E-Book Technology Plan for Teaching - Literature review Example

E-Book Technology plan for teaching Your name Course Date Abstract The introduction of digital technology has presented new learning experiences through the internet. One of these experiences is the introduction of electronic books or E-books which have enriched learning. E-books have reduced the cost and have eased the mode of learning by making interactive and meaningful educational experiences more readily available. Culture, attitude, inadequate resource and institutional barriers are some of the obstacles towards adoption of this mode of learning. There is need for careful planning by involving all the education stakeholders in order to overcome these barriers. Collaboration, talking to students, visual teaching, and Creativity rather than regurgitation is important and this needs to be done in future to ease the adoption of this technology. Introduction The advancement of teaching through e-Learning technology has created the need for developing new technologies in teaching environment– in part to match the skills and interests of students and in part because it can offer more effective learning experiences. This paper will specifically focus on developing a new e book as a new technology concept of teaching English language to students at public schools in Saudi Arabia as a second language. The paper will explore the technology context by defining the importance of its adoption in teaching. In addition, this paper will identify the developed e book technological need, explain the choice of the e book as a technology to be adopted in teaching English students, identify obstacles to its implementation and consequently explains various strategies for overcoming these barriers. Finally, the paper will create a visual plan for the recommended steps involved in the e book implementation in teaching and make necessary recommendations for the e book adoption. E-book as a technological need in education The students of today have been brought up in a world of technology, especially digital technology. This has created the need to have digital technological access via various applications in order to fit in with the comfort level of students (Miller 2009). The developed e-book will be devised to improve the teaching effectiveness, improve student achievement, and enhance learning results. The e-book will help the teacher in preparation of different materials that support the English lesson in one place such as video YouTube, games, pictures and audio tapes. A teacher will be able to write the English lesson content on the e-book, bookmark pages, and add video from YouTube that are related to the lesson as well as highlight key areas, make notes, and save relevant parts. Besides these options, the e-book will also include adjustable font styles and sizes. In addition, it will have easy import options that will enable it to convert PDF to Adobe based page eBooks, convert multiple PDF files to a single file, and import bookmarks or outlines with PDF in order to edit them manually among many other features. According to (Levy 2006), e-books impeccably fit into the e-learning software as their content is highly involving regardless of whether the material needed is remedial or supplemental. It is also immediately accessible and, therefore, extremely suitable for teachers and students. Through the application of a variety of learning styles, e-books have proven to be beneficial to teachers in terms of efficiency, affordability, and accessibility in a diversity of podiums for teaching applications. Importance of e-book as an ELearning technology As e-learning is beginning to play a pivotal role in education, portfolios of technology related to it have been developed including the e-book for standards of e-learning. E-learning can be said to have an ecosystem made up of parents, students, and teachers. A system of learning is at the center, which includes e-books, school curricula, and internet learning sources (Rosenberg 2006). Teachers will employ the use of this system particularly the developed e-books mainly to design courses, developing curricula, assessment, and teaching whereas students will use it to gain access to electronic data and the ensuing assessments. The advancement of e-books in e-learning technology will create the need to shift to an e-book with critical elements like interactivity, internet-reachable references, multi-media subjects, and assessment. An e-book standard for e-learning will be introduced emphasizing on all these factors. The availability of these standards will ascertain interoperability between matters developed by publishers and software e-readers implemented by the IT industry. Obstacles to e-book implementation The implementation of e-book in teaching English language as a second language to Saudi Arabian students using the e-book will be met by various barriers. These barriers include culture, attitude, inadequate resource and institutional barriers as some of the obstacles that will be encountered in the effort of implementation of this technology plan. Attitudes and beliefs are some of the barriers that can be encountered. The decision towards adopting e-book technology vests on the beliefs that teachers and students hold towards technology (Cavanaugh 2006). Integration of digital tools into the curriculum is dependent on the teachers’ beliefs towards the integration. Negative attitude and beliefs towards technology can serve as a significant barrier towards integration. Teachers may not have the resources necessary to integrate this mode of learning in their classroom. Lack of resources is a major constraint. These resources include financial constraints, limited internet access and inadequate technical support. These resources range from hardware, software and internet access. This therefore makes it difficult for some schools to integrate the technology. However, this can be overcomed through gradual introduction of the e-book to the schools. Inadequate knowledge and skills is also another barrier. Teachers usually focus on a specific technology and most of them grew in areas where there were no computers. Furthermore, institutional barriers can be another challenge. These are factors other than those exhibited within a classroom set up. These factors include leadership, the structure of the school’s time table can be a barrier to integration of this technology. Where schools do not have plans that are comprehensive to both students and teachers, then it becomes a barrier towards integration of this technology (Miller 2009). Ways of overcoming these Barriers. According to Levy (2006), creating a shared vision is one of the ways of overcoming these obstacles. This can be done by justifying to the staff and administration the ways in which the new technology will shape and support the academic standards. Institutions should make an interactive technology by use of older programs and technologies which are relatively cheaper. For example the use of net books which are relatively cheaper than the laptops and have most basic educational programs. Rethinking assessment can also be used to overcome these challenges. Institutional assessment usually takes high standardized testing. Little or no time is thus left for new methods of instruction. Librarians should therefore show the positive effects of the technology in order to advocate for its integration. Professional training should also be used. This can be used in order to ensure that teachers’ attitudes are enhanced. This will enable them integrate knowledge and skills in a classroom set up. There will be need to careful planning by collaboration, talking to students, visual teaching, and employing creativity rather than regurgitation in implementation efforts (Cavanaugh 2006). Visual plan to recommend Steps that will be involved in the e-book Implementation. Implementing the e-book technology in teaching might be easier but should be carefully planned. (Turner, 2005) identified three major phases that should be involved in integrating a new technology such as e-book technology. They include educational phase, buy-in phase, and implementation phase. Educational phase This phase involves portraying the merits of the e-book technology over the common mode used in teaching. Buy-in phase This phase involves making frequent presentations and other education strategies to administrators, students and staffs involving the integrating the e-book technology. Implementation and Evaluation phase: This is the phase where the e-book is implemented. This review should focus on adoption, acceptance of the customer in order to ensure that the technology is operating as expected. It should also ensure that all e-books are retrievable technologically. Justification for choosing the e-book as Technology Plan for E-learning Technology Flexibility: The flexibility associated with e-books and the presence of options equivalent to paper books has increased their popularity. The e-book will be saved as PDF files thereby eliminating the need to engage the help of a reader device to read them. This will help the teachers and students in enhancing their learning in a better way than the traditional teaching methods. Accessibility: E-books fit into the e-learning software as their content is highly involving regardless of whether the material needed is remedial or supplemental. It is also immediately accessible and, therefore, extremely suitable for teachers and students. Efficiency and affordability: Through the application of a variety of learning styles, e-books have proven to be beneficial to teachers in terms of efficiency and affordability in a diversity of podiums for teaching applications (Goldin & Katz 2008). Presentation in teaching: The developed e-book will improve teacher’s presentation mode and will ease their mode of teaching. The implementation of the planned technology will create the need to shift to an e-book with critical elements like interactivity, internet-reachable references, multi-media subjects, and assessment. Time saving: Teachers will be able to download the text materials at any point in time in just a matter of minutes. This immediate access reduces time, costs associated with handling, delivery and the challenges associated with other types of e-books. According to Turner (2005), use of e-book technology will positively shape the academic standards and therefore, institutions should inevitably adopt this technology. Recommendations In order to effectively adopt the e-book technology, the following recommendations should be considered. Pilot study in several schools and careful planning is recommended during the implementation process of the e-book technology. Involving all the education stakeholders in the implementation is important in order to overcome barriers. Collaboration with institutions head, talking to students and employing visual teaching in the technology implementation will be important in the implementation process. Gradual introduction of the e-book to schools is recommended so as to integrate the already used mode of teaching that the teachers and students are used to. Obstacles to the e-book implementation should be tackled as they arise as by so doing, this will allow step by step overcoming of these barriers and proper approach to the identified obstacles. The Visual plan identified above for the steps that will be involved in the e-book implementation should be considered carefully as by doing so, implementing the developed e-book technology in teaching will be easier. Conclusion In conclusion, the planned e-book is a powerful e-learning technology for teaching that should be implemented. This is mainly because it is easily accessible to teachers and students. However, e-books implementation in schools and institutions has faced many challenges which should be dealt with carefully in order to fully implement their adoption. Specifically, e-books on English subjects commonly used in Saudi Arabian schools should be made available at cheaper costs so as to make them affordable to teachers as second language teachers. E-book technology is primarily a representation of the shift in culture. Some time ago, publishing a book would take a considerable amount of time and resources as it would involve editors, designers, undecided publishers who may not see the book’s worth, and typesetters. On the other hand, e-book can easily be published by everyone who can use a computer. The developed e-book teaching guide will improve their presentation mode and will ease their mode of teaching. References Cavanaugh, T (2006). The digital reader: using e-books in K-12 education, Eugene: International Society for Technology in Education Freda Turner (2005). Incorporating Digital E-books into Educational Curriculum Available from www.itdl.org/journal/nov_05/article05.htm Goldin, C & Katz, L 2008, the race between education and technology, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press Levy, Y (2006).Assessing the value of e-learning systems, Hershey: Information Science Pub. Miller, W (2009). Adapting to E-books. London : Routledge. Rosenberg, M (2006). Beyond e-learning: approaches and technologies to enhance organizational Knowledge, learning, and performance, San Francisco: Pfeiffer. Read More