Muhammad Bin Razali-d4e4-school Resource Center 2

chool libraries are filled with traditional paper books—great resources for the students who take the time to go into the library, locate the book on the shelf, leaf through it to see if it has potential to provide the information they need, and then check it out to spend serious time with it. But put that way, it sounds like a lot of work to access a library book, doesn’t it? Maybe more than most of today’s fast-moving, digitally savvy kids are willing to do. The library’s resources also offer teachers an abundance of options to enhance daily classroom lessons. Yet with all that teachers are expected to do each day just to present the core curriculum, it is becoming increasingly difficult to spend any amount of time in the library looking for additional resources. Enter ebooks into the equation, and you’ll discover an entirely different result. When electronic versions of books in the library are made available to students

and teachers via the internet, an array of new teaching and learning possibilities unfolds. The potential of ebooks in schools can be forecast by the sheer popularity of ebooks in society in general. Over the last 5 years, ebooks are the only book publishing segment consistently showing double-digit sales increases. The Association of American Publishers’ (AAP) 2007 “S1 Report” reveals that sales of ebooks have enjoyed a compounded growth rate of 55.7% since 2002. And there’s no sign of a slowdown. AAP statistics show that the sales of ebooks are continuing to grow at a staggering rate—up by 77.8% for the month of September 2008 ($5.1 million), reflecting an increase of 55.2 percent for the year. Why should librarians and other educators jump on this bandwagon? Twenty-first-century school libraries really need to do more than inventory information for students. They need to provide the tools and resources students need to develop technology and information literacy. > January/February 2009

MULTIMEDIA & INTERNET@SCHOOLS

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TECHNOLOGY

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Ebooks move school libraries into the 21st century for a few very simple reasons: I Ebooks provide instant access to library books. I They bring lessons to life. I They engage struggling readers. I They connect technology and learning.

Struggling readers will also benefit from built-in ebook functions, including zoom tools to make text bigger for easier reading, read-aloud options, keyword search, and an expandable dictionary to look up unfamiliar words instantly.

21ST-CENTURY LEARNERS ENGAGE WITH TECHNOLOGY 24/7 ACCESS INCREASES OPPORTUNITIES FOR ONLINE LEARNING, READING, AND RESEARCH Today’s students have grown up surrounded by techThink of the student who waits till the last minute nology and are often bored by traditional classroom acto complete a research assignment. He needs one last tivities. Studies have shown that even students who say resource to be able to turn it in on time. With ebooks in they don’t enjoy reading find it to be more enjoyable your library, he can log on to your catalog, search and when reading an ebook. Whether students are reading preview sources, then downa traditional book or an load the appropriate source, ebook, reading is reading, all from home, even in the right? Getting nonreaders to middle of the night before read by offering ebook alterWhen electronic versions of books the assignment is due! natives is reason alone to add Once an ebook is downebooks to your library. in the library are made available loaded to the user’s computFor high school students to students and teachers via the er, it is checked out for the who have hectic schedules, same period of time as the ebooks make researching internet, an array of new teaching traditional book, and users and writing assignments can make notes and often easier. There’s no need to and learning possibilities unfolds. copy, paste, or print sections. arrange to get to school earThat means teachers and ly or stay late to find restudents can locate the books source materials in the lithey want and check them brary. They can access the out whenever the mood strikes. Reading and learning materials from home, download them to a home comexpands beyond the classroom and school hours. puter, highlight sections, and take notes right in the books while they read. VISUAL EXAMPLES OF CLASSROOM LESSONS GETTING STARTED More and more schools are employing classroom projectors and interactive whiteboards. In fact, one study School libraries have a variety of options when it suggests that one of every seven classrooms in the comes to adding ebooks to their collections. Several world will feature an interactive whiteboard by 2011. companies such as NetLibrary (www.netlibrary.com) But what content are they using with these tools? When and ebrary (www.ebrary.com) offer subscription servicthey download an ebook and project it in front of the es to allow users to access their ebook catalogs on declass, they can put these valuable tools to work: mand. Other companies such as Follett Library ReI Teaching grammar and diagramming sentence sources (www.flr.follett.com) sell ebook titles to schools structure with a page from a classic novel using the same procedures as traditional books. The I Extracting the meaning of sections of company offers more than 45,000 ebook versions of Shakespeare in front of the class while students graphic novels, big picture books, young adult titles, follow along with their own texts reference books, nonfiction selections, and more. In adI Labeling the anatomy of a cell to prep students dition, libraries can purchase reference materials, such for the next day’s lab as Gale Virtual Reference Library (www.gale.cengage I Presenting interactive guided reading lessons .com/gvrl), that actually allow reference materials to with a big book in front of the whole class circulate to multiple users at once, whether the ebook is accessed from school or home. STRUGGLING READERS HAVE MORE CHOICES Whatever way you select to build your state-of-theStudents who need extra help reading are often unart digital collection, ebooks add a new dimension of comfortable choosing books at their own reading level. technology-driven learning to your school. Ebooks eliminate these concerns. Students can choose appropriate books and read them on the computer, and Deborah McKenzie is an ebooks product manager for their peers are none the wiser. Now, rather than strugFollett Digital Resources (www.fdr.follett.com). She gling through books that create frustrations, students can be reached at [email protected]. I can continue to enjoy reading success and progress.

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