How Will E-Books Affect the Future of Learning - Essay Example

?How Will E-Books Affect The Future of Learning? With technological advancements all around in our ambiance, many things have taken a different turn in the manner in which they used to operate and exist. Book reading and their existence has also come under the influence of technological umbrella that has spread its shadow in every sphere of the life. Nearly every second book is available on the internet and online. These books are termed as e (electronic) books. They have changed the dynamics of books reading and their existence in many ways. With the modern form of book reading knocking at the door of modern society, various questions will come to mind in context of its impact on number of variables that were associated with the pre existing form of books. The questions would pertain to its impact on the publishers, its impact on the level of reading, the life span of a particular piece of work and various other questions which come to mind naturally. With transition from existing form of book reading to the digital means, there is a need for preserving the large amount of text that is being written over centuries that pertains to the cultural values, the pre historic times, stages of mankind’s progress to modern day and all other important pieces of writing. Such factors must be taken into account and proper working and bodies should be constituted to ensure no work of literature and history is lost in pursuit of modern trends and transition. It’s possible impact on the artists, poets, and other literature associated personnel must be taken into account since transition in that domain may not be as easy, as it might appear in the context of science and technology. A salient feature of electronic reading is in form of the dictionaries, nearly all electronic reading devices come up with dictionaries. In past, the readers had to carry separate book in form of dictionary for purpose of finding their meanings. Dictionaries come in form of softwares which are mere few mega bytes in space. The new form of book readings makes reading far easy. It enables the access to any book online without waiting to go to the stores which might be away from a particular station. Websites like Amazon and few others are the foundation brick towards it since they are the world’s largest online books domains .large amount of customers ranging in millions are registered over the website, which speaks of the popularity and increase in trend of e book reading. Electronic books will be available on the mobile phones, special electronic reading devices, laptops, and other gadgets, hence the domain of reading and its access becomes broad and would spread at a faster rate compared to the conventional form of reading that existed in past(Adams & Hamm, 2005). The large amount of hand held devices specifically made for online book reading are promoting this trend further. With gadgets like I-pad and Amazon Kindle easily available in market and having staggeringly positive outcomes from its sales, one can predict the future to be purely dominated by electronic books. The e-books will have an advantage over the conventional form of books in many aspects, which not only includes the price, but also the spacing consideration, the ease of access, and various other features. A small but intriguing feature of the e books is the illumination independence. While reading the conventional hard form of book requires illumination in the background, the electronic books can be read even in absence of light in the background since the source of electronic book, which are mostly the handheld devices and e-readers, provide light in itself. The electronic book concept gives rise to the virtual institutes and that we already see being implemented across the world in various forms of data bases and online learning centers. It will wash out the limits defined by boundaries and will enable any piece of work to be read and accessed by a person sitting in other corner of the world million miles in distance. Electronic books will enable increasing the literacy rates in many sections of societies. They can be used as a source for targeting areas of low literacy rates since the ease of learning is largely flexible in the field of electronic books. The newspaper domain of learning and reading would also benefit from the electronic invasion. People would no more need to wait for hawkers, and would have access to the newspaper on that very day in the later part of the day. It would surely result in saving the money spent over the newspapers, the only medium needed for all this access would be internet which is largely available in almost every society and part of the world. The new form of books will not just benefit the readers; rather provide ease to the teaching units as well. With help of graphs, animations, audios, the margins for improvement level of knowledge transfer increases with the introduction of this form of books. Electronic book reading will also impact the large sized libraries in towns and universities. With access to almost every book online, student would tend to stay at home and read online rather than visiting the libraries. Many educational institutes have large sized data bases which provide access to international journals and various other books from the respective disciplines (Kresh, pg 276, 2007). E books will benefit different segments of the society ranging from the young ones to old ones, they will enable the handicapped and people with certain disabilities to read and join their ranks. With more options of colors and graphics as strength to its features, it will enable easy learning. Electronic books are not just limited to the textual format of documents; rather they provide options of audio and visual animations. Hence the digital dominance in the field of reading and books is certainly bound to revolutionalize the way learning is being conducted and with time, a large package of benefits would be seen in form of its introduction at lowest level. Bibliography: 1-Adams, D. M. & Hamm, M., 2005. “Redefining Education in the Twenty-First Century: Shaping Collaborative Learning in the Age of Information”. s.l.:Charles C Thomas Publisher. 2-Kresh, D., 2007. “The Whole Digital Library Handbook”. Chicago: ALA Editions. Read More