The advent of the e-book to EC curriculum may change the way we learn.
The only problem with this form of absorbing information is that we have to relearn a process. This might be acceptable for second graders, but for adults at a community college who are accustomed to highlighting and taking notes from textbooks, this might be a big obstacle to overcome.
It is difficult enough to conceive of the steps involved in a math problem, but to have to learn the steps and a new method of comprehension will be doubly difficult.
E-books have recently revolutionized the way we read, but this technological advance also takes away from the comfort of holding a good, classic book in your hands, or being able to scribble and highlight throughout textbooks.
Not to mention that the use of e-books would completely change the way material is given to classes.
It would also be a hassle to easily turn back to a page that we’ve written notes on because of the disadvantages of having the material in textbook form.
However, students will be freed from the heavy weight of having to lug textbooks around, but the purpose of books is so that all the information you need is bound into one book for easy accessibility.
Yes, in this generation, most people are used to using computers, but not everyone will be familiar with this new way of using books.
E-books can be downloaded onto reading devices such as Amazon’s latest generation of Kindle: the Kindle 2.
The Kindle is a slim, lightweight and wireless device that you can carry around with you to read almost anything you want.
It allows people to have a selection of more than 250,000 downloadable books online, including reading material such as newspapers, magazines and blogs.
Sure, it’s more handy to have an electronic device that can store all your favorite reads, but it diminishes the whole concept of collecting books, having libraries and bookstores that are furnished with all the classics (Shakespeare, Hemingway, etc) and most of all just being able to flip through the pages and making the object you are holding real with the feel of each genuine page.
For EC students, e-books are a free and easy way to download the material we need to study through computers by the use of PDF files, but whether we are ready to move forward in technology and chuck out textbooks is another question.
In regards to textbooks and whether all students should start using e-books as a way of studying, it really depends on what the subject is.
For students taking courses such as Calculus and other math classes, it is more useful for them to download thick pages of equations.
It would also be cheaper for those students because math books are horribly overpriced.
With the mention of overpriced textbooks, e-books score a point in everybody’s book when cost comes into play.
Although it would be cheaper to start using e-books, there is no doubt that the student Bookstore on campus will feel a loss of major revenue.
While in some ways this may be a great benefit for students, it is not great enough to forgo the selling of textbooks and books in general.
We need bookstores and libraries to keep a sense of history, of our culture and of ourselves.
Society is getting too technological and we are slowly finding a way to get rid of newspapers, magazines, textbooks and the way of life and education as we know it.
It is fun to try a new method of consuming material, but the fact of the matter is that textbooks are currently the best way to get that information. Textbooks are what we have used for many decades in schools and they haven’t failed us yet.
Incorporation of the e-book into current school will be torturous for adults, but relatively easy for children.
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