E-books Fail The Classroom Test

[It is interesting that the thumbs down comes from students.]

E-books Fail The Classroom Test 
Posted at 8:05AM Monday 06 Sep 2010 

Expectations were high a year ago when seven US colleges, including two business schools, University of Washington Foster School of Business and the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, signed up with Amazon to test the online retailer's large-screen Kindle DX e-book reader. 
But while students liked some of the Kindle's features most were unhappy overall with the user experience. 

http://www.booktrade.info/i.php/29087

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e185bce2-b76a-11df-839a-00144feabdc0.html

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&safe=off&q=%22E-books+fail+the+classroom+test%22+site%3A+ft.com&fp=1&cad=b

'...

In fact, by the second semester, most students had abandoned their Kindles, choosing instead to read case studies on their laptop or on paper. In a mid-term survey, the pilot scheme participants were asked: “Would you recommend the Kindle DX to an incoming Darden MBA student?

“A total of 75-80 per cent answered ‘no’,” says Mr Koenig. Kindle-using students were then asked: “Would you recommend the Kindle DX to an incoming MBA student as a personal reading device?” A total of 90-95 per cent said “yes”....'

'... Kindle is “not flexible enough ... It could be clunky. You can’t move between pages, documents, charts and graphs simply or easily enough compared to the paper alternatives.”...'

'...For the past 22 years, Grenoble students have been asked to have a PC. “The question now is to find out whether the iPad will replace PCs,” says Marc Humbert, head of the Innovation Laboratory. “We may find that the iPad is less ‘intrusive’ than a PC, which, when open in the classroom, is like a barrier between the student and faculty.”...'

[This last perplexes me (to put it politely). If the PC is a barrier i nthe classroom it is ridiculous to stay with it, surely?] 






Joseph Harris is Smile Poet
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