In the most obvious move ever that will never be imitated by anyone, South Korea has announced that it plans to replace textbooks and all paper in its schools with tablets by 2015, Engadget says.

It looks like they're not going to go with a specific tablet like the iPad but have a special tablet made, which seems questionable. But, after all, South Korea is the home of Samsung, a big tablet maker and a very politically powerful conglomerate.

Textbooks would be delivered over the cloud and students could participate in remote classes.

It's obvious why this is a great idea. Yes, computers and tablets are no education panacea, but it's still striking how indistinguishable today's schools are from their 19th century counterparts.

A personal note: this writer grew up in France, which has the heaviest pupil backpacks in the OECD. That, plus some family history, plus being 3 years early, led to my having chronic back troubles throughout my school years, which occasionally persist to this day. I guess that's one explanation for my jaded outlook on education.

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