With devices like the Kindle (from Amazon) and the Nook (from Barnes and Noble) there is a growing trend towards electronic books. Some have been fearful of the end of beloved paper books and some are hopeful (as a father expressed to me today) of the end of heavy backpacks! You may lean towards either perspective but the reality is that e-book readers are becoming more and more prevalent, and adoption seems to be unaffected by age groups.
We can only assume that the technology will get better, faster and cheaper – it’s a trend amongst all technologies. That being said, as schools we need publishers to find ways to utilize these new devices so that our students can benefit from them. We will stay focused on evaluating these devices to see if they have practical implications for our students.
I thought that this video from Mobile Art in Japan presented a compelling argument for hybrid-electronic-paper books:
Are you using e-book readers in your school? What about personally? What kind of impact do you think they can have for reading and learning?
photo by Enrique Dans, used under Creative Commons License
2 Responses
November 20th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Couldn’t agree with you more on publishers needing to move more towards ereader formats. Just loaded Kindle for PC on my netbook and so far so good. I believe Bill Gates said it best, it’s not about the hardware it’s about the software. I like the fact that Amazon made kindle apps for the iPhone and PC hopefully mean that textbooks and other ed related materials will soon follow.
I also wrote a similar post on cuevash.blogspot.com regarding the Kindle 4 PC software.
November 30th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
I’ve been thinking about getting an ebook myself. Do you know if folks can also read freely available pdf’s on them? I mention this because it would be amazing to take freely available textbooks (ie ck12.org) and load them onto ebooks, and move an entire school to digital texts.
I wonder if it would be even better to load up netbooks with free textbooks. That way students and teachers would also be able to use web apps (i.e. productivity tools and social media) along with having all of their textbooks on one machine. I’d call it a “trojan horse” strategy. Make it so that the netbook becomes the primary tool (instead of the textbook), and see if all the other tools become more palatable for teachers/students.
Leave a Comment