Schools using tablets instead of books
- Mallory Porshnev
- In It Together VIP
- Posts: 426
- Joined: 20 May 2018, 17:52
- Currently Reading: Moloka'i
- Bookshelf Size: 332
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-pricklypurple.html
- Latest Review: The Paradize Inn by Sheri O'Sullivan
Re: Schools using tablets instead of books
- KatSims92
- Posts: 205
- Joined: 21 Jun 2018, 13:01
- Currently Reading: The Beauty Myth
- Bookshelf Size: 451
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-katsims92.html
- Latest Review: From Drift to SHIFT by Jody B. Miller
- Riszell
- Posts: 280
- Joined: 08 May 2017, 01:18
- Currently Reading: The Vanished
- Bookshelf Size: 1041
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-riszell.html
- Latest Review: Chancing Hope by Lisa Slater
- humphreyluke
- Posts: 1
- Joined: 29 Jun 2018, 13:25
- Bookshelf Size: 0
- Nanig83006
- Posts: 130
- Joined: 14 Feb 2018, 06:51
- Currently Reading:
- Bookshelf Size: 44
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-nanig83006.html
- Latest Review: Apollo's Raven by Linnea Tanner
- kinjoz
- Posts: 23
- Joined: 18 Jul 2018, 01:59
- Currently Reading: Apollo's Raven
- Bookshelf Size: 17
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-kinjoz.html
- Latest Review: The Engine Woman's Light by Laurel Anne Hill
- LennyDots
- Posts: 43
- Joined: 15 Jul 2018, 16:30
- Currently Reading: Hidden Figures
- Bookshelf Size: 26
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-lennydots.html
- Latest Review: Concealment by Rose Edmunds
- Reading Device: B00I15SB16
I've seen little kids struggle through hallways with backpacks as big as they are that weigh like 40lbs. E-readers have that going for them too.
One other thing to keep in mind is that textbook companies are kind of corrupt. They have undergrads write or rewrite the materials, fact checkers don't always, and the contents are often swayed by political special interest. For example, Texas is the largest state buyer of textbooks, and there was a huge debate in 2015 because they were trying to force the textbook industry to only include slavery in history books as a "side issue" to the civil war and not it's cause. And because text books are expensive to produce and ship, if only on the weight of their glossy paper, and because Texas not buying your book is a huge sales blow, some publishers caved. Those books are supposed to have a lifetime of several years before they're replaced, and in that time the physical books can't be edited, and they're so expensive that school districts buy them in bulk, and the more popular books are cheaper. With an e-reader, a teacher can choose their own books or even (though unlikely at the high school level) write them, and distribute them far more cheaply than by printing a physical copy. In addition, when a major error is found in a mainstream textbook in a digital format, it can be fixed and all copies updated with a minimum of fuss, as opposed to making a note to fix it in the new edition in five or ten years.
And sure, e-readers break or go down. It happens. But having a single e-reader per child isn't really much more costly than one regular textbook- and any given child will probably use five or six textbooks a year in different subjects. With an e-reader setup the school should be able to just negotiate more of a subscription set up for textbooks instead of charging per child, and if they set up a cloud backup system for the kids and keep a few spares in the office, kids should be able to access their accounts from other devices too and recover the contents of their device on a new one if something happens to the original. If schools aren't doing something that sensible, that's more on the district than it is the fault of the e-readers themselves. I'd say it's a system that really should be set up at the Dept of Ed level and give every public school access, which might also ease funding issues at low income schools and give them access to more current materials provided they could cover the base cost of readers (which, remember, is or at least can be actually similar or cheaper to physical books.)
In terms of doing schoolwork, though, and having it not save or something- there's no reason that schoolwork needs to be done on a tablet or whatever. You can still have digital reference materials and do the schoolwork by hand.
- Jennifer Fernandez
- Posts: 226
- Joined: 09 Jun 2018, 21:30
- Currently Reading:
- Bookshelf Size: 69
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-jennifer-fernandez.html
- Latest Review: The Enemy In Me by Jacob Newell Campbell
-
- Posts: 30
- Joined: 19 Apr 2018, 21:54
- Currently Reading: The Sword of Shannara
- Bookshelf Size: 14
- Reading Device: B00JG8GOWU
- Oulababe
- Posts: 262
- Joined: 12 Sep 2018, 01:23
- Currently Reading:
- Bookshelf Size: 23
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-oulababe.html
- Latest Review: Invisible Me by H M Irwing
-
- Posts: 65
- Joined: 09 May 2018, 11:26
- Favorite Book: The Lord Of The Rings
- Currently Reading:
- Bookshelf Size: 10
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-asisha-joseph.html
- Latest Review: Andalusian in Jerusalem by Mois benarroch
- summerbabe
- Posts: 1
- Joined: 16 Sep 2018, 06:20
- Bookshelf Size: 0
-
- Posts: 230
- Joined: 11 Sep 2018, 11:07
- Currently Reading: The Lady of the Lakes
- Bookshelf Size: 77
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-raqstar1.html
- Latest Review: First Lessons by Lina J. Potter
On the other hand, my daughter is in a very rural area where there isn't a great library or access to a good supply of paper books. In their case, the cost of a tablet for a student versus new books for each student can actually make it so that the students have access to more information.
With those thoughts, I'd have to say that, for students in areas where there is access to a vast amount of resources, paper books should be the preference. But for students in areas with little to no access to resources, a tablet is a great tool.
-
- Posts: 10
- Joined: 09 Jan 2018, 15:13
- Currently Reading: The Last Stop
- Bookshelf Size: 9
- HailKingEbi
- Posts: 190
- Joined: 19 Jun 2018, 13:55
- Currently Reading: The Notebook
- Bookshelf Size: 13
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-hailkingebi.html
- Latest Review: Pastoring is not what you think by Elijah Oladimeji