Technology is a part of our everyday lives, so it should come as no surprise that high tech gadgets are quickly “digitalizing” our classrooms. Tablet computers are becoming particularly important, and could eventually replace our old bound paper textbooks.
Certainly, I wouldn’t miss lugging around a backpack full of books and instead carrying a tablet. And well some people might cringe at the thought of buying every student a tablet, they could actually help schools save money in the long run.
Turns out that textbooks bought online are often much cheaper than normal printed text books. The markup on a traditional text book is typically between 30 to 35 percent, so there’s a lot of room to cut down on costs. In fact, most text books from iBooks costs 14.99 or less!
Right now the battle for the tablet and e-reader market is currently between Apple’s iPad and Amazon’s Kindle. Amazon’s device is a 7 inch tablet that costs only 199 dollars. The Apple’s iPad is much larger at 9.7 inches, however, its price tag also grows to a whopping 499 dollars! Amazon has more content with over a million publications, compared to about 700 thousand on the iBookstore.
Beyond tablets, other technological changes are also transforming our classrooms. From high end projectors and computers, to iTunes U and software programs like Blackboard and Moodle, numerous technological developments are reshaping our entire education system.
How is or was technology used in your school? Anything different from the above? And how do you think you school could be improved?
