Kindling Our Schools

I hear more and more positive things said about e-books and the readers especially about the Kindle. And with my last project for school, which was about formulating a way to improve our local community, I thought about the overall benefits of e-books and “e-textbooks” in our public schools. Introducing e-books and e-textbooks on a mass scale in the schools has a lot of potential benefits.

Well for starters, replacing most, if not all, those clunky textbooks that cost our school districts anywhere from 50-90 dollars or sometimes even higher per textbook with nice cheap update-able environmentally friendly e-textbooks.

Another plus is that it eliminates the heavy loads for students and cuts down on the travel time between class to class. I know from personal experience having to run down to the other side of the school with a full load of books just to exchange them for one raggedy heavy textbook and then bolting back to the same area I originally was to get to class.

Theres a big plus for school districts in the saving money department with e-books and e-textbooks. The introduction of e-textbooks would eliminate the need for school districts to purchase new textbooks when a set of old textbooks are too raggedy to use or the content of the textbooks are twenty odd some years old. E-textbooks could provide the avenue for school districts to save a considerable amount of money and hassle.

Although for the most part this seems to be a great idea and theres a lot positives things going for it, there are some “barriers” in the way. Schools are still tied down by contracts that have made through out the years to the various textbook publishers and venturing into realm of e-textbooks might not be as possible as it looks from the outside. Also, most textbook publishers and their stake in the print media might be leery to start developing E versions of their textbooks, but you would think that wouldn’t make any sense because theres less over-head and more room for profit.

After all is said it comes down to when are we going to see e-textbooks and e-books in all of our classrooms? With only a few school districts take the leap into the 21st century, it still leaves many school districts and textbook publishers undecided on e-textbooks in our classrooms.

About Ed

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