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The ebook reader devices, such as the Kindle, are really quite primitive and limited in what they can do. However, electronic textbooks on computers are only limited by how much functionality is made available in the electronic book, itself. If textbook publishers would get behind electronic versions of textbooks, I think electronic textbooks could easily replace the paper versions. Have you ever looked at an electronic magazine that runs under Zinio? It is amazing how Zinio engages such a wide range of multimedia in one magazine. I am convinced the same kind of experience could be available in electronic textbooks….but not with the existing dedicated electronic book readers, and not until the textbook publishers make an honest commitment to it.

I'd love to have all my textbooks (I teach at the university level) on my tablet, but unfortunately, none of the textbooks I use are available electronically…and when I asked around the college where I teach, I was surprised at the reaction I got….it was such a novel idea.

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Ebooks: Towards a Broadband Classroom http://bit.ly/cqnZSF

The ebook reader devices, such as the Kindle, are really quite primitive and limited in what they can do. However, electronic textbooks on computers are only limited by how much functionality is made available in the electronic book, itself. If textbook publishers would get behind electronic versions of textbooks, I think electronic textbooks could easily replace the paper versions. Have you ever looked at an electronic magazine that runs under Zinio? It is amazing how Zinio engages such a wide range of multimedia in one magazine. I am convinced the same kind of experience could be available in electronic textbooks….but not with the existing dedicated electronic book readers, and not until the textbook publishers make an honest commitment to it.

I'd love to have all my textbooks (I teach at the university level) on my tablet, but unfortunately, none of the textbooks I use are available electronically…and when I asked around the college where I teach, I was surprised at the reaction I got….it was such a novel idea.

[...] Ebooks: Towards a Broadband Classroom One of the greatest challenges facing an ebook evangelist like myself is to find decent answers to the most common question I get about ebooks from academia: “Why?” [...]

Now if we could only create an ebook that smells right, and that you can hurl across the room now and again.

You can already throw the eReader at people. It's just a bit more prone to breakage. :D

As for smell, I'm sure somebody could come up with an “old paper” scented strip that attaches to your eReader. But would anybody really buy it?

Steve

The ebook reader devices, such as the Kindle, are really quite primitive and limited in what they can do.

With its built-in wireless, I think the Kindle could easily do most of what was described today (well, OK, tomorrow — some new softwware would be necessary). Let's check them out:

* Johnny pulls up a math chapter on his e-reader.

- Easily done today.

* When he doesn’t understand something, he clicks a link and watches a video of a great teacher presenting the concept, perhaps using a cool simulation.

- eInk isn't great for video, obviously, but you can click links and get sound today.

* If Johnny still doesn’t understand, he can chat online with a tutor familiar with the material.

- If “chat” means text-based chat, I think it would be relatively simple to have an app on the Kindle do that. It may be even easier on the Android-based Nook. If “chat” implies video or sound, that would be more difficult.

* When Johnny does his homework on his e-reader, he immediately learns what he got wrong and sees an explanation based on his particular mistake.

- Putting quizzes in a book could probably be done today, as could adding the ability to submit them online. As the Kindle can receive E-mail and eBooks, another app could wait for the response and display the help text.

* Johnny’s parents receive a text or e-mail saying that he finished his math homework.

- This would be server-based; you don't need the eReader to do anything really.

* The teacher receives a report that evening outlining what the class found straightforward and which problems puzzled students, along with suggestions on how to address the inadequacies.

- Again, this would be server-based.

* The school board receives data that lead to constant improvement in the effectiveness of course material.

- Yet again, another server-based feature.

So, given today's technology,. most of this could probably be done with the existing Kindle, a couple of new apps for the Kindle and some enhancements to Amazon's server that processes Kindle input. The only real exception would be tutorial videos or animation.

Steve

Now if we could only create an ebook that smells right, and that you can hurl across the room now and again.

You can already throw the eReader at people. It's just a bit more prone to breakage. :D

As for smell, I'm sure somebody could come up with an “old paper” scented strip that attaches to your eReader. But would anybody really buy it?

Steve

The ebook reader devices, such as the Kindle, are really quite primitive and limited in what they can do.

With its built-in wireless, I think the Kindle could easily do most of what was described today (well, OK, tomorrow — some new softwware would be necessary). Let's check them out:

* Johnny pulls up a math chapter on his e-reader.

- Easily done today.

* When he doesn’t understand something, he clicks a link and watches a video of a great teacher presenting the concept, perhaps using a cool simulation.

- eInk isn't great for video, obviously, but you can click links and get sound today.

* If Johnny still doesn’t understand, he can chat online with a tutor familiar with the material.

- If “chat” means text-based chat, I think it would be relatively simple to have an app on the Kindle do that. It may be even easier on the Android-based Nook. If “chat” implies video or sound, that would be more difficult.

* When Johnny does his homework on his e-reader, he immediately learns what he got wrong and sees an explanation based on his particular mistake.

- Putting quizzes in a book could probably be done today, as could adding the ability to submit them online. As the Kindle can receive E-mail and eBooks, another app could wait for the response and display the help text.

* Johnny’s parents receive a text or e-mail saying that he finished his math homework.

- This would be server-based; you don't need the eReader to do anything really.

* The teacher receives a report that evening outlining what the class found straightforward and which problems puzzled students, along with suggestions on how to address the inadequacies.

- Again, this would be server-based.

* The school board receives data that lead to constant improvement in the effectiveness of course material.

- Yet again, another server-based feature.

So, given today's technology,. most of this could probably be done with the existing Kindle, a couple of new apps for the Kindle and some enhancements to Amazon's server that processes Kindle input. The only real exception would be tutorial videos or animation.

Steve

The internet connectivity in an eInk ebook reader is a nice “bell & whistle,” but most (if not all) eInk devices are not able to perform most of the basic tasks that students (and I) currently do with paper textbooks…..highlighting text (using a yellow highlighter), easily paging back and forth to sections of the text books, making meaningful bookmarks that make it easy to jump to a specific bookmark in the book, writing notes in the margins).

I have been using an eInk ebook reader for about 3 years. My experience with these devices is that they are excellent for pleasure reading….starting at the first page and reading through to the end, but they are not good as electronic reference manuals. One of the first books I bought after I got my ebook reader was the Bible….But it only took a few minutes to realize that the electronic Bible on my ebook reader would be much more difficult to navigate than the old fashioned paper version.

The internet connectivity in an eInk ebook reader is a nice “bell & whistle,” but most (if not all) eInk devices are not able to perform most of the basic tasks that students (and I) currently do with paper textbooks…..highlighting text (using a yellow highlighter), easily paging back and forth to sections of the text books, making meaningful bookmarks that make it easy to jump to a specific bookmark in the book, writing notes in the margins).

I have been using an eInk ebook reader for about 3 years. My experience with these devices is that they are excellent for pleasure reading….starting at the first page and reading through to the end, but they are not good as electronic reference manuals. One of the first books I bought after I got my ebook reader was the Bible….But it only took a few minutes to realize that the electronic Bible on my ebook reader would be much more difficult to navigate than the old fashioned paper version.

The internet connectivity in an eInk ebook reader is a nice “bell & whistle,” but most (if not all) eInk devices are not able to perform most of the basic tasks that students (and I) currently do with paper textbooks…..highlighting text (using a yellow highlighter), easily paging back and forth to sections of the text books, making meaningful bookmarks that make it easy to jump to a specific bookmark in the book, writing notes in the margins).

The article was mostly about connectivity. The current Web browser in the Kindle is a bell (or whistle?), but I believe that it's capable of most of what the article talked about (as I outlined) and you didn't seem to disagree with that part.

To address your points, which are basically the ones raised against the Kindle DX in previous articles where Amazon did college studies, let's look at them:

* Highlighting text (using a yellow highlighter)

- Of course you can't highlight in yellow on a black & white display, but you can do it the old “pen-based” way — by underlining text. Why is one better than another?

And, personally, I don't believe that I ever highlighted a paper book in my undergrad or graduate classes (and I did very well).. I don't believe in “defacing” paper books (especially those that you plan to resell), but I have no issues with highlighting electronic books.

*, Easily paging back and forth to sections of the text books.

- Depending on what you mean by “sections”, I agree that's difficult in eBooks. However, if you take advantage of bookmarking, you can get a reasonable facsimile of it. It won't be as fast, of course, but how “searchable” are your paper books?

However, some eBooks on the Kindle do allow navigating sections. The right/left stick navigates to the next/previous chapter (or section), but that seems to be sporadic. I have two books by the same author (Joel Spolsky) — the first has good hyperlinks and section navigation, the second doesn't seem to have any.

* Making meaningful bookmarks that make it easy to jump to a specific bookmark in the book,

- The Kindle's bookmarks don't stand out like a dog-eared page, but you can easily get a list of bookmarks and navigate to them (as well as notes and highlighting).

* Writing notes in the margins

- The Kindle allows you to take notes in the “bottom” margin fairly easily. It's probably slower than writing them, but I think that's outweighed by having more “room” to write and having legible notes that you can read more than a few days after you wrote them. :D

Again, I don't believe that I ever wrote notes directly in a book, though. For some tech paper books that I read more recently, I kept notes on Post-Its that I left in the pages. However, I had so many notes that my books looked like peacocks with all the paper sticking out. I think electronic notes and highlighting would have improved that situation.

Maybe it's just “different strokes”, though. You're using books in an educational setting every day, I'm just using them occasionally for technical books. (The eBooks that I've bought have been job-related, not pleasure books.) Of course, maybe you're so used to the old way that it's hard to get used to the new way, or maybe the time wasted by the new way is compounded by how much you notate, bookmark and highlight that it really adds up for you more than it does for me.

Another advantage to educational eBooks that's never been mentioned (as far as I've seen), is accessibility. My daughter forgot to bring home a book from her college class during vacation, so I found that it had a Kindle version and I purchased it right then (for under $10). That saved us from one of the following:

* Calling around for a bookstore that carried that book — and a 20-45 minute drive each way to get it (not to mention the cost of buying another paper version).
* An hour drive back to her dorm (if it was open during that vacation) and the hour drive back home.
* Doing without the book until she got back to school and had only a day or two to complete the assignment.

My Kindle came in very handy that day. :D

Steve

The internet connectivity in an eInk ebook reader is a nice “bell & whistle,” but most (if not all) eInk devices are not able to perform most of the basic tasks that students (and I) currently do with paper textbooks…..highlighting text (using a yellow highlighter), easily paging back and forth to sections of the text books, making meaningful bookmarks that make it easy to jump to a specific bookmark in the book, writing notes in the margins).

The article was mostly about connectivity. The current Web browser in the Kindle is a bell (or whistle?), but I believe that it's capable of most of what the article talked about (as I outlined) and you didn't seem to disagree with that part.

To address your points, which are basically the ones raised against the Kindle DX in previous articles where Amazon did college studies, let's look at them:

* Highlighting text (using a yellow highlighter)

- Of course you can't highlight in yellow on a black & white display, but you can do it the old “pen-based” way — by underlining text. Why is one better than another?

And, personally, I don't believe that I ever highlighted a paper book in my undergrad or graduate classes (and I did very well).. I don't believe in “defacing” paper books (especially those that you plan to resell), but I have no issues with highlighting electronic books.

*, Easily paging back and forth to sections of the text books.

- Depending on what you mean by “sections”, I agree that's difficult in eBooks. However, if you take advantage of bookmarking, you can get a reasonable facsimile of it. It won't be as fast, of course, but how “searchable” are your paper books?

However, some eBooks on the Kindle do allow navigating sections. The right/left stick navigates to the next/previous chapter (or section), but that seems to be sporadic. I have two books by the same author (Joel Spolsky) — the first has good hyperlinks and section navigation, the second doesn't seem to have any.

* Making meaningful bookmarks that make it easy to jump to a specific bookmark in the book,

- The Kindle's bookmarks don't stand out like a dog-eared page, but you can easily get a list of bookmarks and navigate to them (as well as notes and highlighting).

* Writing notes in the margins

- The Kindle allows you to take notes in the “bottom” margin fairly easily. It's probably slower than writing them, but I think that's outweighed by having more “room” to write and having legible notes that you can read more than a few days after you wrote them. :D

Again, I don't believe that I ever wrote notes directly in a book, though. For some tech paper books that I read more recently, I kept notes on Post-Its that I left in the pages. However, I had so many notes that my books looked like peacocks with all the paper sticking out. I think electronic notes and highlighting would have improved that situation.

Maybe it's just “different strokes”, though. You're using books in an educational setting every day, I'm just using them occasionally for technical books. (The eBooks that I've bought have been job-related, not pleasure books.) Of course, maybe you're so used to the old way that it's hard to get used to the new way, or maybe the time wasted by the new way is compounded by how much you notate, bookmark and highlight that it really adds up for you more than it does for me.

Another advantage to educational eBooks that's never been mentioned (as far as I've seen), is accessibility. My daughter forgot to bring home a book from her college class during vacation, so I found that it had a Kindle version and I purchased it right then (for under $10). That saved us from one of the following:

* Calling around for a bookstore that carried that book — and a 20-45 minute drive each way to get it (not to mention the cost of buying another paper version).
* An hour drive back to her dorm (if it was open during that vacation) and the hour drive back home.
* Doing without the book until she got back to school and had only a day or two to complete the assignment.

My Kindle came in very handy that day. :D

Steve