Reading Deea's post (in Romanian) got me thinking that the education costs are nowadays higher every year and that in this context the publishing industry makes a good chunk of money by releasing every year more and more expensive textbooks slightly changed from previous editions or simply repackaged. While this sounds outrageuos I doubt that this is a sustainable strategy for mainly two reasons: for once it is simply scaming the students (the proposition is not worth its value) and then there's a good range of substitutes from used books to websites or p2p networks where you could virtually find anything for free. That means the technology is simply allowing people to find lots of alternatively good choices and to make their options accordingly.

Smart professors understood that and they simply publish their courses and research papers on the web (i.e. Damodaran, Espen Andersen), or their textbooks (see Kling) and even keep weblogs in addition to the course (i.e. Gabriela). There are even smart schools that understood that - the classic example is MIT's OpenCourseWare. And I am sure there are so many others.

What's the point here? The education process is about a different paradigm that is totally changed by the use of technology. It is not about reading a darn book and memorizing texts or formulas so that you could be tested afterwards. It is all about interaction, and sharing ideas, perspectives, knowledge and experiences. Hence the book is becoming an overpriced resource in the entire learning cycle. And in addition to the direct interaction the internet is about the right tool for enabling new learning ways and finding alternative resources in the favor of a pricey textbook. With switching costs coming mainly from learning how to create/use an online space - a blog or a wiki for example.