Digital Media Buzz > Textbook Technology: Schools Embrace eReaders

Textbook Technology: Schools Embrace eReaders

By Ron Callari

The 21st Century learning environment is changing to meet the needs of the times. It wasn’t too long ago when computers were first introduced to school systems and hand-written assignments were replaced by high-speed word processing, spellcheck and online research.

Hand-held portable devices, however, while widely popular for commuting have been prohibited from use in the classroom. That is, up till now.

Embracing the learning experience that could be obtained from electronic reading, the school administrators at Blyth Academy, one of the Canada’s largest providers of private education decided to transition from the traditional printed textbook to the digital content that can be read on the Sony® Reader and found in Sony and Google e-libraries.

Aside from the obvious environmental reasons for transitioning to digital reading, Sam Blyth, CEO at Blyth Academy indicates that “kids loved the proposition of free access to millions of books, ease of transport to international venues, and the ability to mark up and highlight the text and download notes to a student’s computer.”

According to Blyth, his school system is the first in the world to make the switch to eReader textbooks and equip all the students and teachers with the personal devices. The students receive the Sony® Readers and the e-textbooks free of charge but have to return them at the end of the school term or make the choice to purchase them. Sony Canada’s spokesperson Candice Hayman says the company has received “a lot of interest from schools all across Canada wanting to know how they can launch similar programs, [but] we’re allowing the Blyth pilot program to mature, so we can get feedback from the students about their experiences.” The school has acquired 110 Readers from Sony for the first round of testing.

“My Sony Reader helps me get organized,” says Michael Tyrrell, student at Blyth Academy. “I have all my textbooks and class material on it — it’s really cool. I feel like somebody just personalized school to fit me.”

As far as impediments to receiving a full curriculum’s worth of content, Hayman indicates “the next step really lies with the content providers — meaning the textbook publishers need to create a process and business plan for making their content available in the proper electronic formats for schools.” The textbook rights are purchased direct from the publishers and presently the free downloads are generally everyday reading and anything that is out of copyright. Paid content will be considered by Blyth through direct content with textbook publishers.

Helping lead the way in delivering digital content for education are publishers like Pearson Canada. “Pearson Canada is taking students beyond the four corners of the printed textbook,” says Anne-Marie Scullion, vice president of Field Services, Pearson Canada. “Our focus is on developing flexible and adaptive content to engage students in a 21st century learning environment.”

In questioning Sony whether ‘brick and mortar’ libraries might consider purchasing and renting Sony® Readers, she mentioned interest from Canadian libraries considering this route. “At the moment, you can ‘check out’ eBooks from libraries across Canada [and the U.S.] for free with a library card.” She adds, “libraries now offer eBooks optimized for the Sony® Reader, meaning you can directly load them onto the Reader from your PC because the file formats are compatible.” The Sony® Reader accepts numerous file formats including ePub, the publishing industry standard. Students or the general public can easily check for libraries equipped with the device by using Sony’s Library Finder services by OverDrive.

As far as other types of organization considering a similar initiative of acquiring a volume purchase of the devices for a large group of people, Hayman indicates that in 2008, “Random House Canada supplied their employees each with a Sony® Reader to make reading long manuscripts more convenient.”

Other devices that have ventured into the school markets in a less limited way are Kindle and Nook. Amazon has reported that it is giving select students at a variety of universities its Kindle devices with pre-installed textbooks for chemistry and computer science. The range of universities is a cross-section of schools that includes Pace, Case Western, Princeton, Reed, Arizona State and University of Virginia’s Darden.

The game changing aspect of Nook isn’t its Android foundation, its touch screen interface or its backing from a major book retailer. It’s the technology called LendMe, which lets users share books between Nooks, iPhones, iPod Touches, BlackBerrys and Windows/Mac PCs with Barnes & Noble’s free eReader software. Books can be lent to other devices for 14 days at a time. This would allow high school or college student to share text books and pertinent documents with fellow classmates.

For high schools and universities that are embracing the eReader and eTextbook technology, we can easily see a universal transition to the digital reading. As the Blyth experiment proves successful, it would also appear that textbook publishers and online stores will address the market need as mass appeal gains traction in the next decade.