.  For instance, I was sitting in my math class, happily copying down some word problems and trying to figure out how to work a derivative into the problem, and I looked to my right to see the girl next to me snapping a picture of the page with the problems, just like that.  I believe that in that moment, my outdated pencil (which I have cherished since freshman year) drooped just a little.  How I wished I could be done with copying and moving on to the math!  Obviously, we all don't have this technology, but if we are moving in this digital direction, we shouldn't be afraid of it or hang on to our tree killing textbooks too long.  An abrupt change is out of the question; it's too extreme.  However, if -- bit by bit-- we try and digitalize over the next decade, school districts will save money and students might stand a little straighter without the added weight.  The French curriculum in my high school is changing.  The books we have are from an age the students have never known -- one of our vocabulary words in the computer section last year was la disquette... a floppy disk.  I vaguely remember something like a floppy disk, but obviously it's just a tad outdated.  If this was a digitalized book, the transition to a better book would be easier and quicker.  However, this system would require computers in the classroom for all the students, which would be expensive.  I think it would be worth it.  You would get the same deal with less hassle and more flexibilty.

One of my friends likes to take notes in the textbooks, making an online textbook a nightmare for her.  Regardless, our educational system needs to "move with the times", needs to continue on a path of digitalization.  Based on the computer availability, schools are already on the right course.