E-books

[Farseer]

I think ebooks could be wonderful for schools. No longer would you have to drag around heavy bags all day, or worry that you have all the books you need if the schedule was changed - and best of all, whenever there's a new edition (which in my experience is about every other year, sometimes even every year) the old books wouldn't need to be pulped because there's no second-hand use for them. You just download the new version - think about how much paper/how many trees would be saved.

Much as I love and collect books (I own more of them than I do anything else!), I have to agree to the advantages outlined so far and think you make a fine point here also, Mervi. Similar ideas are already being used successfully (here at least) eg using a Chemistry or Physics textbook while at school but storing these in the classrooms after class and then coming home with a thumbdrive that has a full digital copy of the textbook to use at home to save damage, loss, non-returns and carrying them around...if your "dog eats my thumbdrive", you can give your mate a ring and they can immediately email you the copy of the pages you need!

Another benefit to schools would be the lower overall costs particulalry when a huge number of the same text is required. While providing a Kindle to all students of the school would require a incredibly expensive initial outlay, not to mention on-going costs, you can purchase a lot more ebook copies than you can books, for a lot less money.

It would also allow a large group to work from the same text...an example of this would be that my son is currently pulling apart King Lier when he would much rather be doing Hamlet like the kids in another English class, but can't because the school has a limited number of each resource.

I may be wrong but I do believe we have a school here in Australia that has already made the decision to begin converting their entire library to ebooks. I was mortified when I first heard but have been swayed somewhat by many persuasive points. It will be interesting to see what comes of it all.

On the downside, as well as a costly outlay for purchasing student-loaned Kindles, it's one thing for a student to take home a book and quite another for them to take home an expensive Kindle (my teenagers can't even manage a mobile or an iPod...they get wet, the screens get smashed etc!). In saying that, a normal school requirement is to have a certain number of books and resources supplied by students and families themselves for use at school eg a scientific calculator for higher-level maths and science, so, it wouldn't be that different if students, and not the school, were expected to also purchase a Kindle for their own use.

There have been many communicative changes throughout our history and those who worried about the telephone as opposed to the telegram, the email over the letter, the television instead of the radio, the CD over the record and then the tape etc , well, we still have all those things to fall back on when the advancing technology fails us.

I write it but it's been a hard lesson to learn...I cried hard when my children's lessons were changed from being conducted over a HF radio to a telephone and here we are, five years later, now doing lessons over the internet every day. Yes, I'd like to wring the neck of the person who was responsible for the changes when I thought everything was working fine before BUT, for all of the sentimentality, the changes DO have a place in my children's educations and I think ebooks DO have a place in our world.

My very Aussie-male husband hated the introduction of email and the internet...now he surfs the web and does much of his business via email and the net. He also drives the tractor or checks on cattle and listens to an iPod. We can email photos to a doctor 600kms away and get a diagnosis which can be treated immediately with medical supplies we have on-hand in a Flying Doctor's medical chest. How incredible is that? Geographically isolated, technology has opened up our world in a way we could never have foretold and despite the glitches (emails not working etc), and the negatives, it has given us significant advantages.

Possibly the introduction of ebooks have provided us with yet another one of those "cusps" that Fool so often referred to. We fear change but change is inevitable as there is always change...