“Unnecessary expenses create dawdling development”. Miller’s view in this article “Electronic texts might not benefits students education” is true and practical. State’s public schools are planning to replace printed textbooks with electronic ones. Although some states leaders prefer moving in this direction, “miller”, the Texas state board of education member for district 12, in Dallas urge that, it not be a top-down approach or a cost-shifting strategy for the state. He says education should lead any such transition, not the state. “Technology creates problems”, when they change printed text books with electronic ones there gone a be lots of problems for setting up the devices, training teachers, total cost of buying the devices, making sure they work for blind students, maintaining, insuring and protecting them from damage and providing uninterrupted internet connectivity with internet filters. These are all new costs that must be addressed at a time when school districts are facing financial crises and laying off teachers. There should be proper agreement among state, district and schools. For the long term it might have more advantages but looking at present economic condition, it sounds incompatible.
Because of this new legislation, child might not have material to bring home. The equipment is simply the means to access the content, and we must always remember that it is the content on the devices that is most crucial to the students. Printed books are possible to carry anywhere and can have a short look even if we are at work but the electronic devices are impossible to do. Miller says, “The state Board of Education certifies the accuracy and alignment of this content to the curriculum. I think this idea will best to ensure the students a quality education. The thing student expect from school is education. This idea will be worthy if the states public schools have sufficient funds, but if they dont have enough funds to complete the programe then it will be big threaten to the management group. In other side, students will not be benefited by this program as they used to be with printed text books.
My comment is on rayanshine last blog which is Electronics Texts might not benefit students, Education. I agree with blogger that setting up the device, training teachers, providing uninterrupted internet connectivity and so on are costly to change printed books to electronics . I also agree that printed books are quicker for short look. But, there are some electronic book readers out there for easy access and lighter to carry it around and they can hold tone’s of books at once. And they fit in to a pocket. There would be no more heavy stuff to carry around. I think students would benefit from electronic books. Especially blind students including myself.
ReplyDeleteit would be a big relief for us if all print books convert to electronics; that way we can get access to all books, newspapers, magazines and so on. Especially getting text books for school is a big challenge for us. Yes we do get our books in Braille or audio format, but that takes a lot of time and it is tiresome for people who records or Braille’s them out. Plus, sometimes, the semester would be over before we get the text books. Not only that, Braille paper is expensive, and Braille takes a lots of space. For example, one print page would be two or more pages in Braille. Because of that, it is heavy to carry it around and takes a large amount of place to store it. Life would be much easier for me and for all blind students if all printed material were to be converted to electronics. We really do get benefit from electronics format. Thanks to technology now a days. We can use computer with screen readers to read electronic books. I can’t wait to see this happen. I understand that blogger’s big concern is today’s economy as it is mine. One thing we can do is pray to all mighty God who can change things around and bless us as he blessed us before. God bless America.
The blog "Electronics texts might not benefit students, education" written by rayanshine is written very well, I can tell the blogger did their homework on the subject. However, I strongly disagree with the bloggers statement that “students will not be benefited by this program as they used to be with printed text books.” The blogger displays many arguments why an e-book would only cause problems such as “setting up the devices, training teachers, total cost of buying the devices, making sure they work for blind students, maintaining, insuring and protecting them from damage and providing uninterrupted internet connectivity with internet filters.” All valid arguments, however, with the ladder part of that statement I’m confused with, I mean aren’t we talking about books? Since when would you need internet for books, and if that were to be on an e-reader wouldn’t that just be a plus?! All these arguments can easily be explained away in an instant at least for me personally. Training teachers and setting up the devices for instance, there is absolutely no need to train teachers on how to read a book off of a screen. The process of using an e-reader is easier than anyone thinks; all you’d have to do is purchase the textbook online, upload it to the device and then read it. Honestly in this day and age who wouldn’t be able to do that? Now, I will be the last person to admit that it would be expensive, but so is buying books; me being a college student, I spend about $1000 on books a semester. However, I do believe that if the state does decide to join the virtual world an e-reader would be well worth it in the long run, I can guarantee that students would end up saving a boat load of money. Take the Amazon Kindle for example it costs $250 yet, the books that usually cost $30- $40 now cost only $10-$15 to download and put it on the kindle. I expect it to be the absolute same for textbooks. To the argument of it being difficult for blind students to use I very much disagree because any e-reader plays audio books and some are even compatible with programs like JAWS that help blind people read. Also, Insurance is a huge issue with products on the market now a day and like every other electronic product such as the kindle has a year warranty which is extendable. There are also many products such as cases that will protect the e-reader from being damaged when dropped and what not. Now to the internet business, e-readers all have wifi interface and can convert the internet into pdf format to make it more user friendly; mind you it will all be in black and white, but who needs all the pictures and color anyways if you’re paying attention to class. I do agree that converting to online textbooks is an extra cost but only to the student, who in any case should be able to receive financial aid for books for this product since it is a textbook of sorts. In my opinion as the blogger states “books are possible to carry anywhere,” so is an e-reader, especially when faced with carrying four or five 3-4lb books everyday to and from class, where as an e-reader can easily contain all the same books and weight no more than a pound. I say heck yes to no more back pain!! So if it wasn’t already clear, I am all for going the virtual rout!
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