Saturday, April 08, 2006
Online Textbooks
Online Textbooks
I am sure you are all familiar with elearning or distance learning and technology but a new chapter is now being written. A new technological innovation called Online Textbooks promises to lessen the burden of learning, both literally and physically by eliminating book bags and backaches.
The electronic textbook is a fairly new develpopment in education but a few schools are now considering them as an alternate to traditional classroom texts.
Textbooks were a $7.500,000,000.- buddget item for school districts across the country in 2004. About 26% of that or $2,000,000,000.- was spent on new electronic testbooks and other digital teaching tools.
Six years ago there was hardly any electronic publishing industry in academia to speak of.
But the hardcover textbook may be on a par with the dodo and they could disappear, as we know them, in another ten years or so.
Textbooks have become more expensive to produce, print, and to distribute. Many of today's textbooks are soon out of date. With electronic publishing online textbooks can be updated as soon as newer informtion is discovered and made available as updates or replacements for the original text.
Supporters say that e-learning with electornic textbooks can improve a child's learning skills by incorporating real-time multimedia training with audios and visuals right in the classroom.
Students will be able to participate in online class experiments usingreal interactive e-learning and without programming. Interactivity will engage them more in their studies and should promote and improve their interest in learning. E-learning and electronic books are valuable resources that can contribute to any student's academic success and help close the achievement gap.
Publishers such as McGraw Hill are working closely with classroom teachers to develop applications, lesson plans and content that will work in classrooms and contribute to student learning and achievement.Most schools now have broadband access to the internet so using this as a teaching tool within the schools is not a problem. Not every kid has broaddband access to the Internet at home, but a good 56kbs dial-up connection should be adequate to read any of the books and do any of the prescribed exercises. It should also be possible to get many of these electronic books on CD or DVD media.
Jack Finnigan is the owner and webmaster at Homeschool Curriculums, and The NAPE Index. Jack also writes a homeschool curriculums blog. You are invited to visit for more information on Homeschooling.
This article may be reprinted as long as the resource box and all links are left active and intact.
I am sure you are all familiar with elearning or distance learning and technology but a new chapter is now being written. A new technological innovation called Online Textbooks promises to lessen the burden of learning, both literally and physically by eliminating book bags and backaches.
The electronic textbook is a fairly new develpopment in education but a few schools are now considering them as an alternate to traditional classroom texts.
Textbooks were a $7.500,000,000.- buddget item for school districts across the country in 2004. About 26% of that or $2,000,000,000.- was spent on new electronic testbooks and other digital teaching tools.
Six years ago there was hardly any electronic publishing industry in academia to speak of.
But the hardcover textbook may be on a par with the dodo and they could disappear, as we know them, in another ten years or so.
Textbooks have become more expensive to produce, print, and to distribute. Many of today's textbooks are soon out of date. With electronic publishing online textbooks can be updated as soon as newer informtion is discovered and made available as updates or replacements for the original text.
Supporters say that e-learning with electornic textbooks can improve a child's learning skills by incorporating real-time multimedia training with audios and visuals right in the classroom.
Students will be able to participate in online class experiments usingreal interactive e-learning and without programming. Interactivity will engage them more in their studies and should promote and improve their interest in learning. E-learning and electronic books are valuable resources that can contribute to any student's academic success and help close the achievement gap.
Publishers such as McGraw Hill are working closely with classroom teachers to develop applications, lesson plans and content that will work in classrooms and contribute to student learning and achievement.Most schools now have broadband access to the internet so using this as a teaching tool within the schools is not a problem. Not every kid has broaddband access to the Internet at home, but a good 56kbs dial-up connection should be adequate to read any of the books and do any of the prescribed exercises. It should also be possible to get many of these electronic books on CD or DVD media.
Jack Finnigan is the owner and webmaster at Homeschool Curriculums, and The NAPE Index. Jack also writes a homeschool curriculums blog. You are invited to visit for more information on Homeschooling.
This article may be reprinted as long as the resource box and all links are left active and intact.
