Category Archives: Education

Recently one of the top private schools in the UK has released their textbooks online as a free downloadable ebook, which has made many students and schools very happy. Things like this are likely to be one of the best pieces of news for schools around the world.

One of the biggest impediments to improving schools is the costs, of which textbooks are a massive contributor. With the typical textbook costing anywhere from £10-30 (with the better ones being more expensive ), when you multiply that by a 8.3 million students which are currently in school in the UK, then you’re talking about tens of millions every year being spent on textbooks.

Even though we’ve had this good news courtesy of the Stephen Perse Foundation in Cambridge, most textbooks in the UK and around the world are still bought as hard copies. There are a number of options for free books, but due to the common practice of school administrations as well as the poor quality of most of them (or how they don’t match certain syllabi), most don’t use them. Most believe it is only a matter of time though.

Technology has been a part of the curriculum in one form or another since PC’s were first invented and began to be introduced in schools, but recently we’ve a lot more computer technology being developed which is highly user friendly. This makes it ideal for introduction in schools.

Already we are beginning to see the introduction of e-readers like the Ipad and kindle into our schools. These can potentially be used by schools for instantaneous sharing of information and for managing the books which students currently have to carry around with them. The internet is another potential big game changer, giving schools and pupils the potential to communicate outside of school about work for school. Both of these could come to have a massive influence over how our education system operates.

Although everyone can clearly see the slow changes which are occurring and are likely to continue to change things, there are other technological advancements which we don’t yet know about which could have an even larger impact in the years to come.