Came across a great article by By Bertha Coombs over at CNBC.com: “Tablets make digital textbooks cool on campus”. Inkling and McGraw Hill partnered with Abilene Christian University and provided several of their classes with iPads and iPad textbooks. This case study was a part of the University’s three year old “mobile learning initiative”.
After the project ended, the majority of students said that they would buy an iPad if the majority of their textbooks were available in this format. Almost all students said they preferred etextbooks for a variety of reasons, mainly citing convenience and the ability to share “in-text” notes and ideas with other students and instructors for instant feedback.
“Just the fact that it’s on the iPad and it’s all on there, makes me a lot more interested,” one student who participated in the initiative stated. That has to be good news to hear from teachers at the very least, as they are constantly looking for new ways to engage their students who are increasingly utilizing modern technology and rejecting traditional learning methods.
Hopefully more big textbook publishers will start participating in these case-study projects, as they clearly benefit the future of all students worldwide in the long-run.
Source: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-06-17-digital-textbooks_n.htm