NEWSPAPERS and novels are moving briskly from paper to pixels, but textbooks have yet to find the perfect electronic home. They are readable on laptops and smartphones, but the displays can be eye-taxing. Even dedicated e-readers with their crisp printlike displays can’t handle textbook staples like color illustrations or the videos and Web-linked supplements publishers increasingly supply.
Now there is a new approach that may adapt well to textbook pages: two-screen e-book readers with a traditional e-paper display on one screen and a liquid-crystal display on the other to render graphics like science animations in color.
The dual screens are linked by a central processor so that, for example, a link on the e-paper display can open on the color screen.
A picture at the link shows the new device. Imagine opening a book; the left page (screen) would be the text, and the right page (screen) would be the graphics.
I don't see such fragile electronics replacing books in public schools for a very long time. At the college level, where students pay for their books already, there might be a market.
In a perfect world, this would absolutely fit in. But we have a world where when inner city school kids are offered laptops to use, they get pawned or stolen or loaded with porn.That was the result of a local district here. There is also the issue of connection to the network. I don't know about your district, but in mine we have to constantly put up firewalls to prevent internet attacks and spam. It may happen someday, but it's just too costly to implement any time soon.
ReplyDeleteAt the college level ... too expensive! Got tuition to pay, you know! ;)
ReplyDeleteW
ReplyDeletea
n
t
!