Yeah, I know that there are many advantages of using e-books such as portability, accessibility, and probably the most important, promoting ecology by saving trees. However, I'm not completely convinced that these advantages are enough to support the Governator's plan to replace all textbooks in schools in California. It seems that the main reason he's doing that is trying to save in the consumption of textbooks but I wonder if there are other alternatives (such as simply re-using the textbooks) .
I'm not againts e-books, I think it's awesome to be able to have books online, especially if they have advanced features such as bookmarking, highlighting and providing word definitions. However my main concern of replacing textbooks by e-books is that not all of the kids will be able to afford a digital divice to access the e-books and even if they did, there is always a big chance of the device being stolen, broken or becoming obsolete. For instance, my HP Jornada PocketPC just lasted 3 years before becoming obsolete and based on my own experience, most devices last just about that long.
I am still a textbook user because it is not easy to change habits. I am unfortunately still printing all the readings everyday. I cannot afford an i-pad but fortunately we have 1000 quota to print. I always need to write on the book, underline the keywords and touch it. I think the devices and software need to be improved and still not ready for everybody to use. Nevertheless, I believe e-book will be a trend very soon.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree that it is definitely important that all kind of e-books provide readers with the extra features to add any annotations, (including drawings), and to be able to highlight text and create bookmarks.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments!