E-Books

I'm torn on e-books. On one hand, I think it's a great idea and a useful tool in the classroom. They would take up less space and ultimately require less dusting. They could be updated quickly and I would like to assume they would be cost effective since the actual publishing part is eliminated. However, you couldn't necessarily assign homework out of the e-book, because not all students have access to a computer or the internet. I guess all students would have access to the public library, but if they cannot drive or their parents cannot drive them to the library, you are back to the original problem. There would be so many benefits, especially if these textbooks were searchable and had links to differentiated activities including videos, experiments, tutorials, games, answers, wikis, forums, etc... This would provide content-rich and interactive learning for students.

I do not know that much about e-books, as I don't have a kindle, but one of my friends does. He loves the fact that it takes up less space and weighs less in his carry on luggage for traveling purposes, although he still purchases hard copies of books. I've read a few places that books expire after so many months, which seems ridiculous to me. The only way books disappear off of my shelf is if I give them away or lose them, not because I have owned them too long. But, this is just what I have heard and not researched, so I am not sure what truth there is in this. Also, I'm not sure that you can share your books, like you can share books from your own shelf. So as far as personal recreational reading goes, I'll stick to purchasing the actual books.