It’s a common scene in a college classroom the first day of class after Winter Break: a student takes out an e-reader that they received for Christmas. Excited to put the technology to work, the student opens up their e-textbook, only to look up into the frowning face of the professor.
“No computers in class.”
This is all too familiar to our student body these past two weeks back. How can a school so dedicated to progress and new frontiers prevent its students from exploring these new learning options? It may just be a clash between generations, but the consequences are all too real for those embracing technology in the classroom.
Yes, we acknowledge that some students can’t tear themselves away from Facebook or Words With Friends during class; however, they are the minority. Most of us really are just there to learn, and our search for knowledge might just involve a Kindle Fire, a Nook Color or an iPad. Besides a great design, e-readers can offer aid to students who have challenges with traditional learning devices and also save students a decent amount of money in the long run. However, these innovations in technology cannot help anyone if we are forced to keep them in our backpacks.
Coinciding with CSB/SJU’s goal to be more sustainable, e-readers help us with a prevalent problem on campus: wasting paper. By ordering electronic copies of textbooks, or e-books, we can save at a least a few trees per semester. Those 30-page PDFs your professor posts on Moodle? A mere 891 KB on your 16G iPad, versus 15 double-sided sheets of paper. You can even take notes in your textbook on an e-reader.
Perhaps the most visible appeal of having an e-reader is the price of e-books versus print books. Students can save an average of 80 percent by purchasing their textbooks as e-books. Amazon offers Kindle Textbook Rental and Apple offers iTunes U, for even bigger savings.
As technology natives, we ask our professors, whom we understand some of which are technology immigrants, to please consider the fact that your student really does have their textbook on that small, computer-like device. We’re not just playing Angry Birds.