There is a program in California to replace 8th grade algebra textbooks with ipads.  It will be interesting to see how this turns out.  While I am all for trying new ways to teach a subject, singling out math as the test subject for this program seems like a bad choice.  While I can understand that perhaps they feel math is a key to technology, and that math is a natural link to technology that will make this transition seamless, I also feel that, of all subjects taken in 8th grade, the one class you are not reading a textbook page by page, like a novel, is math.  Math texts typically aren’t page-turners, at least when it comes to actual textbooks (OK, so that’s not true for all…and many non-textbooks, especially at advanced levels can be if written well…), and this is because studying a math book requires lots of flipping around to various pages, which might be in different sections, or even different chapters of the book.  How do you do this efficiently on something like an ipod?  Even if there are links that let you jump to other pages, who knows exactly what pages would be appropriate to provide links to?  History, or English, for example, typically have lots of linear reading – page after page.  Yes, of course even in these books you may need to flip to a different section or page to reference something, or compare…but that occurs rarely compared to a math book.

What makes math such an appealing hoice for this pilot program?

Although this ipad app puts graphing calculators to shame (source: http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/117625-california-testing-ipads-as-algebra-textbooks).