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The Great eReader Debate

The Great eReader Debate
7/13/2011
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Jacquelene Bennett

Kindles, eBooks and Nooks are all electronic alternatives to traditional paper bound books that are slowly becoming more and more popular. Though I prefer paper bound books, I must admit that I really want a Kindle but this gadget and others like it don’t really have a place in college classrooms (yet) for several reasons.

As anyone who has taken a college course can attest, the books and texts assigned to the class are the middle ground for students, professors and the course subject that is being taught. Professors often select certain editions of books for the class for a number of reasons and while the selection of books available for electronic download grows daily, these editions are oftentimes not available. For those courses that have lengthy book lists, another issue is that sometimes only a few books are available electronically while the rest aren’t (I’ve seen this while book shopping for classes on Amazon); this may not be an issue for one individual’s personal reading process but I can’t imagine being a professor and trying to conduct a class with that disruption of different media formats.

I think that one of the main reasons why these devices will have a hard time catching on in the classroom is the distraction they provide. Some devices just don’t store books but they allow people to surf the Internet as well. Professors already hate students bringing their laptops to class for this reason so I doubt they will approve of a Kindle or Nook that has the same capabilities.

The reality is that we do live in a technological world where even books aren’t safe from the oblivion caused by electronic innovations so I think it is just a matter of time before these electronic books become a staple in the classroom.

Jacquelene Bennett is a rising senior at the University of Redlands where her areas of study are creative writing, government and religious studies. When she is not studying or working, you can usually find her eating frozen yogurt or blogging about her day. She has a cactus named Kat and believes that Stephen Colbert is a genius. Jacquelene works hard, laughs hard and knows that one day you’ll see her name in lights.

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