Education Change: Books
It's been a while since I last wrote about educational change so now is a great time. If you've been to college (or just read the news), you know all too well that textbooks are extremely expensive. The publishers have sat on the profits of these books and it's been big business. But with ebooks and tablets, those profits have probably decreased but thankfully they have evolved with technology so most books have a digital version.
Of course there are consequences of moving to digital copies of textbooks. The primary being the initial cost of the devices for schools. Another would be the distraction of other applications on the tablet but that could be avoided with control preferences. Or better yet, it could teach students how to focus on their task which seems to becoming extinct in today's world.
Personally, I would have loved a tablet that could have replaced all my giant textbooks. But I certainly wouldn't be as strong as I am now; carrying twenty pounds of books was great daily exercise! But the condition of the books were usually horrendous (especially coming from a public schol system), the tablet would eliminate this problem; instead of five separate book covers, students could get a tablet cover. And it could possibly save school districts on money without the need to buy textbooks as often. And if that doesn't save money, digital textbooks are usually cheaper and individual teachers could possibly buy just the chapters they plan on using in their curriculum.
But it's not just to save the budget, it can improve the learning process. Obviously, students can take notes and highlight on the digital copies which was frowned upon with the physical books. And for students that has disabilities, the tablet could read the text for the student on their own time at their individual pace. Also, definitions of words can instantly be found with just a simple highlight. And with the tablet, teachers can interact with their students more often with things like quick questions about a reading or surveys from a question asked. And the learning shouldn't stop at one textbook, sections could be linked to related current events or videos. For math (and any subject), one method may not be best for one student so the textbook could direct the student to another textbook or video to try to teach the student more effectively.
And the tablet would have so many more usages besides being their textbooks (I'll go into more details in another post).
And the best part, errors in the textbooks can be instantly corrected!
And if the publishing industry can adapt to developing technology, so can the educational system!