eTextbooks are the current trend in instructional technology right now. With Apple putting out their new app that lets anyone make a eTextbook this may be the norm sooner then we think. Find an article about eTextbooks to review on this blog. Please post the link to the article as well. Also let us know your opinion on the use of eTextbooks in the classroom.
59 Comments
George Pincock
2/20/2012 09:54:08 am
Theoretically, electronic textbooks, "ebooks", should be cheaper then typical published textbooks. This is primarily because this new model negates the publisher of any of the cost of printing and physical distribution. However, hidden these cost are then picked up by the student who must pay for a device to purchase and use the ebooks.
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George Pincock
2/20/2012 09:54:42 am
forgot this part of it: http://www.pcworld.com/article/248890/why_etextbooks_could_cost_students.html
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Stephanie Armiger
2/20/2012 01:15:18 pm
George,
Ryan Mansfield
2/21/2012 03:38:19 am
Agreed. The companies that are making the "e" books are still going to be making money and especially in this case, Apple, tends to make more money than anybody when it comes to the tech world as they are one of the most profitable companies if not the most profitable companies and will find a way to make even more money down the line somehow once someone buys their products.
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Audrey Crabtree
2/21/2012 10:37:46 pm
You can find etextbooks on sites now that carry textbooks and they are considerably cheaper. You also have the option of renting ebooks as well. So just like textbooks, you are given options to find the cheapest one.
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Cara Barth-Fagan
2/24/2012 12:13:36 am
In the long run, I don't agree that it will cost more- student textbooks are extremely expensive- just like the textbooks you had to buy in college. Schools can buy licenses or agreements for a certain # of the textbooks & pay a flat rate per book/license and then they won't have to repair or replace the books that would have been damaged by students (or lost). Furthermore, the students would be responsible for the e-readers & if they were damaged, they would have to pay for it's replacement. Apple computers is all about education & cuts them great rates for educationally used technology, such as the iPad or devices and software.
Kelli Miller
2/24/2012 12:25:45 am
George,
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Nick Camp
2/24/2012 12:42:37 am
George, you bring up an interesting point with students having to purchase a device that allows the reader to use the "ebook". The way I look at it is, the device will be a one-time fee and the student will be able to purchase the much cheaper e-textbooks from there on out.
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Stacy Crommie
2/26/2012 01:09:05 am
I agreee with you Nick. I believe there will be a one time fee. On the other hand the students may want to sell books back but in the case of e-textbooks maybe they will just rent them like they rent textbooks. They may set it up like borrowing books from the library. One can borrow an e-book from the library and it just leaves the Kindle or reading device when the time is up.
Robert Thomas
2/26/2012 08:59:46 am
That is what I would want to do have a up front charge for the device, once that is paid for the e-textbooks are a much cheeper cost. The money that bookstores make on studnets is alot. I remember buying a book for the semester about 125 and then at the end of the semester the bookstore would buy the book back for 50 bucks. Its a much smarter thing to use the etextbooks from the money side of it.
Stephanie Armiger
2/20/2012 01:10:17 pm
I found an article that was dated from July 2009, in which they were discussing the benefits of e-textbooks, titled “A Kindle in Every Backpack.” Here is the link: http://www.dlc.org/documents/DLC_Freedman_Kindle_0709.pdf
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Ryan Mansfield
2/21/2012 03:30:43 am
The e text books should be cheaper theoretically but I can't help but get over the idea of how many of our players loose their cell phones. Just wondering who is going to foot the bill for students who would happen to loose their books or drop them in water or various other excuses they happen to come up with.
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Jeremy Esry
2/22/2012 12:27:32 am
True students are great at coming up with excuses when not getting assignments done, forgetting their books somewhere or losing them but I think that is the beauty of Etextbooks as they would be availble for the student in a variety of ways. If the student drops their phone in water or breaks their laptop they could always access their Etextbook thru a computer in the library.
Cara Barth-Fagan
2/24/2012 12:17:23 am
I think it will become a check-out type of procedure- the student is assigned the tablet/e-reader for the year (or years of high school) and is responsible for it. They would have to pay for a new one if it is damaged and possibly if it were stolen (if everyone had one, they wouldn't have as high of a theft problem- in theory). The school could also offer insurance rates for the tablets that parents could buy, just in case, and it wouldn't be mandatory but might be necessary. I know it would be a technology nightmare in the beginning- but I think it would work better than the textbooks we use now. The e-books would be up-to-date and we wouldn't be using old editions . . .
Stacy Crommie
2/26/2012 12:58:00 am
I agree with you Ryan. I also fear how the students will treat the equipment but in the instance of loaning calculators to students, the parents and students had to sign a contract. This insured replacement of the equipment if the student was careless.This works.
Heather Kirkendoll
2/22/2012 05:37:58 am
Never thought of the benefit of making updates. Good point on how one can obtain textbooks in cheaper ways. I myself, have only purchased a couple college textbooks. I borrow from other teachers and check out from various libraries on all my texts I need. I may not be able to be my cheap self, if I would have to use an etextbook.
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Kelli Miller
2/24/2012 12:32:51 am
Stephanie,
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Ryan Mansfield
2/21/2012 03:35:43 am
http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/local/east-volusia/2011/12/15/daytona-state-college-rethinks-e-textbook-move.html
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Popi Stevens
2/22/2012 12:36:06 am
Companies are in business to "make money". I think it will intresting to see if the prices change (go up or down) because of the demand for them. If most everyone is using ebooks then they will know they have a large market and can jack up the prices if they so choose.
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Heather Kirkendoll
2/22/2012 05:41:34 am
Great point. What will deter the companies from raising prices once school districts are dependent upon the technology.
George Pincock
2/22/2012 01:17:48 am
I like how this article brings up a few of the things that are commonly thought about. Of course there are good and bad. The page finder feature in many ebooks will help students find material quicker. Ebooks will also have a positive environmental impact immediately. But at the same time, connectivity maybe an issue. Ebooks may travel easier but that doesn't necessarily mean you will be able to access what you need.
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Christopher Sandefur
2/22/2012 11:06:19 pm
Ryan-I agree that books are a business. Some companies are starting to hike up process of ebooks. I believe that the long term effect can help bring cost down. My problem is somehow the authors have to still make money. They could take a big hit if prices go down.
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Robert Thomas
2/21/2012 10:23:17 pm
http://www.sdsubookstore.com/Bookstore/Textbooks/eTextbooks/tabid/144/Default.aspx. This article talks about how etextbooks got started, and what advantages it can give the students. One of the key points it makes is how the price is so much better for the students. Just like a few years ago when the kendel came out it was and still is something that alot of people are using. Etextbooks can be something of great use for the students. Apple will be making alot of money off of this new app.
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Audrey Crabtree
2/21/2012 10:30:33 pm
http://whenihavetime.com/2009/03/09/what-are-ebooks-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-electronic-books/#what
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Elyce Lamphere
2/24/2012 05:18:31 am
Audrey-
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2/22/2012 12:15:30 am
This article brought up many good benefits of etextbooks that I had not even considered. If etextbooks become the new norm then they will make a huge impact on the environment. Without the use of paper textbooks we will save millions of trees each year. This would be a huge step forward in improving our environment and making the planet a better place to live for everyone. Etextbooks would also be beneficial for students in school. When I was in grade school there was a lot of talk about the load being carried in back packs. Many students were experiencing low back problems and developing kyphosis or hunchbacks. If we can begin to decrease the load of textbooks, it will be a healthier solution for today's students. To me, those are the two largest benefits of etextbooks. Another benefit is lacing together an etextbooks with today's multimedia information that pertains. Teachers would have the ability to upload instructional information into etextbooks and make them part of lesson plan. Cost is always an issue for textbooks. With etextbooks the initial purchase of hardware would be more expensive but the downloading of etextbooks onto your hardware would save cost in the long run. Overall, I think that this would be beneficial for our economy and environment, as well as the health of our students. There is currently a small market for etextbooks with a few large conglomerates, but with the advancement of etextbooks and the increasing rate of purchase many different suppliers will arise and competitive cost will level out the market cost.
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Audrey Crabtree
2/23/2012 11:29:13 pm
I also love the fact that it will have a great effect on our enviroment! It is a positive move forward and something that needs to happen I believe.
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Casey Costa
2/24/2012 04:21:35 am
That's a really good point. I hadn't thought about the idea of the environmental influence that this change could have. The books themselves will obviously prevent the use of trees along with the materials and pollution that the factories to make them will produce plus there are so many used books that go unused after classes are over
Matthew Clanahan
2/22/2012 12:24:09 am
Here is the article I read:
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Popi Stevens
2/22/2012 12:43:26 am
I just checked out the article you read and it was really interesting. I think that ipad tablets are now bieng used for educational purposes which is pretty neat. ebooks are better economically and appears to be the evolution of education.
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Robert Thomas
2/26/2012 09:04:05 am
The only down fall that I can think of is kids from now on will not be able to find books or information that they need in a libary. With the advancements in technology students will not be as iinteractive with others trying to figure out problems. Five or so years from now we will know what positives or negatives this advancements will have on the students.
George Pincock
2/22/2012 04:21:04 am
Ebooks and texts for classes is one thing but to hear one of the most powerful CEO's ever to say he had plans to "revolutionize" the textbook is another thing. Its kind of scary. In my opinion Mr Jobs has/still has the power to completely change education. He has already done it with music, phones and tablets so why not education as a whole.
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Popi Stevens
2/22/2012 12:29:36 am
epublishersweekly.blogspot.com/2008/02/30-benefits-of-ebooks.html
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Jeremy Esry
2/22/2012 12:41:51 am
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-advantages-of-an-etextbook.htm
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Thomas Buehler
2/24/2012 01:02:22 am
I agree with what you're saying about ease of access. Everyone has a smart phone now-a-days and it would be nice to access your resources through your phone if you needed to check on something or study when you forgot your etextbook. I think it would be nice to have the ability to save your etextbook to a smart drive so you could access the information on a compatible school computer or laptop.
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Elyce Lamphere
2/22/2012 01:10:21 am
Etextbooks is something that over the past few years that have certainly gained popularity in the class room. In higher education etextbooks are becoming more popular and is something I have personally had experience with. I do not think etextbooks are a bad thing in some instances, most of the time are cost effective and can be a good resource. The article I found talked about what exactly an etextbook is and how it differs from an actual book. An ebook can have many different features than a regular book, such as a built in dictionary or other interactive accessory to the book. So, the question that can be posed is, is an ebook an actual book anymore? or another type of resource. The sales in ebooks have increased significantly in the past few years and is being used a lot more in higher education not so much in general education and elementary education.
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Melea Shimkus
2/26/2012 09:39:17 am
I like the fact that ebooks have built in dictionaries and other features that regular books do not have. Personally, I don't like ebooks because they do not feel like real books. Which is why I thought your question was so interesting. I feel like ebooks are resources than books. With that being said, actual books can also be resources. But ebooks are much easier and more accessible for research tools.
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Matthew Clanahan
2/26/2012 02:11:59 pm
@Melea: I agree that ebooks and electronic resources can be much more convenient for research. I'm an avid reader, and I love the printed word. Sometimes it's great to just sit down with a book and feel the pages and have that experience. Often, though, I'd just as soon pull out my iPad or Nook (or even my phone). These electronic devices, like you said, give us many options we don't have with regular print books — dictionaries and search functions, for example. I also find that I read faster on my Nook than on the printed page.
Stacy Crommie
2/22/2012 01:15:30 am
In this article <http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-01-31/schools-e-textbooks/52907492/1>, it discusses how Obama is pushing for e-textbooks in public schools and colleges. It is believed in the long run that the cost of e-textbooks will lower our cost of education. Many schools are spending their money allocated for textbooks on the technology to be able to receive e-textbooks. Obama’s goal is to have an e-textbook in every students hand by the year 2017.
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Elyce Lamphere
2/24/2012 05:10:12 am
This article was very interesting and was a good insight in what our government is trying to do to help our students in our nation. I agree with that fact that ebooks can be very cost affective and help our schools give more resources to our students. Not only can the ebooks be up to date, you make a good point in the environmental issue. Our society is trying to be more "green" and trying to become paperless. Ebooks is a great step in the right direction.
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Melea Shimkus
2/22/2012 01:54:51 am
At this time, I think the eBooks tend to be cheaper than the physical books themselves. Having eBooks makes things easier on the students because their books are always in one place and they do not have to carry around heavy books, potentially hurting themselves for trying to carry too much. But as a student, I do not like the eBooks because I tend to remember things by where they are located on the page and I cannot do that with an eBook. I remember things better by envisioning them and with eBooks, everything looks the same.
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Kelli Miller
2/22/2012 03:51:34 am
The article I read comes from the Wall Street Journal. The author, Steven Johnson, believes that ebooks opens a wide realm of possibilities when reading and writing books. He explores avenues that help change the scope of reading and writing from the publishers of the books all the way down to the readers.
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Cara Barth-Fagan
2/24/2012 12:24:30 am
I was in DC last week, and you would not believe the amount of people that were reading books on iPads, nooks, kindles, etc . . . I had to get on and off the Metro several times while I was there and each time I was amazed at just how many people were reading, but they weren't reading paper "real" books! They were using their e-readers. They are portable, handy, and user friendly. Why wouldn't we want our students using them too? It's already a must for the workforce . . . and we are supposed to be preparing our children for the future workforce. It makes sense to keep up with technolgoy.
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casey Costa
2/22/2012 03:56:15 am
An article that I found made some etextbooks readily available for all to use and the use of them was monitored to see how useful they are. The study found that some positives of e books include that they don't take up space in the library, can't be vandalized, or stolen. Also, they can be accessed at many locations unlike with a hard copy that you can't use if you forget it at home, which the study showed that they were accessed mainly at off campus locations.
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casey costa
2/22/2012 03:56:48 am
I forgot the link for the article here it is: http://www.researchinformation.info/features/feature.php?feature_id=218
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Nick Camp
2/24/2012 12:40:53 am
Casey, the point that you've brought up about the space that books take up in the library, also being stolen and vandalized will no longer be an issue. I can speak from personal experience of leaving textbooks at home when I needed them during class and have to look on with a classmate to cover the lesson plan. With E-Textbooks I can simply pull up the lesson plan from an electronic device.
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Melea Shimkus
2/26/2012 09:50:03 am
I found the information about taking up less space in libraries interesting. Maybe in the future libraries can have less books and possibly have more electronic devices with all of the books from the library for people to rent out. But if this happened, I suppose there would still be the possiblity of stolen items and vandalization.
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Heather Kirkendoll
2/22/2012 05:27:11 am
The article I read is: http://www.ehow.com/info_8336387_pros-cons-digital-textbooks.html. It discusses pros and cons of having etextbooks. The pros were that they were cheaper in the long run, easier to carry, and made for easier word searches when looking through text. Cons were eye strain, charging requirements, and restricted availability because not all texts are on digital formats yet. I had never thought about the word searches, but etexts would make things easier in finding specific phrases. I never thought about eye strain either. I can definately see the etextbooks in our future, but there is a lot of trouble shooting that needs to be done first. For example, powering all these may cause an issue in some buildings, and having a reading devise available to all students could cause a budgetary dilemma.
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Christopher Sandefur
2/22/2012 11:09:00 pm
Heather-Great article! I never thought about how ebooks could put a strain on your eyes. Also, I wonder what the cost would be to havea classroom capable of supporting a class full of ebooks. Would this classroom have to have more plug ins?
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casey costa
2/24/2012 04:25:56 am
The word search aspect is a great part about etexts when trying to write papers and such. I hadn't thought of that. I know that some sites can revoke your rights to a book even if you have already payed for it which is a negative thing also.
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Christopher Sandefur
2/22/2012 11:03:58 pm
The article I read is : http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/06/open-source-digital-textbooks-coming-to-california-schools.ars
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Prof. Myers
2/23/2012 11:41:27 am
So you all got me thinking about some things.
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Thomas Buehler
2/24/2012 01:04:52 am
Do you know what types of measures etextbook distributors have taken so that people won't simply copy and download an etextbook from a friend without cost? I feel like with our current technology there are a lot of people who would have the software to accomplish this and beat the system.
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Jeremy Esry
2/28/2012 04:48:10 am
Tom this is a good point that I have never thought of (although I wish I had when I was an undergrad). One way that I think etextbook distributors could do to stop students from coping and downloading an etextbook is by making it interactive. If the students have to do assignments and turn them in thru the etextbook I think that stops the students from just using their friends and makes them purchase their own.
Cara Barth-Fagan
2/23/2012 11:27:32 pm
E-books are the way we are moving. I personally think it's a fabulous idea. My chiropractor & I have had the same discussion about it. We believe it would decrease the amount of weight a child would have to carry, thus making a child's load lighter. Their posture wouldn't be affected and all they would have to carry would be the e-reader/nook/kindle/iPad. Moving this way would help cut back on the cost of textbooks (not to mention replacing worn textbooks) and the e-readers can hold a lot of information on them. Each classroom could have a set, or an e-reader could be checked out to a student for their 4 years & they would be responsible for returning it their senior year (or checked out yearly- whatever works). Students could then use them to surf the net & if it were used with Apple software, thier screens could be shown up front on the main screen for all to see.
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Stephanie Armiger
2/26/2012 09:19:32 am
Good point about children carrying around heavy backpacks vs an e-book. I know some schools are trying to cut down on this by allowing students to check out a book at the beginning of the year to keep at home. Then, the teacher keeps one copy per student for in class use. This worked pretty good for my daughter in junior high, when her school tried this. We always had the book she needed at home. However, this could be more expensive for schools because they need to buy more books in order to keep 30 or so books in the classroom.
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Nick Camp
2/24/2012 12:32:21 am
My experiences with the E-Textbook has been completely positive. I personally have used the E-textbook quite a bit, I find the E-textbooks very beneficial. They are extremely cost efficient and available anywhere internet is present. I started using the E-Textbook in my latter years of undergraduate studies as the cost of regular textbooks have sky-rocketed. With E-textbooks being available on handheld electronic devices now makes them even more valuable. The way our technology has grown, E-textbooks will soon take over the market and we will rarely see regular textbooks anymore.
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Nick Camp
2/24/2012 12:37:28 am
I forgot to post the article http://www.pcworld.com/article/203001/the_state_of_the_etextbook.html
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Matthew Clanahan
2/26/2012 02:17:30 pm
My biggest concerns with e-textbooks are most schools' and professors' attitudes toward personal electronic devices in the classroom. I know that during my undergraduate career, some instructors were perfectly fine with me bringing in my laptop or iPad, while others wanted nothing on your desk besides a notebook and a pen. It may take our schools and instructors longer to accept and adopt digital textbooks than for the students.
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