Today I finally received my electronic book reader, the Kindle 2!  As I ripped open the box, I wondered what it would be like to have all of my reading material in a digital format. Then I thought: What would it be like for students? How great it would be to have one device whether it’s a Kindle, computer, or an iPod, where digital books were always accessible. This topic is not far-fetched as book giants like Barnes & Noble jump into the e-book realm by purchasing an e-book retailer. Barnes and Noble isn’t alone. Many school districts are recognizing the demand for digital content and are leaning towards replacing textbooks with e-textbooks.  Can e-textbooks be the future for schools?  Are school districts across the nation ready to engage our students at the next level?  If the retail leader in book sales is moving towards e-books will education follow?

I hesitantly put down my Kindle and started searching for answers to these questions.  I was eager to know if any school districts had made a progressive movement to e-textbooks. What I did discover was that school districts across the nation are spending millions of dollars each year for textbooks. The Jessamine County School System in Nicholasville, Kentucky is looking into using e-textbooks since the cost of hard copy counterparts is higher. “It’s really a problem everywhere, and here’s why,” Deputy Superintendent Owens Saylor said.  “The state has given us $50 per student for textbooks for elementary and middle school for the last 15 years. Of course, the cost of textbooks is a lot higher than that right now. But the amount hasn’t increased.”  Currently, a single textbook costs about $80 per student.

Many school administrators are concerned with students having the latest information at their fingertips.  The accuracy of textbooks is crucial.  Since we live in an age of information and technology, which increases exponentially every few years, digital content seems quite reasonable.  Older generations generally prefer a physical book to hold in their hands, but the younger generations have grown up in front of the computer.  Our digital natives want access to information immediately and anytime and anywhere. e-textbooks can provide this solution. 

Colleges offer great examples for providing online access for students.  At Northwest Missouri State University, administrators launched a program this year to digitize course textbooks, offering students laptops and digital readers instead of books.  During the year’s first semester, 500 students were given Sony Digital Readers as a part of a study to test the effectiveness of all-digital textbooks, though all the college’s students had access to the content through their required textbooks. 

Northwest Missouri has made this shift, but many schools have been doing e-textbooks for a few years.  MBS Direct, which sells about 700-college textbooks in digital form, started an e-textbook program at 10 campuses in the fall of 2006 and 31 in the spring of 2007.  Interest has been modest — about 5 percent of the total sales for a given text, but it was encouraging enough for the company to expand the program to more than 300 campuses the following semester.

Even though e-books contribute little to overall book sales, they more than tripled last year at a time when overall book sales were flat or falling.  According to a survey by Codex Group, a book marketing research company, 3 percent of book sales from mid-December to mid-January were in digital form.  Are we seeing an upward trend in digital text due to price?  e-textbooks are generally 40 percent less than a new textbook and 20 percent less than a used one.  In one of the largest pushes to date, electronic versions of assigned textbooks are being made widely available for the first time, right next to their print counterparts at campus bookstores.

K-12 textbook providers are jumping on the bandwagon as well.  McGraw-Hill Education, for example, offers almost 95 percent of its textbooks as e-books, and the publisher has seen a steady growth in interest over the past several years.  I found this shift to be quite the new thing.  Broward County School District has implemented electronic textbooks that are now available through their Broward Education Enterprise Portal (BEEP).  Full complements of e-textbooks are available for courses with district-wide adoptions in science, world languages, and reading.  Publishers have voluntarily offered their available e-textbooks in the curriculum area of social studies.  The district plans to add additional e-textbooks annually.

Many schools are taking the leap and shifting their large textbook dollars to digital content.  As I read about these pioneering school districts I realized there are many benefits to making the shift.  Electronic versions are easy to locate and manage.  Instead of picking a book off the shelf, students would pick up a personal computer, a Kindle, smartphone or an iPod and the book they need is instantly available. Additionally, I thought of sustainability and going green.  How many trees could be saved?  Now this may sound silly, but what about health benefits?  My son is in 4th grade and his backpack is so heavy.  I decided to do a little experiment of my own.  I weighed his backpack and it came in at a whopping 9.3 pounds.  He is 10!  I recently read the article, “Too much in your backpack can hurt your back.”  The article revealed that students should not carry more than ten percent of their body weight in their backpacks.  Additionally, heavy bags can cause the student to develop bad posture like arching the back and leaning to one side.  This could cause muscle strain and improper spinal alignment. I guess it isn’t a silly notion after all.  It looks like e-textbooks can save money, trees and backs!

The more we as educational leaders understand how our students operate in this digital age and embrace their ways of learning, the better equipped we will be to provide them a leading-edge education. We must think out of the box and away from our current models.  Change is needed and we should rally together and champion new and innovative ideas and be prepared to implement tools needed for change.

Resources:

• Edward Wyatt, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/education/edlife/innovate.html?_r=1 The Bottom Line on E-Textbooks
• John Borland, http://news.cnet.com/Publishers-loosen-rules-on-e-textbooks/2100-1025_3-5830640.html, Publishers loosen rules on e-textbooks
• Mike Moore, http://www.jessamineonline.com/public_html/?module=displaystory&story_id=8594&format=html, School board looking into e-Textbooks
• Christopher Coats, http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/education/2009/feb/College-Campus-Becomes-a-Testing-Ground-for-E-textbooks.html, College Campus Becomes a Testing Ground for E-Textbooks 

Cathleen Richardson is an Educational Consultant and eLearning Specialist.

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