Image courtesy Flickr user Nationaal Archief via The Commons.By Hazel Jennings

The use of ebooks in education is not more widespread because school systems are afraid of change.

Okay, sorry.  Was that a little too Kanye West a la “George Bush doesn't care about black people”?

This is a blog post about using ebooks in education.  So we're going to jump right down that slippery slope.  No more text books! All students should carry around Kindles with all of their content uploaded to it.  

Concerned? Don't worry; I'll be presenting both sides here. 

If the music is too loud, you're too old.  If you're thinking, “If the music is too loud, just turn down your headphones,” I would like to welcome you to the future.  I would also like to use this point to show how much our culture has already changed: people were wearing the t-shirt with that saying on it less than 10 years ago.  Now that it's almost obsolete, we should be taking how quickly our culture changes into account when educating our children. 

Next order of business, from the opposing side: Penmanship is the most important skill a young student can learn, and of course, Memorizing the Emancipation Proclamation fosters historical appreciation in youngsters.  If your head just exploded, I'm glad.  You know what year it is.  Don't discount this accomplishment, either.  Apparently, according to the Seattle Post, poor penmanship lowers self-confidence and negatively affects academic performance. Well, so does not being able to properly use a quill pen or successfully hide under your desk during a Russian attack, but it's the future now, okay? 

So why aren't all schools using ebooks in education?  It would be cheaper in the end, better for the environment, and allow 5 blog posts worth of integration techniques:

1. You can highlight and make notes on a larger projection of the book on the smart board to create unison in learning.

2. Teachers will be able to use multiple texts in one class to facilitate more holistic learning

3. Kindles will hold volumes and volumes of acclaimed poetry for students to read instead of publish

4. Texts can change every year to always be up-to-the-minute... in fact they can change every two months

5. Many books can become fully interactive: check this out.  I don't even need to comment on it. That's good for education. End of story. 

PHEW! Feel better?

Well, what are you fears about schools only using ebooks?  'Students won't depend on their memorization skills nor learn perfect penmanship' is already out.  (Note: I know that ebooks are for reading, not for writing.  But, if they're reading all of their texts on a Kindle you can pretty much guarantee that they're typing up those essay responses.)

What if you can't control, exactly, what they're reading at all times? Well, you couldn't anyway. And just because it's easier to force compliance instead of teach initiative, doesn't mean that's what we should be doing. Don't take my word for it: Seth Godin agrees.

But, won't students lose their cultural connection to the great texts that made this nation if they read it on a screen instead of age-old paper? Youtube > TV.  Podcasts > Radio.   Admit it.  

The use of ebooks in education will widen the achievement gap between affluent and impoverished school districts. Very valid point.  The rich kids will have access to this more advanced and current tool in education, while the poor kids won't.  But, really, this isn't the fault of the ebook.  The rich kids get better textbooks than the poor kids anyway, right?  But remember, digital copies will probably go down in price; Project Gutenberg already offers over 30,000 FREE ebooks, and even I can afford that. Besides, if we do not allow certain people to progress for fear of surpassing those around him... well Kurt Vonnegut already wrote that short story. (Harrison Bergeron? C'mon guys!  You would have known that if you had a Kindle as a kid.)

I'm afraid their physical maturation will be stunted if they don't lug 40 pound backpacks around anymore.  Go away.

Historically, American education has held onto tradition in teaching and feared change in the face of rationalism.  In fact, most students don't really learn to think on a higher, independent level until they leave the school system.  We're running our schools like industrial factories on a schedule for farmers.  Child psychologists have long known that a traditional school's class schedule does not relate to a child's attention span, and any pediatrician will tell you that most school children will never be able to adapt to a 7am-3pm learning day.  Forget looking up medical journals or sociological studies, even Kathy Lee knows this! [Fast forward to 4 minutes and 30 seconds in.] Yet, this is how it's always been done so this is how we'll always do it.

The purpose of education is to prepare students for the world awaiting them.  Well, I have an announcement to make. I just spelled 'announcement' wrong when I first typed that sentence, and my computer corrected me.  And I'm a freaking writer. Secondly, I don't know my times-tables, the capitol of Nevada, or what year the Japanese bombed Peal Harbor.  To my school, this makes me a failure.  To my boss, the people I write for, and the people who challenge me intellectually, it doesn't really matter. I would probably have been more successful earlier if my education had prepared for the real world instead of a past one. 

The complete transition from traditional books to ebooks in our schools is not a concern, it's inevitable. But, just like copying pages out of the dictionary, ball point pens, and checking for clean fingernails, the educational system will try to hold on to meaningless protocols as long as it can. We are raising children into the Information Age, a more quickly shifting age than any recorded before it.  We should be preparing our students for a world based in research, complex thought, high-level analysis, and a need to adapt almost instantly to new ways to gain and share information. 

So, if you went into this post knowing that ebooks should thrive and would aid in education, I'm glad we're all still on the same page.  If you went into this post with concerns about using ebooks in education, hopefully I've talked you out of them.

Hazel Jennings is a contributing writer that understands the basis of this blog in a pretty monstrous way: she makes her living as the copywriter and social media manager for an on-line designer furniture company. She's mixing the art of writing with advancing technologies all the work-day long. When not at work, she enjoys dinosaurs, writing and telling stories about non-furniture related topics, hanging out with her two terriers, and spending as much time outside as physically possible.

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