Term Paper on "Digital Schoolbooks for Tomorrows Classrooms"

Term Paper 8 pages (2185 words) Sources: 8

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Digital Schoolbooks for Tomorrows Classrooms

Digital Schoolbooks

Advent of the conventional print textbook that would soon be related to the passing generation back in the 15th Century caused nothing but a revolutionary period in the education system and the media. This revolution reined till the late years of the 20th Century when the digital world started taking over from print media every possible tasks. Early digital books, rather E-books, referring to books that could be read online, increased in popularity. These E-books comprised of basically electronically processed versions of print books that had the same features apart from the mode of delivery. However, the current print industry has the threat of a more technologically advanced mode of delivering books: the new era Digital books (Federra, 2006).

One major area that has been threatened by this technology is the publishing wing of all-level education textbooks. Digital Textbooks threaten the existence of print textbooks, an industry that has major stakeholders who have heavily invested in the industry. Digital Textbooks in this case refer to books that are electronically processed, containing extra features like sophisticated search methods, audio resource versions of the digital textbooks and even more interestingly, video resources. All these additional features sound too sweet; one would not give a second though to the loyal print textbooks. Of course the advantages of Digital Textbooks are far too fundamental to ignore. However, the revolution change to this type of textbooks has severally faced challenges from various educational fields, making it a bit of a challenge to implement.



The objective of this paper is to advocate for the replacement of the print textbooks by Digital Schoolbooks in a bid to integrate the efficiency related to this move into the educational sector. In that regard, solutions that digital textbooks could come in to solve by replacing print textbooks are to discussed. In addition, more values that this mode of knowledge delivery will add to the education system are to be discussed and be justified. Assuming implementation, drawbacks highly likely to be experienced during transition from print textbooks to digital textbooks are to be addressed, with a solution for each drawback being discussed in order to ensure that the feasibility of this large-scale project is viable for smooth approval and transition (Frabish, 2009).

Problems Associated to Print Text Book with Accompanying Digital Textbook Solutions

Before the idea to have digital textbook was ever introduced, no would have ever thought of any weak point that print textbooks had. However, with its introduction, countless flaws were identified to the traditional print textbooks. Foremost is the cost incurred from the process of printing. This activity requires numerous resources that include ink, paper and manpower. Digital textbooks have a perfect solution for this as at no given point is any paper or ink required for digital textbook production. A drawback that would be compared to the cost would be the exorbitant fee that digital textbook readers would have. Most readers have a cost to the tune of over $200, a situation that may discriminate students from the lower class. These issues would terribly isolate the lower class students not able to purchase such gadgets, thus class education as a status quo aspect (Fioriello, 2010).

It also takes considerable amount before print textbooks are updated with the latest information. The contemporary dynamic world has information changing really fast while new information is also processed on a daily basis. Reprinting an entire copy would inflate the costs for print textbooks. On the contrary, all that digital textbooks require is simple editing that could be done in a span of very minimal time. The time would be influenced by the type of correction, deletion, or addition to be made. This makes digital textbooks more efficient as students would be able to read only updated information and avoid already decayed or outdated information that would be the case with print text books. Unlike the need to always buy updated editions with the case of print textbook, which would cost an immense amount of money, digital textbooks would not require an overhaul of the current book. Rather, only a link prompting an update for the book would be required.

The final drawback that print textbook has which seems to have been completely eliminated by digital textbooks is interactivity. Print textbooks, in the context of websites would be likened to static websites, giving no flexibility to the reader. However, digital textbook would be likened to dynamic websites, so flexible to interact with and also containing many interactive features that gives the reader more privileges to access and control the information in the contents. Such features would include searching, zooming, and editing. With the case of a print text book, the furthest action one would perform to the physical print is drawing in it or underlining the content, something believed to be destructive in the long run especially if the book is intended for use by other future academics (Jefferson, 2010).

Potential Areas of Development with the Ushering of Digital Textbooks

Education for such a long time has always been considered as a burden, literally, this could be demonstrated by the voluminous state that print textbooks occupy. Statistics have even indicated that at some level, commuting students have been affected health-wise due to the heavy luggage from the transit in the journeys between homes and schools. Most reports include back-bone problem, a considerably delicate problem given the location of the backbone in the back. The advent of Digital Textbooks would completely eliminate the need to carry bulky textbooks in a bid of knowledge search. Moreover, with the advancement of technology, lighter gadgets are bound to be developed that would further eliminate the clause that education is a burden (Catone, 2009).

Another value that digital textbooks are bound to add to the schooling system is the opportunity to conduct further research while still reading from the digital textbooks. Gadgets used to access these digital textbooks usually contain internet connectivity abilities. Such a service provided to the student would eliminate the procrastination of checking for further research after accessing online services from the lab or other internet connectivity location. Rather, immediate research is carried out using these gadgets and immediate results are discovered and recorded if need be for the learner. This greatly takes research in educational scenarios a notch higher, increasing the chances of greatly improving the knowledge content those students would get given the wide availability of resources.

Still on the issue of internet connectivity, rather than students having to physically face the teacher before any knowledge is imparted, he connectivity will enable the connection between the tutors and the students to efficiently communicate and relay information that could largely include academic information. This value could greatly improve teacher-student interaction as it would eliminate the previous fears that some students had in interacting with their teachers physically (Rath, 2011).

Education in the modern world has become one of the most dynamic fields. This is due to the changing times and adaptations that need to be taken into account for survival and prosperity. The evolution of these changes would automatically mean the change of the education system dynamically. Digital textbooks would ensure that schools and tutors have the capacity to alter the curriculum without incurring a lot of costs as previously witnessed in the print textbook era when in fact, curriculum change was dreaded given the expenses that were involved. This flexibility that is usually associated with moist digital tools would thus provide a platform that would radically change the administration of the curriculum, eliminating the dictating ways that the old curriculum imposed on most schools.

The question of environmental cleanliness attributed to the use of digital textbooks would seem wayward but looking it from a different perspective, one is able to see the viability of this point. According to statistics, schools are considered as the worst place where paper population is highly experienced. Needless to say, the textbooks contribute a lot of the said pollution in the environment, with a likelihood of being hazardous to the environment. Given that a school is a center of learning that hosts quite a large number of students, hazards relating to such kind of environmental pollution would be drastic. Digital textbooks would however eliminate this problem as there would be no more print textbook that would be thrown around to make the environment dirty and uncouth.

Lastly, the advent of digital textbooks would most likely accompany vital academic-oriented applications. It is proven that students usually find it easier to learn and grasp knowledge through more interactive methods such as games and experiments. Creative minds would come up with application that would include scientific, language, and mathematical puzzles that will provide pleasure for the students, creating interest and thus promoting learning. This would be most appropriate to especially autistic schools where students experienced a difficult time to take in knowledge imparted from teachers. The monotony of reading will also be broken and the whole process of learning will generally take a… READ MORE

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