South Korea to replace textbooks

Textbooks are being swapped for tablets in classrooms across South Korea as part of a multi-million dollar technological revolution. But what do pupils and teachers make of the digital intruders in their place of learning? Tom Fearson has more.

Inside the classroom on a hot summer day these pupils are concentrating on their work. Could it be because they're using tablets not textbooks?

This small scene in a quiet, rural town is just a tiny part of something big happening in South Korea's education system.

And the tablets are proving a hit with the eager pupils.

Lee Sang-hyeob, student, said, "Learning science experiments by watching videos makes it more fun and easier to understand."

Jang Woo-dan, student, said, "It was difficult for me to study using paper textbooks. However, it is more interesting and fun studying with digital textbooks, which has augmentation contents and videos."

More than 60 primary, middle and high schools in South Korea are now using digital textbooks as part of their curriculum.

Seoul believes it can finish the 2.1-billion-US-dollars program to replace textbooks with tablet PCs in schools by 2015.

Yeon Eun-jung, is a teacher at Sosu Elementary School. She sees many advantages in using tablets rather than textbooks.

Yeon Eun-jung said, "Digital textbooks have many videos and photos, so students can see photos and videos of those places they have not been. This advantage is effective for learning since it allows students to have more fun and be more interested in studying."

Whether tablets are really the key to good grades will be seen in the years to come, when this generation writes their final exams.

At the moment the tablets are a novelty, but with the millions of dollars the government is spending, hopes are clearly high for success.

1. augmentation: to make greater, more numerous, larger, or more intense <the impact of the report was augmented by its timing>.
 
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