Electronic Books for Students - Essay Example

Electronic Books What electronic books improve students" reading skills? Introduction Electronic books commonly referred to as E-books are the digital form of the print books and are slowly replacing the print books for college students. These books are much more convenient for all students from kindergarten to college because they can be accessed from the computers, tablets, PDAs and even smart phones and hence can be read anywhere without necessarily going to a library. They also provide easy access to dictionary and links to additional information from other sources which can also be easily and quickly accessed. This enables quick information gathering and learning for those who accept it (Lam 33). These books have a few disadvantages which will be addressed later on but it generally improves the students reading skills. There are those however which improves the skills more than the rest and they include those not included in the disadvantageous list and they will be discussed in detail below. Repositories Disciplinary repositories are online sites which contain research findings of different subject areas and fields of study and are in the form of e-books or journals. These disciplinary repositories can be used by students in different fields of study to carry out school assignments or even aid in research as they have varying content and services. The fact that they are many of them offers convenience to the students who do not have time to physically go to a library to carry out research for their school projects (Stebbins 244). Since they are peer-reviewed, they can be referenced as well adding to their value for the students reading skills. The repositories have recommendations for further research as well as lists of additional e-books which the students can refer to for further investigation and reading. Students are also able to get a myriad of new vocabularies they can use in their fields of research and work in future. This also increases their marks and points in assignments as it indicates they are well read and versed with the subject area. Commended by librarians Librarians other than pointing out directions to the subject sections which is what majority of the students think about their work, they are well versed with the different books physical and e-books that are new in the different subject areas and even their brief content. If a student has no clue of which e-book is relevant with the information they are searching and they lack time to find that out, they can simply seek the assistance of the librarians. The librarians will carry out the search for them even through e-book reviews and chose the best electronic book which they can use to improve their reading skills as well as increase their knowledge on the subject area (Stebbins 245). The good thing is that they will even seek the free electronic books so that the student does not have to incur any extra costs for the information they seek. The trick in using a librarian to seek the best electronic book is become as specific as possible on the subject area and content that the book needs to contain. Social metadata Social metadata is a collection of different social media data from different social media sites. The social media sites in discussion are not the common ones used nowadays such as facebook and twitter but rather social media sites set up by e-books companies, individual writers and researchers (Stebbins 245). In these sites, they post data of researches in small e-books which can be read quickly and the information provide guidance to further research that will be much more detailed. These metadata e-books are effective as reference points to longer research articles as well as provide relevant reading skills. For students who use social media a lot during their free time, they can incorporate these sites and can be passing time reading brief research contents on these e-books just to add onto their already existing knowledge and educational skills necessary for their different fields of education as well as courses they are learning (Korat 25). With graphics Graphics are an important part of any reading book physical or electronic. This is because it provides visualization of the written information making it easily understood as well remembered by the students and especially when they are revising for examination and simply have time to only scheme and scan the notes and not read in depth. The electronic books that provide more graphics and which are way better enhanced or which can be changed to understand better the concept are the perfect ones for students. This is because in addition to the e-books being convenient to read anywhere, the students during examination time can simply scheme through the graphics in these e-books when in traffic or during breaks and remember the whole concept (Woody, Daniel & Baker 945). They do not have to carry books with them to examination rooms but simply have to use their smart phones to revise. Electronic books with these graphical features are therefore the best for the students. The cheap or free ones The greatest disadvantage of the electronic books is that majority of them come with a price tag and which is rather expensive for the regular student to purchase several of them and for each and every course they undertake in college (Walters, 190). The best electronic books that are bound to be widely read by these students and assist them to improve on their reading skills are those that can be rented by the hour which will mean students reading them only when necessary hence it will not be too costly for them. The best alternative however is those electronic books that can be provided for free by the original writer’s even if just a preview of the different chapters. The colleges can however can subscribe to the sites with these electronic books and journals and pay the subscription fee yearly which would provide unlimited access to these books by the students. The more the access of these books, the more the reading skills will be accumulated by the students and hence the better their overall performance will be which will in turn reflect positively to the college. Can be copied and pasted on another document Research indicates that majority of the students resisting the use of the electronic books despite their convenience and more advantages than the print books other than cost are because their content cannot be copied and pasted. This is especially so for the graphics such as graphs, maps and other statistical features which they need for referencing purposes and especially when writing essay papers and assignments. The e-books do not allow for the students to copy their graphics and this discourages most of them from reading them (Woody, Daniel & Baker 946). This is especially the case for the college students who do not want to seek other electronic articles or simply relying on only one reference material. Conclusion As discussed in detail above, research indicates that the number of students using the electronic books is still relatively low despite of its advantages and hence it is important for the college administration through the lecturers and student leaders to advocate for the administration to purchase subscription for the several printing presses to allow for access of the electronic books to the students. When the students can be able to access these e-books without incurring any extra cost on their part, they can then be more enthusiastic about reading them and improving their reading skills and ultimately their performance (Gil-Flores, et al 655). The rest of the students who do not access the e-books because of lack of copying and pasting ability should be taught how to use the statistics provided in these books to generate their own graphical information. Better yet, they can identify the source of the graphical which in most cases have links and follow these links to acquire the exact information from the original site where they can copy it from. Work Cited Gil-Flores, Javier., Juan-Jesus Torres-Gordillo & Victor-Hugo Perera-Rodriguez.. The role of online reader experience in explaining students’ performance in digital reading. Computer and Education, 2012, 59: 653-660. Korat, Ofra. Reading electronic books as a support for vocabulary, story comprehension and word reading in kindergarten and first grade. Computers and Education, 2010, 55: 24- 31. Lam, Paul, et al. Usability and usefulness of eBooks on PPCs: How students’ opinions vary over time. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 2009, 25(1): 30-44. Stebbins, Leslie. Keeping Current: Reviews and Analysis of Special Reports. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 5 June, 2012, 38(4): 244-246. Walters, William. E-books in Academic Libraries: Challenges for Acquisition and Collection Management. Libraries and Academies, 2013: 13(2): 187-211. Waycott, Jenny & Agnes Kukulska-Hulme. Students’ experiences with PDAs for reading course materials. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, May, 2003, 7(1): 30-43. Woody, Douglas., David Daniel & Crystal Baker. E-books or textbooks: Students prefer textbooks. Computers and Education, 2010, 55: 945-948. Read More