Will Textbooks, As We Know Them, Become Extinct?

It has been quite a reflective day.  I spent some time comparing my life as an elementary school student in the 1980s – and as a high school student in the 1990s – with that of the students I teach now, almost three decades later.  So much has changed, in terms of educational instruction and technology, in the elapsed time between generations.  Sure, my grade school owned computers for instructional purposes.  However, most were housed in the computer lab, and a handful of others were distributed to luck classrooms.  My fifth grade classroom was one of those.  The teacher kept a schedule at her desk, specifically for assigning timeblocks of computer time.  During each math class, a lucky 10-year-old would have 20 minutes to sit in front a monochrome Apple IIe and complete addition, subtraction, and multiplication drills.

In seventh grade, I finished my school days in the computer lab.  These computers made the Apple IIe look like the newest Corvette in comparison.  The lab had monochrome images as well, but on television screens that were plugged into Tandy CPUs.  Yes, Radio Shack made computers once upon a time.  Once students at the school reached seventh grade, they would learn computer programming – if Simple BASIC can still be considered computer programming.  I would not see another Apple IIe again until my tenth grade computer science course.  If I was fortunate, I would sit at one of the color monitors.  This was instructional media at its best – at least in suburban Kansas.

When I returned to a public school classroom in 2001, it was as a teacher’s aide at Manhattan High School in Manhattan, Kansas.  Since my own high school graduation, the presence of computers in the classroom had greatly increased.  The room where I assisted served as both the tenth grade English classroom and the journalism room.  As such, many computers where housed there.  Again, the computers were Apples, but all used color monitors, possessed internet access, had printer capabilities.  Rather than simply being a classroom novelty or a programming tool exclusive to computer courses, one of these computers could be used to record student grades – therefore making the paper-bound gradebook less essential to teachers and increasing the progression of digital instruction.

Let us fast forward to 2008, when I began my first student teaching internship, in fulfillment of graduate school requirements at Fordham University.  Autumn semester found me in observation and teaching roles at a progressive middle school on New York City’s Upper West Side.  In this school, not only did Apple computers reside in each classroom, but also something new lived in the computer lab – a SMART Board.  One of many classroom tools classified as Promethian devices, the SMART Board accomplishes many tasks the standard computer cannot.  During the autumn internship, the tool – which resembles a projector screen – was uses as a computer screen, electronic whiteboard, and overhead projector.   As you can imagine, these abilities increased the scope of instructional materials available to teachers.  Teaching with web tools, internet sites, and online movies provides a whole new level of instruction not possible during my school days.  Along with this new media technology also comes the ability to reach more student modalities, more learning needs, and more types of disabilities.  Inclusion classes are the way of current pedagogy, and so the increased presence of technology within lessons are crucial.  If you are a teacher reading this article, then I assume this information is old news.  Whether news or not, I hope these words provide context for a possible next step in classroom media – eReaders.

Most readers are familiar with Amazon.com and its hottest hardware devise: the Kindle.  eReaders possess several featuresconsumers appreciate, most notably as tools for reading their favorite books.  Other features include backlighting for reading in dim locations, audio capability for visually impaired individuals, and an electronic notebook for recording important notes about those literary works.  So eReaders expand the access of books to a wider population.  Perhaps these features allude to implications in the classroom.

Given the access eReaders could provide to students with visual impairments, learning disabilities, and students with other needs, perhaps they could become vehicles by which technology increases its prevalence in the classroom.  As published in the November 9 edition of Education Week, Fordham University researchers Michael S. Miles and Bruce S. Cooper, some of the benefits of using eReaders as textbooks include “ease of carrying; cost, access, and uses; instructional options; eco-friendliness and durability” (2009).

What do you think?  Should schools adopt eReaders as standard teaching materials to replace textbooks, given their capabilities; or should such a transition be done with caution, if ever at all?

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