Can you honestly imagine college without lots of big, old, musty, dusty, sometimes moldy textbooks, not to mention old, musty, and moldy librarians? Of course you can! Even though digital textbooks have yet to truly take off in the world of higher education, institutions are continuing to experiment with the possibilities of e-readers in the classroom. What professors and students are discovering is that there are some dramatic pros and cons to digital textbooks. Here are just six to consider.
Con: There’s no standard digital format:
The big problem with going print-free is that not every digital textbook you will need for a course will be available for the particular electronic reader and software you own. Over the course of your college career, you may find that only a portion of your required reading is available for the particular devices you own. Not surprisingly, Apple is attempting to corner the educational publishing market with its iBooks 2 application, and make the iPad the e-reader of choice among college professors and students.Con: Digital is not necessarily cheaper:
Did we just hear your jaw drop? The cost of the digital devices can range from $79 for a Kindle, to $500 or more for an iPad. Add to that the cost of renting or buying digital textbooks, and buying used hardback books instead suddenly becomes the cheaper option. Some universities, including Cornell, Indiana University, and the universities of Minnesota, Virginia, and Wisconsin, are buying digital textbooks in bulk and offering them to students at a significant discount. However, at the time of this writing, students at these institutions were not happy with the digital textbook and e-reader format.Pro: Digital textbooks help special needs students:
Digital textbooks can offer helpful features to special needs students, including text-to-speech functionality and the option for larger text. Digital textbooks are being designed for students with varied learning styles, abilities, and disabilities using universal design for learning, or UDL, strategies. UDL content is presented in simpler language with hyperlinks to definitions of key words and concepts.Con: Print textbooks are heavy!:
From day one of kindergarten, for reasons unknown, you were saddled with books and other materials that equaled as much as 15% of your body weight. Electronic reading devices can replace the heavy, backbreaking textbooks you would otherwise have to drag across campus from one class to another. And if you store all of your textbooks on a single device, you’ll never have to worry about forgetting a book for a particular class.Con: Digital textbooks create eye strain:
Glare and the resulting eye strain is a common complaint among e-reader users. If you dread the thought of reading hundreds of pages of copy on a glaring screen, then printing up a digital book may be your only option. But that’s yet another cost to consider, on top of the price of the digital textbook and the electronic reading device itself.Pro: One may be greener than the other:
On the one hand, the amount of e-waste the world is generating, and that includes those copper, lead, and plastic e-readers, is out of control. On the other hand, digital books may eventually reduce carbon emissions that come from foresting and the production of print media. Right now, the debate as to which one, digital or print, is greener, has yet to be resolved.http://www.onlineclasses.org
