School Textbooks Quickly Becoming Obsolete As Kindles Storm the Market

The children of our generation are growing up with technology their grandparents probably never would have imagined at their age. Modern students are probably not able to picture life without a smart phone, high-speed Internet, High Definition (HD) Television or a Global Positioning System (GPS). And if some teachers have their way, students will add Kindles to their list of must-have technology for school.

Textbooks

Some schools have purchased Kindles for classroom use. But what's wrong with old-fashioned, printed textbooks? According to some of the teachers who are currently using Kindles, textbooks can be extremely limiting and are an inefficient way to distribute reading materials. These educators consider e-readers an "update" to not only books, but to libraries, as well. The electronic device addresses a problem common among school libraries -- low inventory of popular books. With e-readers, any number of students can access the same book at the same time, making a book shortage obsolete. In addition, textbooks are heavy, so Kindles substantially lighten the load in backpacks, automatically improving posture and reducing risks of back strain.

The Kindle DX, the best-selling e-reader device made by Amazon, has a 9.7-inch display screen, weighs just 18.9 ounces, and is only 1/3 inch thick. With a storage capacity of 3,500 electronic books, downloads available for .99, or less, and a 7-day to 3-week battery life, it's obvious how a Kindle, or similar e-reader, could be a useful and innovative tool for learning in the classroom.

It appears that more colleges than high schools have utilized Kindles -- with a little help from Amazon, who distributed its Kindle DX to seven American universities in the fall of 2009. At the time, many were excited about what the new technology might bring to education, and thought it just might mark the end of traditional textbook use in the classroom. Princeton University, one of the institutions participating in the program, approved the digitization of three courses that were delivered to the Kindles of participating students and instructors.

Yet some educators are not quite convinced that Kindles are superior to textbooks, citing concerns about the durability of the plastic tablets in the hands of K-12 students. Other teachers have opted for netbooks, because there is no output jack in the Kindle to allow for connecting it to an overhead projector for classroom text display.

But probably the most prohibitive concern K-12 educators have is the initial price of Kindles. Equipping each student, or even a class of students, with an expensive electronic device just isn't feasible for most school districts. While a smaller Kindle is available for 9 (which is still over many districts' price point), the Kindle DX, which is suitable for digital textbooks, sells for a whopping 9 on Amazon.com.

As for the pilot program hosted on college campuses last fall, the feedback Amazon received from students was less than favorable. They reported the Kindle DX was a "poor replacement for a textbook, hard to use in the classroom and difficult to navigate." In addition, the device doesn't lend itself for use by visually impaired or blind students.

While the Kindle and Kindle DX have received raved reviews from recreational readers who love how the device offers portability and ease for reading a favorite novel, magazine or newspaper, the e-reader doesn't appear to be ready to tackle the classroom -- at least not yet.

School Textbooks Quickly Becoming Obsolete As Kindles Storm the Market

See Also : Totally Textbooks