Digital Textbooks to be Available in 2008
Ministry of Education and Human Resources
The Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development plans to supply e-textbooks of all subjects to 5th- and 6th-grade students at twenty schools as of next year and to expand the system to 100 schools nationwide by 2011, according to an announcement made on March 8, 2007.
Unlike paper textbooks, school material in the digital format will allow students to take classes via wired and wireless communication networks whenever and wherever they wish, interact more freely with teachers, and review class notes saved on a national education server.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Kim Shin-il said, “Textbooks need to be amended occasionally in accordance to rapid social changes. However, such change cannot be made possible with the current hard-copy textbooks. To supplement this, e-textbooks, which have been developed since 2002, will be operated in fourteen trial schools this year, and will be fully implemented in 2008.”
The digital textbook operates via digital media such as a personal computer, and through wire or wireless networks. It goes beyond conventional paper textbooks by making use of such features as video clips, animation, virtual reality and hyperlinks. The digitized texts also include student handbooks, exercise books and dictionaries, which can be updated whenever in need. The ministry will also provide a network connection to the databases of different organizations in society, so that students may access and download much more information than just those in textbooks.
The ministry tried the system on 300 students in four primary schools last year on an experimental basis, and students, especially those whose school records were in the middle or lower brackets, showed great improvement in performance. Studies also proved that digitized material were effective in attracting the academic interest of students, and that students were more capable of self-directed learning when using the internet and multimedia resources for studies.
On top of such research findings, the ministry plans to first develop digitized textbooks for all subjects of fifth and sixth grades in primary school. According to plans, by 2011 three subjects - mathematics, science and English - will be taught using the digital textbooks for freshmen at selected middle schools, while high school freshmen will use the new method for two subjects - mathematics and English.
The schools will be equipped with electronic blackboards and wireless internet systems. In step-by-step process, digital textbooks will be adopted in 20 primary schools in 2008 and in 100 primary, middle and high schools nationwide by 2011.
Some 66 billion Korean won will be invested from 2007 through 2011 so as to parallel research on 16 sectors, including the structural establishment of digital textbook distribution, quality management, teacher training, law and policy amendments, educational environment establishment and research on the effect and effectiveness of digital textbook usage.
The ministry explained that once the era of e-textbooks takes hold, various advantages may be enjoyed, such as enabling ill students to participate in classes through study units without necessarily attending school, and teachers offering counseling service through video phones, which in turn will greatly help students from low-income brackets or from rural areas to narrow down on the education gap.
웹사이트: http://www.moe.go.kr
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2008년 2월 20일 16:26
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2008년 2월 18일 16:28