E-readers make strides in the classroom, some students not comfortable with technology yet
Pete Maniez cannot imagine life without his iPad.
The St. Johns sophomore began using an iPad for RPL 400D: Digital Media in Recreation and now uses it to take notes in his other classes.
“In other lecture classes, where other people use laptops, I use the Evernote app on the iPad,” he said. “Our professors keep telling us social media and digital media (are not) going away ... I think more classes like this would be beneficial to everyone.”
Many of the students read the textbook and use other features of the iPad or other eReaders as part of the class, said Michael Reuter, director of distributed computing and technical operations, who is co-teaching the class with Dan Bracken, associate director of the Faculty Center for Innovative Teaching.
Reuter has a paper copy of the text book, but he sees some advantages to both ways of consuming media.
“You can, for example, search an entire book for something (with an e-reader) ... it will tell you instantly where it is,” he said. “If you want to refresh yourself on a different topic that is presented a bunch of different ways in a book you can look through them quickly.”
But there are some disadvantages to the iPad as well. They are much easier to get distracted on than a dedicated e-reader, such as an Amazon Kindle, which will not as easily allow you to access Facebook or other sites, Bracken said.
For his class, students use the iPad to read the textbook, Adobe Acrobat documents or other website assignments.
“It is a very different experience, reading a book on a display like that,” Bracken said. “I tend to jump around a lot if I’m trying to read something. It’s a little different in terms of flipping around to different pages.”
One of the problems with the early Kindle in the classroom was that it didn’t have page numbers, so it was difficult to orient the class to the same page, Reuter said. But the latest update on the reader should fix that.
The students are encouraged to take notes on their iPads, as Maniez does, but other students are not as comfortable with the technology. Waterford junior Kelley Marcaccio said she doesn’t take notes on her iPad.
“I’m almost too new to it to rely on it in class,” she said. “It’s really helpful to have the resources when (users are) at a baby stage.”
Bracken said time will tell how people adapt to the devices and their health impacts, but it is important for students to know how to use the technology.
