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TechProof

E-Books On Hand

By Doug Johnson

Note: the promised column on going beyond filters to keep kids safe will be in next month. I didn’t forget.

On November 19, 2007, the National Endowment for the Arts released its study, To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence. The report decried a continued decline in reading by teens, concluding:

• Young adults are reading fewer books in general.
• Nearly half of all Americans ages 18 to 24 read no books for pleasure.
• The percentage of 18- to 44-year-olds who read a book fell 7 points from 1992 to 2002.

On the same day, Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon.com, announced the release of the Kindle -- the latest e-book reading device to hit the market.

Is there a relationship between these announcements?

Personally, I’ve been looking forward to the next iteration of “the book" -- when well-designed silicon replaces cellulose as the means for publishing -- for quite a long time. While I may be sentimental about the associative memories certain paper and ink books evoke (my childhood copy of Slovenly Peter, for example), it is the excitement of the story, the perspective of the author, or the lyricism of the language to which I am reacting when I say, “I love books."

In my 1995 column The Future of Books, I suggested that to be genuinely useful, an e-book must

• be highly portable, durable, and power-stingy;
• offer a screen as readable as the printed page;
• have a changeable font size and a text-to-speech reader (for aging eyes);
• include a dictionary definition and pronunciation for any word;
• instantaneously translate texts into multiple languages;
• include input and output devices -- keyboard, track pad, stylus, speaker, microphone, and camera;
• be fully multimedia;
• allow annotation, searching, and book marking of e-texts;
• have both internal and online storage space;
• use e-texts and downloadable audio books that are less expensive than their physical counterparts; and
• be affordable.

The Kindle is batting about 90 percent on that 1995 wish list. It’s not multimedia and, for many of us, not affordable. Critics raise a legitimate concern that its e-book format is not open source and buyer’s rights to use the material are not unrestricted. Big “nots" for sure, but this is still an early generation reader. Depending on my Visa bill balance when the holiday season ends, I might well be buying one of these for my personal use. For those who buy a lot of books, the cost of the device itself is offset by the reduced cost of the e-book version Amazon sells.

For those adventurous souls who might want a lower cost option, the One Laptop Per Child project’s XO computer is available for a limited time on a “Give One, Get One" basis. This sub-$200 computer has a low-power screen that can be swiveled into a tablet configuration and will read materials in PDF format. Project Gutenberg has about half a million free e-books for downloading and use.

While these devices remain imperfect readers, my imagination is fired up thinking of such a device’s use as a replacement for traditional print textbooks and recreational reading materials in schools.

Let’s hand that 7th grader an e-book reader with all her textbooks, required reading literature, and links to WebQuests and other online supplementary materials. The content already will be leveled to her reading ability and customized for the school’s curriculum, with special translation aides for English language learners. That e-book, of course, contains common reference materials and a means of storing and accessing personally selected materials as well.

Never going to happen? Say we could buy (or lease for five years) a textbook for a fourth of its current $80 cost? Cut out the printing costs of worksheets, reduce the clerical costs of tracking and inventorying physical textbooks, and even eliminate school lockers. Possible?

Pearson is just one textbook publisher producing e-textbooks, claiming a cost to schools similar to the print versions. (Log in, enter password, read a textbook. USA Today, December 17, 2007 < > Could that eventually be less costly than how we do school now?

And given the fascination with technology of our Net Generation students, might the very electronic format of the reading experience increase the amount of reading they do -- reversing the NEA’s gloomy findings?

In an earlier TechProof column ( Disappointed Again This Year), I bemoaned the fact that we don’t have a true “education computer." The Kindle, the XO, and similar devices are beginning to offer it all -- readability, interactivity, portability, productivity and affordability. And perhaps the motivation to read.

Perhaps just in time.

2. We generously use the override lists in our Internet filter; and we make sure educators can override the filter or have access to a machine that is completely unblocked in each media center so that questionably blocked sites can be reviewed and immediately accessed by staff and students if found to be useful.
Our district media/technology committee decided that any teacher or media specialist may have a site unblocked by simply requesting it -- no questions asked. The technology department was relieved of the responsibility, beyond correctly installing and configuring the filter, for students accessing possibly inappropriate materials; and all school staff members were still required to continue to monitor students while on the Internet as if no filter were present. The technicians now know that it is the responsibility of the teaching staff, not theirs, to see that students do not access inappropriate materials, so there is less tendency to “block everything -- just in case."

3. We treat requests for the blocking of specific websites like we would any other material challenge.
We require that when any staff member, parent, or community member requests that a specific Internet site be blocked, the request be treated like any other material challenge in the district. My district, like most, has a “reconsideration" policy outlining procedures to follow when someone requests that any material be removed from our schools, whether it is a book from a media center or classroom, a textbook chapter from the curriculum, or a video from the collection. Our policy calls for the person making the request to complete a form specifying what is objectionable about the material. Once completed, a special committee is formed that carefully reviews the material and then makes a recommendation to the school board about the material -- whether to retain it or remove it. The school board then decides the issue, based on the recommendations of the committee. Online resources are given the same rigorous review process before being blocked.

MAINTAINING THE BALANCE

Maintaining both the concept of intellectual freedom and providing a healthy and educational online environment might seem to be a difficult balancing act. But so far, our district seems to have been able to both meet the requirements of CIPA and give staff and students access to the greatest possible range of online resources. As an intellectual freedom advocate, I am monitoring the situation very closely!

Next month in TechProof, I’ll take a look at other means of keeping kids from harm while on the Internet that make more sense than relying on filters.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Selected resources on the effectiveness of filters written in the past 5 years.
(URLs verified October 2007.)

• ALA's Web Site on the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA)
• Does Pornography-Blocking Software Block Access to Health Information on the Internet. JAMA, Dec 11, 2002.
• Library Filtering: How Filters Work, Infopeople Project, 2007.
• Internet Blocking in Schools, Electronic Freedom Foundation, 2003.
• Youth, Pornography and the Internet. National Research Council, 2002.

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01/11/2008