*I have also included a link below to view the research paper in Microsoft Word.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15371915/Keri_Drish_RP.docx
Running Head: ELECTRONIC BOOKS IN THE CLASSROOM
Electronic Books in the Classroom
Keri L. Drish
East Tennessee State University
Electronic books, or eBooks for short, are electronic versions of printed publications. Michael Looney and Mark Sheehan (2001) describe eBooks as devices specialized for displaying electronic reading material. Mac McClean of the Bristol Herald Currior (2010) describes eBooks as hand-held devices about the size of a book that display text and images on a small computer screen similar to the way it would appear in a normal book. Electronic Books have been around since the early 1970s to exclusive audiences, but have just started gaining popularity in the mainstream population within the last five years. Just this summer, Amazon claims to have sold 143 digital books for every 100 hardback books. In the month of July, Amazon sold 180 eBooks for every 100 hardbacks. (Teather, 2010) According to the Bristol Herald Currier, the Sullivan County Public Library in East Tennessee is now allowing local patrons, in good standing with the library, to check out electronic readers so they can read one of the thousands of eBooks available online. Electronic books are read on electronic readers; with the most popular electronic readers on the market currently being the Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo and iPad.
Educational Applications
Electronic books have many educational applications. Electronic readers, such as the Kindle and iPad have technology which will allow students to look up definitions, increase the font size, highlight portions of the text, take notes in the book while reading, and read the book aloud. Electronic readers are also self lit, just as a computer screen is, therefore students may read an eBook even when there is minimal lighting. Another application is that eBooks are not limited to textbooks. Students could have access to anything printed on paper including books, documents, news articles, reference material, and journals. Dr. Terence Cavanaught of the University of North Florida, Jacksonville, also points out the advantages for both the students and teacher. According to Dr. Cavanaught (2009), instructors can add notes, advanced organizers, comments and questions to the texts before converting them to eBook format. As the material is in electronic format, students can copy and paste information to use in reports, to take notes, or for analysis.
Educational Research
Professors at the University College of London, Ian Rowland, David Nicholas, Hamid Jamali, and Paul Huntington (2007), surveyed nearly two thousand faculty and students at the college to assess their current usage and perceptions of eBooks. They concluded eBooks at the University were mainly used for work and study. According to the study, textbooks were clearly the most popular form of eBook used for academic users followed by reference works. Of those currently using the eBooks, 41% expressed an opinion of ‘good’ or ‘excellent;’ while only 8% expressed an opinion of ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’. Approximately 45% of those surveyed either did not yet have an opinion or explained their satisfactions varied. An associate professor at Palmer School of Library Information Science at Long Island University, Heting Chu (2003), conducted a survey on students about their perceptions of eBooks. Chu concluded that most people use eBooks because they are available around the clock, are searchable, and provide versatile publishing options.
East Tennessee State University is also conducting a research project of their own which looks into the use of eBooks in the classroom. According to McLean from the Bristol Herald Currier, in 2009, Dr. Karen King and Dr. Lee Daniels, announced their participation in the “The Kindle Project: 2010.” Dr. King (2009) explained the purpose of this research project is to determine if students do as well if they are using an eBook rather than a regular textbook. They are also looking to see if eBooks affect student performance in the classroom. The results of this research project will not conclude for several more months, but it will be very interesting when the results are revealed.
Relative Advantages
Electronic books have many relative advantages and are ideal for today’s classroom.
One of the most well known arguments for the adoption of eBooks by the school systems is to decrease the amount of weight students are carrying around each day in their backpacks. As opposed to receiving one textbook for each class, students would be able to download all necessary textbooks onto their electronic reader and have access to every book they need for school on one, light weight device. A cross-sectional study completed by Dr. Panagiotis Korovessis, Dr. Georgios Koureas, and Dr. Zisis Papazisis and published in the “Journal of Spinal Disorders & Techniques” found significant evidence that the weight of a child’s backpack strongly correlates to low back pain and injuries in adolescents. (Korovessis et al., 2004). This is just one of many research projects that have concluded there are detrimental affects due to the amount of weight that students carry around in their backpacks. The use of electronic books would significantly decrease this amount of weight and therefore decrease the amount of pressure that is being applied to the lower back.
Another relative advantage of incorporating eBooks into classrooms is the amount of reference and formatting options students would have while reading the texts. Many electronic readers have integrated dictionaries and thesauruses for very easy access. Also, electronic readers allow students to enlarge the font size which would allow for a simple adaptation for seeing impaired students. Dr. Terence Cavanaugh (2009) explains that standard print texts can create a barrier for dyslexic and visually impaired students. Ebooks make information more accessible to students with disabilities. Material in digital form offers many advantages for students with or without disabilities.
Personal Thoughts
I personally love the idea of incorporating eBooks into the classroom. I believe integrating technology into each lesson is vital to keeping the students engaged. We are now in a technology driven society. We have gone from a world of print to one of electronic and digital devices. Electronic books have so many relative advantages in the classroom. In my opinion, one of their best selling points for integration into the classroom is how they can benefit our students’ health by decreasing the amount of weight they must carry around in their backpacks each day. Also while electronic readers and eBooks may appear to be more expensive than textbooks; one must focus on the underlying benefits. The initial cost of the electronic reader will be around two hundred dollars plus the cost of each eBook. The price of an eBook is significantly lower than that of a printed book therefore in time the initial cost of the device will be recovered. Furthermore, there are so many more possibilities and learning opportunities with the electronic readers and eBooks. Students have much more formatting control on how the eBook is displayed on the reader; which can help to meet the needs of many visually impaired students. The use of eBooks is also environmentally friendly as they will reduce the amount of trees that are cut down each year to produce new printed textbooks. I believe the adoption of the electronic reader and eBooks, to replace the current textbook, would be a wise decision by any school system.
REFERENCES
Teather, David. (2010, July 20). Amazon’s ebook milestone: digital sales outstrip hardbacks for the first time in US. TheGuardian.Co.UK, Retreived October 12, 2010, from (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/20/amazon-ebook-digital-sales-hardbacks-us)
Korovessis, Panagiotis MD, Koureas, Georgios MD; Papazisis,Zisis (2004, February). Correlation Between Backpack Weight and Way of Carrying, Sagittal and Frontal Spinal Curvatures, Athletic Activity, and Dorsal and Low Back Pain in Schoolchildren and Adolescents. Journal of Spinal Disorders and Techniques 17(1), 33-40. Retreived October 11, 2010 from http://journals.lww.com/jspinaldisorders/Abstract/2004/02000/Correlation_Between_Backpack_Weight_and_Way_of.8.aspx.
Cavanaugh, Terence Ph.D. (2009). News: eBooks for Education. Retrieved October 11, 2010 from http://www.unf.edu/~tcavanau/presentations/ebooks_for_education.htm.
Rowlands, Ian, Nicholas, David, Jamali Hamid R., Huntington, Paul (2007). What do faculty and students really think about e-books? Retrieved October 12, 2010 from http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/2608/1/superbook_survey_learned_publishing.pdf
Chu, Heating (2003). Electronic books: Viewpoints from users and potential users. Retrieved October 21 from http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0737-8831&volume=21&issue=3&articleid=861385&show=html
Jackson, George (2009, May 8). ETSU’s “Kindle Study” Could Turn Traditional Textbooks to Kindling. Bristol Herald Currier. Retrieved on October 12, 2010 from
McLean, Mac (2010, October 11). Library patrons can now check out digital book readers. Bristol Herald Currier. Retrieved on October 12, 2010 from http://www2.tricities.com/news/2010/oct/11/library-patrons-can-now-check-out-digital-book-rea-ar-554773/
