If we still had PageMaker I woudl see the problem, but I think InDesign is more modern in that it allows students to begin to think of structure. Learning how to master templates and styles. Also I find that using Indesign creating an interactive storybook using the built in buttons is so easy that students will start to investigate after a brief introduction. Once they have created their first interactive document the logical question is how to publish it. Here the DPS single edition is going to help. Apple iBooks is faster to start, but since the InDesign document can be exported to DPS, ePub, interactive PDF, SWF or a Flash file for further tweaking there are plenty opportunities. I also think it is vital to understand the skills that were practiced in print production are not only bound to print. The skill is information processing, print just happens to be one of the products, but making the content inviting and accessible to the reader has always been the mission of a graphic designer.

ePubs are an exciting prospect from both a curriculum delivery mechanism as well as a student publication prospect. I use a small local printing house in San Francisco to publish our school yearbook. I've talked with our printer about the future of print and he's suggested that more and more material will skip paper and be delivered digitally. It has forced him to learn new ways to connect with clients in order to stay in business. That said, more artists and photographers are looking at the printed book as objects of art. Also, in spite of many schools producing video yearbooks and online yearbooks, I'm not so sure that an eYearbook promises to be readable twenty or thirty years from now. Besides, the best part is reading what my friends and teachers wrote on the autograph pages, not what was actually printed in the book!

You won't see a change until there is more adoption of the DPS. Also on that note, it will take a student who has gone through the class to learn it and become the teacher in charge of it, meaning it will take a few years of adoption until it finds its way in.

This is heresy to my print and typesetting roots; however, I don't think that you even need to focus on print, per se. This form will eclipse print consumption and emerge as the dominant mode. If print is done at all it should be as an afterthought in support of digital initiatives. Perhaps if your regional board made an investment or your yearbook printer for that matter!!!!! (they are making loads of money on those vehicles afterall) Have them purchase an enterprise system and have your students work directly on the documents that will be distributed. The board or the printer can then use DPS for other enterprise solutions like alumni or internal newsletters, etc.

Jim