“The textbook is dead,” pronounced Facebook Co-founder Chris Hughes. “In the next five to seven years, the textbook is no longer going to be the basic building block of education.” On a similar note, Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto said he now regards Wikipedia as more accurate than printed textbooks and far less costly for both students and educators. In preparing his GEOSET lectures, Kroto said, he never uses a single textbook.

Mobile tablets drive change
In addition to the collective knowledge available online, Chris Hughes added that the spread of new devices will drive the demise of book-based learning, noting that 15 percent of the U.S. population is expected to own tablets by the end of 2011, with an explosion expected in the coming years. For mobile operators and manufacturers, he said the proliferation of Internet-enabled mobile devices is not only placing new demands on broadband networks, but is also a source of new opportunities in areas such as education.