E-Devices: Print’s Frenemy

"If you look over the horizon, at the el-hi level, the iPad or a machine like it will become the de facto textbook of the future," he predicts. "And, that's going to have a devastating effect on the textbook industry."

The process has certainly begun. The school district in Auburn, ME, voted in early April to give 285 incoming kindergartners an iPad2 this fall, a program that will cost the district about $200,000. School superintendent Tom Morrill told the Lewiston Sun Journal that he has a goal of increasing literacy rates from 62 percent to 90 percent by 2012. Ten years ago, the state issued laptop computers to all seventh graders, a move that educators feel was highly successful.