CourseSmart, the company that rents online textbooks to Columbia Public Schools, made a mistake in renting the virtual books out to Hickman and RBHS at the beginning of the year. Instead of renting the books for 360 days, they have been rented for 180. They did, however, give Battle the correct renting period.
“I had a student come to me and say that it said it was going to expire in a couple of days and I thought, ‘Oh, maybe not, surely that’s not the case,'” Cleppe said. “I noticed that the Battle textbooks had a full years worth of a rental and then our text said 180 days.”
The textbooks have been expiring one by one since. Those students who redeemed the codes earliest lost their books first; the lucky ones who waited a couple weeks or a couple months still have access to the online text.
Students in AP U.S. history class have been the most bothered by the loss, but other classes have also been losing their online text.
Sarah Freyermuth, a student in Orton and Clemens’ AP U.S. history is worried about not having her textbook on her iPad, as she likes to follow along in class. Having to utilize the two-volume hard copy of Tindall would not allow her to follow this routine as easily.
“I always use the iPad. I never use my book all year. It’s really handy to have the book in class because on the iPad when you’re looking up a subject, there’s a search bar,” Freyermuth said. “You can type in that subject, and it’ll go into that exact page, or you can, you know, search a page number, find the quote that we’re talking about in class.”
Cleppe and media specialist Gwen Struchtemeyer have been in contact with the head of the language arts department and representatives at CourseSmart in an attempt to find a solution. Students in classes affected by the expired textbooks, however, may have to get used to life without the search bar.
Struchtemeyer said the school district plans to avoid purchasing future virtual textbook from CourseSmart. While the books have been handy, there have been too many issues with getting things fixed and set up and escalating to the early expiration of the books.
“Is this the future? Heck, yeah, but we’re still straddling that in between,” Struchtemeyer said. “It only works if it works, which sounds like, it is what it is.”
By Madi Mertz
How have your studies been affected by the loss of a textbook on your ipad?
