Title:
Going Digital: The Future of College Textbooks?
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
The average college student in America spent an
estimated seven hundred dollars on textbooks last
year. The National Association of College Stores
reported more than five billion dollars in sales of
textbooks and course materials.
Association spokesman Charles Schmidt says
electronic textbooks now represent just two to three
percent of sales. But he says that is expected to
reach ten to fifteen percent by two thousand twelve.
Online versions are now available for many of the
most popular college textbooks. E-textbooks can cost
half the price of a new print textbook. But students
usually lose access after the end of the term.
And the books cannot be placed on more than one
device, so they are not easy to share.
So what do students think of e-textbooks?
Administrators at Northwest Missouri State
University wanted to find out. Earlier this year
they tested them with five hundred students in
twenty classes.
The university is unusual. It not only provides
laptop computers to all seven thousand of its
full-time students. It does not require students to
buy their textbooks either. They rent them to save
money. The school aims to save even more by moving
to e-textbooks.
The students in the survey reported that downloading
the books from the Internet was easy. They liked the
idea of carrying lighter backpacks. And fifty-six
percent said they were better able to find
information.
But most found that using e-textbooks did not change
their study habits. And sixty percent felt they read
more when they were reading on paper. In all, almost
half the students said they still liked physical
textbooks better.
But the survey found that cost could be a big
influence.
Fifty-five percent said they would choose
e-textbooks if using them meant their textbook
rental fee would not increase.
Roger Von Holzen heads the Center for Information
Technology in Education at Northwest Missouri State.
He tells us that administrators are disappointed
with the e-textbooks now available because the
majority
are not interactive. He thinks growth will come when
more digital books include video, activities, games
and other ways to interact with the information. The
technology is improving. But for now, most of the
books are just words on a screen.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report.
What do you think of e-textbooks? Share your
thoughts at voaspecialenglish.com, where you can
also find our reports.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
