E-readers in High Schools

New School Supplies? wired.com

We all remember carrying around our big heavy text books in high school. You were pretty sure you were never going to need them but there was always the fear of being the one kid who was not prepared. Well, as always, things are changing in the scholastic world.

With the invention of e-readers students have now started to bring them to class. with this comes a debate: should they be banned like cell phones or should they be welcomed as a new form of textbook? In an article by Jared McKinney, in a high school journalism site, he debates the pros and cons of having e-readers in the classroom.

 McKinney talk about how e-readers have many features that are beneficial to the classroom. such as: students are able to look up words they do not know right on the device itself, students can also take notes in the book itself and know where to find the needed information. If students read before class they can bookmark areas that they wish to discuss with their teachers.

Along with this of course are the cons to e-readers. Students may get distracted by all of the features that are not school related. Being able to go on the internet, watch movies, play games, and download apps cause a lot of children to not pay attention to the class. These are the things that worry teachers and parents about bringing this new technology into the school.

Which is Better? worldclassnews.wordpress.com

Another article by Kirk Cheyfitz, CEO and Chief Editorial Officer of the Huffington Post, shows studies done on bringing e-readers into schools. The study was created by Michael Milone and funded by Renaissance Learning. Milone had children read actually print books and then read e-reader books. They were then tested on their knowledge of the books they read. Results showed that knowledge retained was almost the same from both types of books.

Since it has been shown that both print and digital books help us to retain about the same amount of information we must look at other questions that may come up. E-readers are economical because they save trees  from being cut down and turned into books, but there are also the problems of e-waste when the device breaks or becomes obsolete. These devices are also much lighter than text books and can save children from back problems in the future.

All of these question, and more, must come into account when deciding whether it is good or bad to allow these devices into schools. There are many positive and negative affects of e-readers and we must decide what the right course of action is. But many believe the change is inevitable. 

This video shows what an actual teacher thinks. From youtube.