In a Digital Future, Textbooks are History

While buying a science textbook for my daughter's high school physics class, I noticed that this $180 textbook now comes in a relatively cheaper electronic version. My wife, who loves her Kindle, had suggested that we solve the problem of lugging too many heavy textbooks and save some money by buying digital textbooks. This is emblematic of a fundamental change in educational technology.

The web and digital media disintermediate knowledge and shatter historical monopolies on information, communication, and learning. They are a classic example of what Clayton Christensen termed "disruptive technology" in his prescient first book, The Innovator's Dilemma.

First the web profoundly changed the way business is done and the way we live our daily lives. Now schools are moving online. The New York Times reports of the move of some schools and some teachers to creating their own instructional materials from PowerPoint presentations, podcasts, and YouTube videos. Neeru Khosla's CK-12 Foundation, which creates digital textbooks from free, digital media, has submitted several of its "flexbooks" for adoption by the state of California, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger hopes might save millions of dollars.

My school, the Nueva School, has never used textbooks, but instead relied on the creativity and passion of its teachers to develop instructional materials from both original content and from a synthesis of available content. Distance learning and online instruction are not new but have received new boosts from the imprimatur of elite schools like Standford and M.I.T. Christensen's latest effort, Disrupting Class, also makes the case for new digital learning in this brave new digital world.