E-books in education and the future

    E-books, readers, e-readers - as they just do not call. When you pick up an e-book and begin to realize it, it’s easy to get confused whether it is a book (because it’s material) or a device for reading books.

    Exterior


    A paper book in itself performs an advertising function. You carry it, keep it on the table, or, especially, read it - the book turns to you with text, and the rest with cover. Often we visit bookshelves as a guest in order to understand which person we are visiting, who he really is, what he lives with.In the article " Books in the style of" Nude " " Motoko Rich writes the following:
    Once, when a New Yorker Bindu Wiles was traveling on her business in the subway, her attention was drawn to the image on the cover of a book that was read by a woman sitting opposite: a dark silhouette of a girl's head against a bright orange background.

    The reader looked about 45 years old - about the same as Bindu herself, and a twisted yoga mat protruded from her bag. All this led Bindu to the idea of ​​a possible similarity of their tastes, so she tried to read the name of the book and the name of the author: Chris Cleve, “Little Bee”. Bindu Wiles, who is finishing graduate school in documentary prose at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, had an iPhone in her pocket, and with it, she immediately ordered this book for herself in an online store.

    If you do not want to show others what you are reading, there is always a reliable way. A newspaper, a sheet of paper or cardboard, the usual cover for a book - and that's all, and no one will see the cover. There are more interesting options, like the Antibooks project, which presents dust covers for books made with talented, sparkling humor.

    And what does an electronic book reader look like from the outside? Like a book pulled on a gray cover. From the form and behavior you can guess what you are reading, but it is completely unclear what you are reading. Perhaps on future models there will be special fasteners for a dust jacket (like boxes of paper inserted into DVD / Blu-Ray), maybe the second screen will look at the world, show the cover (or even advertising) to others. While this is not and the whole impression is a monochrome rectangle.

    Phenomenon


    An e-book is not a virtue, not a threat, it is a symmetrical response to an era of rapid obsolescence of information. Is it possible to say that e-books have become a phenomenon, not a toy for geeks? In my opinion, it is possible. December 26 last year, the Amazon online store said that for Catholic Christmas, for the first time in its history, sales of e-books exceeded sales of paper. Book readers, in the main, are divided into two classes: for reading fiction and reading newspapers and non-fiction. So far, these classes can be divided by price and screen size. So, the latter include Amazon Kindle DX (9.7-inch display), Sony Reader Daily Edition (PRS-900) (7.1-inch display) and Apple iPad (9.7-inch display). For everyday reading and carrying with you, more compact readers on 5-6 inch displays are more convenient. One of the most interesting applications, in my opinion, can be the use of e-books in education.

    In education


    Two (known to me) e-book programs in education should begin this year at about the same time in Donetsk, Ukraine and the state of California, USA.

    The basis of the Ukrainian program will be Pocketbook 901 - the brainchild of the Ukrainian-Taiwanese company PocketBook Global. According to a March 25 press release , “The e-book is expected to go on sale by the start of the new school year.” The price, unfortunately, is not reported. It is only known that "electronic copies of textbooks - <will cost> 10-15 UAH (1.3-1.9 USD)."

    In the California program announced by Arnold Schwarzeneggerwhile neither the device nor its price are known. However, the target amount of textbook expenses is known - USD 350 million per year (excluding teachers completing materials). The governor is trying to defeat him, reducing the state budget deficit. The program is planned to be launched in August, then high school students will get online access to mathematical and scientific materials.

    Between two books


    I tried to imagine the difference between an e-book and a regular textbook today .

    Advantages of the textbook:
    • tactilely understandable;
    • durable
    • the possibility of notes in the text;
    • full color.

    Parity:
    • reading thanks to reflected light;
    • there is a table of contents;
    • do not know how to play video;
    • no interactivity;
    • You can hit a classmate.

    Benefits of an e-book:
    • text search;
    • stores a lot of texts;
    • Changes the font size
    • weighs a little;
    • plays audio;
    • operatively updated.

    From this small comparison it can be seen that there is nothing left for e-books to completely replace traditional textbooks. Moreover, if you take a device such as an iPad as a textbook, then “video and interactivity” counts for an electronic device (but the iPad has an IPS screen, which is debatable for children to constantly watch).

    Unsuccessful experience


    While plans to electronize school books are being made in Ukraine and California, the University of Texas has conducted an experiment on engineering students, mathematicians, and others, entrusting them with 1000 devices. 200,000 USD was spent on this program, however, 42% of students were unsatisfied with electronic books, 23% were undecided, and 35% supported the initiative. “About half of the students bought printed versions of books, confirming that the Internet generation also likes to make pages rustle.”

    Development


    E-books have a way to evolve? Of course! Let's, based on the current functionality of computers, think about where the reader can grow further.

    Font size
    The function of changing the font size is an amazing and magical property that is not subject to printed books. If you remember, we all start with books in large print for children. For poorly seeing, such a "childhood" may not end.

    Speech synthesizer
    Sadly, someone with eyesight is not lucky at all. And then the e-book will be able to read the text. Probably even simple book management commands will be understood “by ear”.

    Boring pictures
    Not all pictures are boring, old illustrations, for example, on biology or anatomy, were made intelligently and carefully. But, as they say, "it is better to see once than hear a hundred times." It’s better to watch a video once, how mycelia on the roots of trees form mycorrhiza and work in symbiosis, than to look for boletuses in the field a hundred times.

    Notes
    From childhood, I was taught to handle books carefully. Therefore, only recently, I began to take notes in the margins. E-books allow you to leave a note to any letter to the text, link them together, shuffle - analyze the book.

    Magical transformations
    What is easier to plot a function or calculate a function by points on the graph. Or how it will be visually pulled by an equilateral triangle, turning it into an isosceles or rectangular. On it living it is easier to understand the sine and cosine ( an example of problems of understanding ).

    Social graphs
    Who said that a social network can only be modern? No, by correspondence, places of visits, meetings documented in the literature, you can build a social network of any historical segment (the newer, the more accurate, of course). For example, dating social group "Decembrists."

    Geology on the fingers
    There is no problem overlaying historical maps with modern ones, scaling back and forth, turning drawings into a quasi-volume map. Try what the shift of the earth's crust is, what consequences (earthquake, tsunami, volcanic eruption) can cause an impact in one place or another.

    You can fantasize further almost to infinity, but the general idea should already be clear: what we used to comprehend from pictures and slides, tried to imagine, this can be visualized, shown clearly and interactively.

    Still a book?


    But will such a new book remain a book? In its original understanding. Hardly. This text - or even hypertext - will not be a finished work. Due to cross-references, additions, extended notes, etc., such a work, like the Internet, will never be completed. And even from artificial dead ends there is always a way out with the Back button.

    Childhood


    Jason Badridze says in an interview about wolf puppies :
    ... they didn’t know at all that I should not be there <in a wolf pack>.
    So modern children, having become acquainted with an e-book in childhood, can hardly imagine that it should not be. Look at the example of “ Alice in Wonderland ”, what can already be done with the book:

    The publisher of this colorful disgrace - the book painted drawings of Sir John Tenniel - Atomic Antelope startup . Not a big publishing house, not book business professionals, no. People who find themselves at the right time in the right place and are not shy about using their brains.

    I am sure, at such a pace, it will be possible to write notes soon, highlight pieces of text, share them with friends, vote for interesting passages or opinions . Yes, in general, to raise a polemic on the topic of why the stanza violated the size that exceeds the volume of the poem or the passage of the text by several times. If there is a limitation in technology today, then it does not exist tomorrow, human habits change more slowly. But having become accustomed to this social life, life in the information flow , children are likely to take a different look at the world, their imagination and thinking can develop in their own way, in a special way.



    For independent reading:
     - Presentation “ School electronic textbook - textbook of the future ” (PocketBook Global) - February 19, 2009
     - Information portal “ The e-Book. The electronic book . "
     - “ January theses: what needs to be done with books so that everyone will feel better about it ” by Lev Danilkin.

    Thanks to Liberty.ru for inviting me to the seminar on the topic “Is it time for the book to die?” , Where most of the above thoughts were born.

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