An e-book is the digital media equivalent of a conventional printed book. Such documents are usually read on personal computers or even cell phones. Such technology is not only easy to access and convenient to the user, but it may be just the thing to promote reading among our students at all age levels. E-books have many positive attributes for both users and media centers alike. For example, clicking is easier than page-turning. You can customize the viewing experience (enlarge font size and style, change orientation on device, modify screen contrast). There is also technology available that allows the user to change to audible and have text read to them. E-books offer the potential to add multimedia (graphics, audio, and video) and hyperlinks to other information. When using e-books, book marking, highlighting and annotating capabilities are available.
There are advantages for media specialists and libraries as well. E-Texts can be modified for various reading ages, degree of violence, amount of offensive language, etc. They require less library space, shelf reading, inventory time, weeding, repair and replacement. E-books are even environmentally friendly because they save trees and paper and avoid pollution (caused by inks, dyes, coloring).
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Jeanne –
I first fell in love with books as a child when my mother took me to the library weekly to check them out. This is a practice I hope to start with my own son some day.
However, I now find I seldom have time to cuddle up with a good book, let alone visit the public library. This is tragic given the transition I plan to make within my career. As such, I was so grateful when I initially learned of books on tape and DVD. One could only imagine how excited I was one day to get a new Sprint phone and discover I could download books to it!
I even have a profound appreciation for those sites which allow you to preview books prior to downloading. There is so much information available now and so many varied ways to access it. All very exciting and all the more reason to become a media specialist to help bridge the gaps between reading and technology!
As a classroom teacher, I realize a huge deficit exists between today’s students and reading versus say twenty years ago. As such, it is incumbent upon us to identify new meaningful ways to reach learners and I submit that digital story telling and e-books is but one conduit to achieving that end.
Ebooks are great to use by teachers, students, and administrators. I sure does beat using printed materials. Ebooks are easy to manage, handle, and they are less expensive. The media center would surely benefit from them. Having ebooks available to the public in the library media center would encourage and motivate users to use the media center more. When I become a media specialist I hope to have the use of ebooks accessible for the entire faculty and staff.
Thanks for including the benefits of e-books and e-texts. I didn't know that they could be modified for various reading ages, degree of violence, and amount of offensive language. After reading your post I realized that there's so much more to this technology then I knew. Do you have a suggestion as the best website to read and learn more about e-texts?
Jeanne,
Thank you for sharing the information on e books. I didn't know all the things you could do with e books. I had not thought of the capabilities of changing font size and style. I didn't know you could change the reading level and degree of violence as well. This would be nice to be able to do this with e books. It is also nice, like you stated that e books would be environmentally friendly as well.
Good to know there are so many options for enlarging print. I am not very familiar with E books. When I have volunteered in the media centers around me, they usually do not have them yet and claim they are very expensive.
Jeanne, I learned a lot from reading your blog. I didn't realize all of the different ways you can customize e-books. You helped me learn more about a technology that I am really excited about. I hope to get to spend more time learing about ebooks and downloading and reading some good books while I am on maternity leave. Ha! Do you think this will happen with a 1 month old? Wishful thinking anyways. Thanks for the great info.
I grew up with a book in each hand. I loved reading, and still do. I think that anything that we can do to encourage reading and the love of reading is great. Being able to enlarge font size is a great form of diferentiation in the classroom as well as being able to choose for it to read to you or you read independently. I also think that it's great that you can link to other areas that pertain to the text that you are reading.
There are a lot of advantages to E books and I especially like being able to hyperlink to information and the variety of multimedia that supports it. However, I also really like the page turning. I find it challenging to read a great deal of text from the computer. Whenever I have articles to read/review, I print them. I guess old habits die hard.
I think that the advantages you mentioned are all good and can be used with reluctant or struggling readers. Ebooks being a greener option in the media center is a very innovative idea. I also did not know that ebooks could be highlighted and book marked.
I had not considered the advantages of ebooks that you mention in your post. I also did not realize that texts can be modified for various reading levels and ages and that the reader has the option of making highlights and such; what cool features!
In my original post I note that I am not personally a big fan of ebooks because I love physically holding books, turning the pages, studying the jackets etc. I am certain, though, there are many people who would enjoy having access to ebooks and would like being able to download and read a book without a trip to the library or bookstore. Ebooks might possibly be wave of the future.
As I was reading your post I had a wonderful idea for my mother-in-law for Christmas. Her eyesight is not what it use to be and even large print books don't work for her very well. I am going to talk to the rest of the family and see about getting her an iPod for Christmas and load it with some of her favorite authors and the Bible. She will love it. We have a student who is visually handicapped at my middle school and very often has to have stuff read to her, this would be great. We use Rosetta Stone and Kurzweil at my middle school, that although they are not exactly ebooks, I think they are following the same principals and ebooks are the next logical step.
You know much more about Ebooks than I do. I didn't realize how much you could customize them. I also didn't know that you could change them to audible and have them read to you. I do want to investigate further who is reading the text. The reader of the book on audio books often makes the listener more inclined to listen and keep their attention. I can't wait to try and download one of my favorite books and edit the one or two offensive words that could have easily been left out without changing the wonderful story.
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