Genius Hour

Introductory post

My topic asks: Can AP classes move into electronic-only textbooks available on tablets/iPads?

I chose this topic because I remember how frustrating and cumbersome books were in high school and the potential to lose or damange them.

I expect to learn about what the limiting factors are in certain schools and districts unwilling to adopt this practice.

I want my readers to learn and realize the possibilites that can be brought into future classrooms for gifted students to be more technologically advanced.

Here's my 5 sub topics

1. What would the cost be to public vs private schools in implementation?

2. How could students benefit from e-books instead of physical textbooks?

3. What causes a teacher to forgo the use of e-books when given the opportunity?

4. How willing is the AP body to move into using e-books exclusively?

5. In what way(s) can this be funded to become accessible to all students?

This subtopic is probably the main reason why I chose to explore the topic of moving from physical books to e-books. I believe there are many benefits to using e-books, such as readability, portability, cost, methods for note-taking, and availability.

With eBooks becoming more common to mobile users, apps like iBooks for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Macbook laptops allow the reader to tailor their reading skills to the page. Whether that's brightness, annotation, or bookmarking, eBooks can also make the finding of relevant information much easier than scanning and flipping through useless physical pages over and over.

In the classroom, the eBooks can be purchased for lower prices for the teachers and students, since the risk of damage or loss is incredibly lowered. Also, the teachers can even upload their own notes in the textbook, should the students need extra resources to understand the material. In addition, the accessability to the internet for definitions and research of read material makes the independent learning processes flow smoother. Because physical textbooks weigh down the backpacks, totes or arms of students, the portability of a single tablet can hold the same wealth of information in a more compact manner. In the respect of homework, especially with many schools using a blackboard method, it helps the student to keep things organized on their one device (or multiple, if they're enable with a cloud).

However, with any progress comes some backlash and challenges to face. Yes, these tablets have access to apps galore that don't have anything to do with the material they're learning. When connected to school Wi-Fi, the school can put up blocks that don't allow the students' tablets to connect with the distractions from apps. This seems to be the biggest concern, along with cost. With the money saved from buying electronic versions, the leftovers could be allocated for classrooms to have a certain number of tablets and chargers, as backups for the students who have their own, or as a method to allow non-owners the chance to learn at the same electronic level.

Sources used: http://labs.pearson.com/10-ways-ebooks-enhance-learning/

http://karsenti.ca/25_ebook.pdf

http://www.aionline.edu/blog/post/The-Future-of-Education-Textbooks-vs-Tablets

How High School Students will benefit from eBooks

Cost of implementing e-Books

Due to the incredible availability and relatively low cost, e-books are now becoming more mainstream in schools. For the people who work in school or public libraries, they're not against this digital form, as long as the kids are still reading. For many younger students, Barnes & Noble Nooks and Amazon Kindles are the devices of choice, since they are priced around $100 each and primarily electronic readers. As for the iPad and iPad mini, those have a wider variety of uses, and are thus more beneficial in a high school classroom or advanced middle school class doing a research project. The Lindbergh public school district in St. Louis, Missouri recently implemented more electronic books in their school libraries, giving kids access to the e-readers who may not have it at home.

On the flip side, a private, all-boys high school in White Plains, New York has completely done away with the heavy books. They cite that a students' family would spend around $700 for physical and heavy textbooks. With the purchase of a tablet, that cost goes down to a one-time fee of only $150! This also comes as a benefit for students burdened by the heavy backpacks that can be more than 25 pounds. Another reason for the increase in digitizing books is that today's students should be technologically savvy in order to make it out in the job market. And for the students who are active in extracurriculars, the ebooks offer audio of their reading and easy access to class and teacher notes on whatever subject.

It's been widely believed that switching to strictly e-readers in schools would be a costly move, but with so much technology available and prices lowering from competition, it's become a more achievable goal for almost everyone.

Sources used: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/12/no-more-books-high-school-goes-all-digital-/2807577/

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/schools-are-turning-heads-and-pages-with-their-e-books/article_7ed9a76f-6adf-579e-b21b-1546ac03086e.html

Why forgo an e-book for a textbook?

This subject looks closer at the cons of choosing to use a print textbook instead of an e-book. They can definitely cause distractions in the classroom with their wi-fi capabilities and other apps at the beck and call of the student to hide from the teachers. There has been some research to show that today's students do have shorter attention spans, in part because of the multitask abilities in apps and the constant flow of information around 140-characters from news outlets. For the students in underpriveleged communities, finding wifi is not super easy in order to complete and submit online assignments outside the classroom. For a print textbook, the likelihood of crashes and viruses is zero, and there's also no real large expense to fix them, as there is in a tablet's software. Many teachers are also concerned about their students cheating and using the internet as a means to plagiarize their work. Granted, most students will still use the internet to help them no matter what.

Wifi connectivity can also be overloaded with too many students and teachers on the server at once. With this in mind, the school would need to invest in multiple wifi routers to accommodate all users. There is also the notion of planned obsolesence, the tendency of tech companies to make their products need upgrade after about 2 years of use. This means that the devices will need to be updated and upgraded at regular intervals, which can hike up the costs for future use. With these reasons in mind, it seems fair for some teachers to be reluctant to convert their curriculum to strictly digital.

Sources used: http://tablets-textbooks.procon.org

http://neatoday.org/2013/07/31/as-more-schools-embrace-tablets-do-textbooks-have-a-fighting-chance-2/

AP classes and e-books

Some Advanced Placement courses are coming into the digital age. Not only are they online courses, but they offer their readings for the students in e-book form. This freedom to learn is the wave of the future, offered by Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth that doesn't require the traditional classroom setting. An innovation of AP courses can be tailored to the studnets' strengths, needs and availability.

Unfortunately, after extensive research, there doesn't seem to be any info specifically on the use of e-books in advanced placement classes, but it can be inferred that the results aren't too different from on-level high school classes. Also, one can assume that an AP educator can assign out-of-class readings that are available in digital form. From my experience, I was never turned away from the classroom when I found our reading on iBooks, and followed along on my device.

Sources used: http://cty.jhu.edu/ctyonline/courses/advanced_placement/ap_us_history.html,

How e-books could be funded for students

Many sources have the capability to access e-books nowadays, and this can be a tough financial decision for schools since they have to make a choice about which platform to use. Other factors include age of students, accessability to each book title needed, size of childrens' hands, accommodating for learning disabilities, and also the planned obsolesence of the devices after about two years. There still will be a balance of print and digital books, as the transition to electronic books is still in the early stages.

At an inner-city school in Ohio, many of the students would benefit from a "more level playing field" with their peers. In the past, this school has used federal and state tech grants to provide the students with Dell laptops, and now they will utilizing the money to put towards e-books, which end up costing at least 1/4 less than the print books.

This being said, the schools do have the money to allocate funds to provide electronic and cheaper versions of the current textbooks. With the many options for e-readers, the school is trying to figure out what purchase would be the most practical for students, and compatible with publishers' e-books.e

Sources used: http://www.crplsa.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/2014-Talking-Points-ebooks-and-schools1.pdf

https://thejournal.com/Pages/CDWG/21st-Century-Classroom_E-Books.aspx