Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Wesley College investigates eReaders

As the price wars for eReaders are heating up, a Wesley College released findings from its project exploring the potential of e-texts and e-readers as a viable technology for educational settings, and for reducing printed materials and waste. They studied eReaders with linear text only, not the new iPad.

Between April 2008 and November 2009, they investigated how the e-Reader and e-text adoption would influence the publishers and distributers, inquiring into whether publishers and distributors would to adopt models which are practical for the K-12 school market.

They found that older readers were "significantly more engaged with and accepting of the e-reader device than younger readers".
Two factors make school library adoption of eReaders difficult:

1) Digital Rights Management issues are embedded in many of the transactions related to purchase in general.
2) Publishers and distributors have not considered the library/school sector as a significant player in the roll out of etext. (which seems amazing given how much libraries spend on electronic formats!)

Conclusions:

  • State education departments must get involved with developing e-text access for text book delivery.
  • Consortia models for e-text delivery to schools should be developed to ensure that e-texts are an affordable option for schools.

2 comments:

Linda Straube (Ms. S) said...

JudyG, Thanks for posting this. It's going to be very exciting to watch the evolution and adoption of these devices in education. Here's a link to some additional student survey results published earlier this month.

Ms. Brennan said...

Yes, this evolution or progress will be interesting to watch to and, hopefully, to adopt in a useful manner for easy or more accessibility.

In using a Kindle recently, I like the convenience of so many books at my fingertips, literally, yet I much prefer to turn a page rather than push a flat button. And, it's hard to skim.

Why doesn't the right side of the Kindle have a "previous page" button, too??