Smartphones and e-readers could lead to the death of the textbook in classrooms, according to a leading headmistress.
In future, pupils will be able to access textbooks and information “anywhere, anytime, any place”, changing the face of school lessons, Louise Robinson said.
Mrs Robinson, the incoming president of the Girls’ Schools Association (GSA), suggests that children can get more from the “magic” of using smartphones and tablets than simply reading a book.
In her first interview as president, Mrs Robinson said: “Taking on board the fact that textbooks will be on your mobile, whatever shape, name or type of fruit your mobile relates to, and therefore anywhere, anytime, any place… it’s going to be a huge possibility.
“But also, not only that, the fact that they’ll be able to access anything they want to, in advance of your lesson, so if you say ‘the next lesson’s going to be on the skeleton’, what you can see online now in terms of the skeleton and where you can go with it, makes children have far more control over their learning than they ever could do before. One click and you’re into another world.”
Mrs Robinson, who is also headmistress of Merchant Taylors’ Girls’ School in Crosby, Liverpool, said she did not think it was relevant if textbooks were not in hard copies.
Children still have to be taught how to access information, whether it’s in “a book, a library or on a computer”, she said, adding “and you still have to teach a child how to access that information safely.
“You and I wouldn’t send a child into a library and say ‘go and have a look’, you’d actually help them, show them where the information is to access, and which bits they should be looking at for their age and stage. But that doesn’t stop them going ‘I’d like to have a look at that one’ and when you see a young child on their tablet, or internet, the magic that they are seeing in that information, the way that they absorb it and reflect it back at you is just wonderful.”
Mrs Robinson said: “I can understand the concept that there’s the smell of a very old book, I’m not going to throw them all on the bonfire at all. I do believe that there will be a time and a place for going in to look at an old book. But when you’re doing class reading, why buy the hard copy?”
Mrs Robinson said that one of the biggest issues she will be championing during her year in office is entrepreneurship. She is planning to organize a competition for girls on the topic, backed by Claire Young who reached the final of the BBC show The Apprentice in 2008.
Source : Orange News