The New York Times article, “Making Science Leap From the Page” by Anne Eisenberg made online textbooks seem like a college student’s dream. She detailed a book with interactive graphics, permanent access, a low price and seamless audio and video. Pretty much a students dream come true! More and more schools are turning to this form of book as a traditional textbook alternative. But as this becomes a more popular alternative we need to ask ourselves if this is truly what we need. The moment it becomes “necessary” to have these new digital options, is the moment we have to scramble to figure out how we can make this accessible to everyone.
These interactive textbooks claim to help students learn material in a new way which wasn’t possible before. I couldn’t help but wonder, who exactly is being helped here? Are we pandering too much to people who are simply too lazy to learn in a conventional way? Or are we helping to make knowledge more accessible to people who would’ve had a more difficult time before digital textbooks became available. Are we helping to close the educational gap or are we making it bigger due to the lack of accessibility in all schools?
As the Watters article points out, we are in the middle of a textbook revolution. And no – it’s not just because Apple said we were. She also pointed out that only one percent of students in public schools had a 1:1 iPad ratio. While I don’t have any hard facts to back my next point up, I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that those schools aren’t the ones in inner cities. It’s going to be the kids in the affluent areas that have all of this new technology- which while entertaining isn’t quite necessary to learn.
Sure these new ebooks, online textbooks, etc. might be cheaper to purchase but we need to keep in mind that behind every textbook alternative is a computer. A very pricey computer to those who are already stretching resources. We might be in the middle of a textbook revolution, but personally I would have to say that we need to consider how this will effect those who lack monetary resources. So these kids aren’t getting the fancy new eBook which allow users to drag and draw images. Let’s face it, schools like this will never be able to afford such a convenience as an iPad or Kindle, thus making them fall farther behind as their counterparts are able to read and grow exponentially with their online texts.
Personally, I abhor the idea of having a digital textbook. The only thing I miss in my traditional textbooks is being able to CTRL+F in order to find definitions. Digital reading is great for personal enjoyment, but textbooks are just a little too modern for me. Maybe this is just the beginning of me turning into an old fogey, but honestly I’d rather have my kids read from a traditional textbook instead of some kind of digital reader. I really don’t want this to happen:
