Textbook vs eBook
Posted by PLB Registrar · 2 Comments
The textbook is dead.
Long live the textbook.
Okay, maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. Maybe I should have said the traditional, printed, industrial strength bound, heavy textbook is dead.
It seems like almost every day someone introduces a new way to deliver text electronically. Web sites are offering free full versions of public domain books like Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org) and previews of ebooks and free downloads at Google Books (http://books.google.com/books). Then there are numerous web sites available to offer books in audio format, many also for free. Just do a search for “free audio books” and you’ll get 195 million results. Obviously there aren’t 195 million web sites offering free audio books, but the number is suprising.
In addition to traditional computers, you and your students can access electronic versions of books on cell phones and tablet computers like the iPad and the plethora of Google Android tablets. Add the growing list of e-readers devoted exclusively to replacing printed text books with portable electronic book readers like the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook and your school has a dizzying array of options to buy and deliver the written word. For example, as a dedicated book reading device, the Amazon Kindle can store 3,500 books, work on battery for a week to a month, can be read in virtually any lighting situation and weighs in at under 9 ounces. New models include audio capabilities which can help accommodate different learning styles too.
While e-readers are not sold as a textbook replacement, is there any doubt that some innovative C+I director, IT director or other school leader is going to give it a go, or already has? Apple’s iPad is the hot ticket now but ranges in cost from $500 to over $800 depending on model and wireless service provider. E-readers on the other hand start at about $140 retail price depending on the brand and features. A school could get several e-readers for the same price as one tablet computer.
Major textbook companies are also jumping on the e-bandwagon making their textbooks compatible with electronic delivery. You can read an interesting article at Forbes.com about the impact of electronic devices on textbooks here: http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/05/electronic-textbooks-ipad-entrepreneurs-technology-wharton_2.html.
This week’s questions for you:
- Does your school use e-textbooks, e-readers or other non-traditional means of delivering texts and textbooks?
- Do you think digital texts will impact how you teach and/or student performance?
Mine doesn’t. We don’t have laptops or iPads for each student and pdf’s on desktops in the library or computer lab isn’t efficient. E-textbooks make so much sense, it has to be right around the corner until they solve this kind of problem.
Are we serious? Have we lost all sense of direction? Ebooks are NOT the answer. There are literally, thousands of schools out there that do not have the capability to put a PC, laptop, ipad, nook, kindle, in every kid’s hands. Schools are too poor and with funding cut even further? Come on! Let’s forget about this for the moment…explain to me a classroom that uses ebooks (varying cost), smartboards (6K on up), PC’s in every classroom (varying expense), software licensing or purchases, little to no textbooks, everything printed off a “workbook” (cost of electricity, paper, toner, ink, time), and kids are dependent on computers at the libraries or homes to do assignments….Do you NOT see what I’m getting at? This doesn’t allow a teacher to TEACH, it INCREASES the workload for the teacher, some to distraction. It doesn’t give more time to do things, such things just “hurry along”. I will tell you right now…give me a room with a desk, chair, 16-20×4 chalkboard, chalk, erasers, real textbooks, overhead projector or a TV with VHS and DVD player, and I will prove to you that children can, and WILL, learn more efficiently, retain the knowledge YEARS down the road (instead of forgetting about it), and pass with higher test scores. All withOUT a computer. There are some households that do not have computers because they’re too poor to have them OR what computers they do have, are not the latest and greatest which can cause snarls in the websurfing for answers.