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Earlier in this blog, I described how just a couple of bills in Texas (Open-Source Textbooks and Technology) could change the face of the instructional materials industry. But they're really just a part of a bigger trend, the long-awaited, often-prophesied, much-delayed complete arrival of the electronic era in teaching and learning, throughout the country, and not just in a few experimental schools and districts, an honest-to-goodness Tipping Point with capital letters. Is it really finally here at last? Well, if you listen to President Obama, his Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and even individual school districts around the country, it sure is...

Here's their point of view, in their own words:

"I'm challenging states to dramatically improve achievement in math and science by raising standards, modernizing science labs, upgrading curriculum, and forging partnerships to improve the use of science and technology in our classrooms..."
--President Obama, Remarks at the National Academy of Sciences, April 27, 2009

"I'm hopeful because I believe we are experiencing something I often talk about now, which is the 'perfect storm for reform."
--Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, National Science Teachers Association, March 20, 2009

"California is home to software giants, bioscience research pioneers and first-class university systems known around the world. But our students still learn from instructional materials in formats made possible by Gutenberg's printing press. It's nonsensical--and expensive--to look to traditional hard-bound books when information today is so readily available in electronic form."
--California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Opinion Column, San Jose Mercury-News, June 6, 2009, on the occasion of the announcement of a plan to replace all of California's textbooks with no-cost electronic textbooks, beginning with science and math

"In Westport (CT), the math curriculum has been compiled from original lessons and assignements as well as amterial adapted from Web sites, books, training sessions, and conferences...[the teachers replaced] 1,000-plus-page math textbooks with their own custom-designed online curriculum; the lessons are typically written in Westport and then sent to a program in India, called HeyMath!, to jazz up the algorithms and problem sets with animations and sounds..."

"...Frank Corbo, the head of Staples [High School] math departments, said the district spent about $70,000 to develop the new math curriculum--half to pay two dozen teachers to work on it over the summer, and the other half to pay HeyMath!, whose Web server in Singapore gives students 24-hour, 7-day-a-week access to class lessons, tutorials, and homework assignments. He said the district will soon save at least $25,000 a year on textbooks."
--"Connecticut District Tosses Algebra Textbooks and Goes Online," New York Times, June 8, 2009 (Thanks to loyal reader Sasha Giacoppo for pointing this article out to me.)

The naysayers will point out (and correctly) that these changes are no panacea. Not every kid has a computer at home. Not all online curricula are created equal. The quality of a teacher has far greater effect on student success. Even admitting all of that, notice the change in assumptions: instead of electronic delivery of content being something for a small cadre of the technologically savvy elite, it could be a mandatory or strongly encouraged option for more than 20% of the nation's teachers, effective immediately. (Yes, California and Texas together are that big. Plus we need to throw in those schools in Westport (CT), and the exploding virtual school market...)

In short, it's a textbook case (yes, pun intended) of what a Tipping Point occasioned by the arrival of a disruptive technology looks like.