Martha shared an article that was in yesterday's Chronicle about the preferences students' preferences for books. The article indicated that 76% of students still preferred traditional print books over e-books. According to the report, the preference percentage was unchanged from the previous year. It also indicated that only 8% of students owned an e-reader device. The study was conducted with 627 students by the National Association of College Stores.
I don't find those statistics surprising. First of all, if only 8% of the students owned an e-reader, I am surprised that 24% preferred e-books! Second, making a traditional print book a PDF file is not particularly enticing. e-books should become more popular when they are interactive with embedded URLs, self-tests, videos, and the ability to have collaborative learning communities.
I used three ebooks this past spring semester. This is a bit of a learning curve for their use. With my Windows PC - I had to have Adobe Writer to be able to highlight sections in the books. In other words, the procedures for using a book changed.
The study above is available online at http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/students-remain-reluctant-to-try-e-textbooks-survey-finds/27866?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+chronicle%2Fwiredcampus+%28The+Chronicle%3A+Wired+Campus%29
Now that I have an iPad, I am gravitating more and more to e-books. I have several on the iPad now. I need to move the e-books I used during spring semester over to the iPad, and like any change - practice using them! Are you using e-books yet? Why or why not?
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