Considering Kindle was the #1 bestselling produce on Amazon this Christmas season, it looks like the eBook phenomenon is no passing fad. Skeptics who groused that no one would want to read a full-length book or novel on a little screen have obviously been proven wrong, but will the convenience and affordability of handheld wireless reading devices translate to the classroom?

I spent a good part of the winter holiday season scouring the Web to put together a reading list for the class I’m teaching this term on the strategic application of social media resources in communications campaigns. Considering the average college student pays more than $900 a year on textbooks, I wanted to lighten the load and utilize the resources available online. It took some time, but I’m excited by the range of sources I was able to pull together. I’m hoping the students find the online resources helpful, but we’ll see if they miss the convenience of having all their course material collected in one place.

The start up cost of using eBooks in the classroom may be fairly high, but long-term savings could be substantial. What do you think about replacing traditional textbooks with eBooks? What might we lose by giving up traditional paste and paper books?

The responses I get are usually based on reading preferences and lifestyles. I don’t usually hear about how e-books affect the way our brain reads and processes information, which is why I was intrigued by an New York Times blog post, “Does the Brian like E-Books?”

The Room for Debate article was made up of contributions from five experts: an English professor, an author, a professor of child development, a computer scientist and a professor of informatics. A common thread through each opinion was that e-books are different than traditional books and we read them differently. With e-books come more distractions such as hyperlinks and advertisements. In addition, we read with speed in mind. We download quickly and get the information we want with the click of a mouse and it raises the question of whether or not we still have time to think, process and analyze what we’re reading.

E-books are a relatively new technology and we can assume there is a lot of research to come on how they may affect us as readers, especially those that learn to read with e-books. While the research is conducted and debates are held, I think that it’s important to remember that we have control over how books (electronic or otherwise) are consumed, taught, and written. We may have to work harder to get distracted, and we may have to spend more time teaching our students the importance of analyzing what an author has written, but we shouldn’t let extra effort keep us from all the advantages of this technology or any technology. I think this is summed up nicely by one of the blog contributor’s, David Gelernter, “The tools (as usual) are neutral. It’s up to us to insist that onscreen reading enhance, not replace, traditional book reading.”

Last week the state of California released a list of 10 free digital text books that meet state standards for science and math. The California government is suggesting that using free digital text books is a way for schools to save money during these times of deep budgetary cuts. But is it? Many schools are saying that they can’t afford digital textbooks, free or not. They say using digital textbooks means that students will need access to computers that they don’t currently have. Implementing digital text books will require schools to purchase laptops for each student and to find ways for students to access the text books at home where some don’t have computers.

It’s fair to say that e-books are catching on. Amazon is developing a Kindle 3 and increasingly has more and more e-reader competitors. People are using their cell phone to read books. The United Nations has opened the World Digital Library and is scanning historical documents from libraries around the world. E-books will continue to grow in popularity and become a large part of how we consume information, and digital textbook use will probably increase as well, however are schools ready for this technology today? I think the answer is yes and no.

There are so many educators that want to embrace new technology including digital textbooks, but while there are schools that have computers for every student and have funding for teacher training, all too often schools don’t have this luxury. We need to invest more money into our schools for technology and professional development around using technology so that all schools can jump on opportunities such as free digital text books. It may be a lot to ask in the current economic climate, but as they say, there’s no such thing as a free lunch…or in this case a free book.

(pic from gigapple.files.wordpress.com)