Schools throughout the country transition to digital forms of education, but Carmel is slow to follow the trend

By Ryan Zukerman
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Senior Catherine “Catie” Surette reads. A lot. She reads novels and magazines, newspapers and poetry, catalogs and classics. Surette, however, reads on a Nook.

Barnes & Noble’s Nook is just one of many digital book reading devices that have recently flooded the market offering various educational opportunities.

According to a recent survey from the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), e-book sales jumped from 1.5 percent of total U.S. book sales in 2009 to 5 percent of the market in the first quarter of 2010.

Surette decided her Nook was a necessity after carefully considering her options.

“For me, it was a storage issue,” she said. “I have three bookshelves, one in my bedroom and two in my basement. The Nook has a lot of storage space and if necessary you can insert a memory card for more storage. It therefore has limitless storage.”

Surette, who uses her Nook in her novels class, said she is also noticing a general increase in the amount of technology used in education.

In July Amazon announced that it sold 140 e-books for every 100 hardcover books in the previous three months. In the last month, this statistic rose to 180 for every 100.

“The thing with my novels class is that we have to have a certain number of choice books to read,” Surette said. “I was in the middle of a fantastic series and I had purchased it on my Nook. I decided to use it because I was already reading it and it was convenient.”

According to media department chairperson Bonnie Grimble, the use of digital reading devices is on the rise in both recreational and educational use.

“I know several (students) have them here as well as many teachers, and I have one. It’s a matter of preference, a matter of use,” she said.

Clearwater Kindles

CHS is not the only school that has students and staff who utilize new technology in education. In September, a new program was introduced at Clearwater High School in Clearwater, FL, in which students had all of their textbooks replaced with Kindles, the digital book reading devices released by Amazon.

Clearwater High ordered 2,200 Kindles, enough for its 2,160 students and as well as its new students. The administration originally wanted to buy computers for each student, but that proved to be too expensive. Each Kindle cost $177.60, nearly $25 less than the $200 customers pay. As for electronic textbooks, regular textbooks cost about $95, but they only cost about $80 on the Kindle.

The Kindles at Clearwater High came with electronic versions of math, English and extra science courses loaded onto their systems that are individually designed for each student. Students are also able to read novels and take notes as well as highlight parts of texts, and Kindles can read texts aloud in both male and female voices.

According to Surette, there would be many benefits in having digital book reading devices rather than textbooks.

“(A digital reader) saves space in backpacks and lockers and there is a smaller chance of ‘I forgot my book at home,’” she said. “You can also mark your pages with important spots and jump to specific pages.”

Although she said the convenience of digital reading devices is hard to beat, English department chairperson Maureen Borto said this school has yet to consider this new alternative.

“(Replacing the textbooks) has not been a discussion at all because we do textbook adoption,” she said. “Every department goes through it every six years. We (the English department) don’t go through ours until 2014. So at this point to do it, we wouldn’t be able to replace them. We need to finish out that textbook adoption series.”

However, Borto said teachers are constantly moving toward more digital-based learning.

“A lot of teachers now will reference students’ texts online like if it’s just a short story or poem that they want students to read,” she said. “We have really moved away from the large anthology textbooks because there is so much available on the web.”

However, Clearwater High faced challenges. Problems such as insurance in the event of a lost or damaged Kindle had to be taken into account.

For insurance, students had the option to purchase insurance for $20. In the event that a Kindle is stolen or lost, the school can track it and shut it down if necessary.

In addition to these logistical issues, Borto said CHS would face additional challenges too.

The English department recently started stressing the importance of marking and annotating texts in an attempt to teach students how to actively read. If books were replaced with digital book reading devices, students would have to learn to do that electronically.

“It takes us a while to actually get kids to mark in their books,” she said. “That’s why we moved to a lot of consumable novels, so students can write in their books, which is really the best way to read and to learn. We would just have to transfer those skills to an electronic reader.”

Borto said it is likely that this school will eventually discuss more digital options.

“I’m sure it will come up, but in terms of its feasibility, there are a lot of economic factors,” she said. “There is a feasibility issue, there’s the technology issue, there’s the training issue. I think that if it becomes a priority, we will go ahead and do it.

“I think it absolutely will come up in discussion because there are now, in addition to the use of the Kindle or the iPad, a lot of apps that are academic-based, like SAT vocab and other things like that. I just think that can be really beneficial as well.”

Digital Online

In addition to using digital reading devices for textbooks, some schools are starting to move all textbooks online.

In a pilot program started this fall in Farifax County public schools in Virginia, social studies classes at six high school and six middle schools will distribute “netbooks” to their students.

These netbooks, which are smaller versions of laptops, will have online access to digital textbooks and a variety of other resources.

Although this school does not plan to adopt digital reading devices, CHS is following the trend of allowing students to access more information online. According to Grimble, the library has purchased dozens of online databases to aid students in research.

“The databases are resources that we purchase,” Grimble said. “They are private access and we take great care in studying the various curriculums to make sure that what we purchase matches students’ need. There are literally thousands and thousands of online purchased resources and to choose them specifically for Carmel High School is a daunting task.”

“But we hopefully are doing a pretty good job of meeting students’ need. So to me it’s where the most recommended resources are found. They are the pre-approved, well-documented, well-researched bits of information as opposed to the free Internet.”

The Sitting Nook

In addition to schools, many libraries throughout the country are starting to go digital by offering readers e-books for checkout.

Last November, Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, NJ, started allowing students to checkout digital book reading devices.

The program allows students to check out a digital reader for one week. The readers come with reference books and some novels already downloaded, but students can also download their own books.

According to Grimble, this idea is not new to CHS, but right now it is not an option.

“We’ve researched (digital book reading devices) but right now it is financially not feasible,” she said. “If I want to get a classroom set of My Sister’s Keeper, which is being used in one of the lit circles, every student will get a copy of that. I can probably pick that up for anywhere between $5 to $7 dollars a copy.”

According to Grimble, purchasing a classroom set of books for 30 students would cost approximately $210.

“For $210, I am lucky to buy one e-reader,” she said.

The library is not alone in going digital with textbooks. In August, Barnes & Noble expanded on its revolutionary NOOKstudy tool, a free program that allows students to download their rented textbooks to Macs and PCs.

With the NOOKstudy application, students can get instant access to thousands of e-textbooks, save up to 50 percent from regular textbooks, tag content and take and highlight notes.

Though CHS is not headed in that exact direction, Grimble said she feels the possibilities of digital education are endless, even in an online aspect.

“I can’t see any reason why, in the future, (students) would not have textbooks on their e-readers. Everyone would be given something like (laptops),” she said. “Here is your text, here is your extracurricular reading for English, here are your lit circle books.”

No matter where digital education here goes, however, Grimble said she sees difficulties.

“The school would own the e-reader, so it would be registered to them (the school), so they are the only ones that would be able to download. So how do I keep you from getting online digitally and ordering something and charging it to the school? There are hurdles and things that can be worked out, but I think that we are right at the elementary level of (digital) education.”

Just the Beginning?

Across the nation educational reform is in motion. Every day, new methods of teaching are being introduced, and as education changes, so does society.

According to Surette, we are making a big change in the world we are live in.

“We’ve gone from the material world to the digital world,” she said. “Education is changing, just like everything else, to the next best thing – the newest theories, styles of teaching, equipment. Younger kids are going to get their education in a different way than I did, just like I got a different one than my parents.”

However, as digital book reading devices are starting to become a larger part of our world, Grimble said she feels that they will never replace print.

“No matter what happens with it, in the world of just education and schools, I have a difficult time imagining it replacing the print completely,” she said.

Grimble cannot deny, however, that the use of digital book reading devices is on the rise. “For the very first time, e-books outsold print on Amazon this past summer,” she said. “So it’s a growing market, but it’s a growing market that has money.”

As for Surette, she said she agrees with Grimble that digital reading devices will never completely replace traditional books.

“I still read regular books in addition to my Nook. I still have magazines and subscriptions sent to my house and my textbooks are still heavy and large,” she said.

“Just because you get a Nook doesn’t mean you give up on print copies that you already have or want to have.”