The betrayal!
I swore that I would never have another,the intimacy,feel and experience could never be the same but now here I am about to do it. I vividly recall leading the argument against the audacity of some scholars/educators who were advocating the use of e-books as a viable alternative to traditional print-books.My adamant feeling was that the immediacy of a book in hand, the feel of the texture of the page on one’s finger tips, the overall experience should not be replaced by a screen and God forbid technology.
The replacement?
The new suitor has many good features:
Multimedia effects- sound,animation,interactive activities.
Easy to access.
Inexpensive
It supports the development of reading skills particularly for struggling students.
The storage system is more than effective i.e.one can have a digital library and not worry about a physical storage space.
The advantages of using e-books are quite compelling and in this time of integrating technology into the classroom they are an excellent way to encourage children to once again enjoy reading.
The compromise!
There is room enough for both types of books in education,but just for a little while longer I think I’ll keep the sensation of using the printed copy of books. The digital library though can offer a real solution to the problem of space and maybe some day I’ll get around to reading (for pleasure) an entire e-book.
As I was browsing the internet, checking out Microsoft's free e-reader, my daughter came into the room and asked me what I was doing. Her reaction to reading books from a screen was one of horror. She is an avid reader and always needs to have her own copy of the books she reads. She loves the feel and texture of books; being able to turn the pages for herself. Even though I told her there are e-readers that can turn pages she is adamant she prefers the print version of books. She says she does not like to scrool down a page to read it -it feels like doing assignments. When she heard that J.K Rowling has said that there will be no e-book versions of Harry Potter, her favourite series, (taken from Wikipedia), that was the end of the conversation as far as she was concerned.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I am not averse to the idea of reading ebooks although there are some books that I own that even if I read the ebook version I would still want to keep the hard copy of ... like my Judith McNaught books. When I checked online, only one of her books seem to be in available in ebook version. All fiction published before 1900 is in the public domain so they can be converted to ebooks but so far many contemporary authors have not boarded the e-book train as yet although I am sure that will change in the not too distant future. The American Publishing Association estimated e-books represented 8.5% of sales as of mid-2010,(Wikipedia).
So for now I will keep my print version of books and not think too much about ebooks, except for the next time my husband complains about the number of books we have around the house... maybe I can get him to buy an iPad for me...mmm