Schools

[Update] E-Books: A New Chapter for Avon Public Schools?

The Avon school district looks into replacing textbooks with e-books in the future.

Avon students’ reading loads may be lighter in the future, but only because of the decreased weight of books in backpacks if the school district decides to purchase more e-books instead of physical textbooks.

“I think it’s an area of major transition in all schools,” Interim Assistant Superintendent Paula Schwartz said on Monday at a special Board of Education meeting about Superintendent Gary Mala's proposed 2012-13 budget. “All of that’s being considered as part of a new technology plan.”

Schools in the district already own 200 curriculum e-books from Marshall Cavendish and Infobase available and 300 reference e-books from the Gale Virtual Reference Library, mostly for research materials, Schwartz said, but there are limited electronic textbooks. Select Spanish, French and physics classes are using them now.

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The district is also using the ABC Clio permanent e-book database and exploring other databases on a trial basis that would require annual subscriptions.

Schwartz said she anticipates electronic textbooks becoming more prevalent in the high school in particular. The transition will not likely be as soon for elementary schools students, she said.

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“Until those technologies are improved, you probably won’t see us at a very young age moving away from textbooks,” Schwartz said. “Young readers need to work with the text at this point in time.”

Purchasing e-books instead of textbooks may be more economical, Schwartz said because buying new textbooks is expensive.

Yet, fiction e-books often require annual licensing because of authors wanting royalties, so the district does not have any fiction e-books.

"We don't own any fiction titles because they are changing the licensing model because you can't take advantage of it for all students," Schwartz said.

One hard copy of a book typically comes with each Marshall Cavendish and Infobase e-book, either for free or 50 percent of the price.

There is 24/7 access to this collection in the building and remotely. Since the e-books are stored in cyberspace on a network like The Cloud, students can access them from home on their computers.

“On the textbook side, the issue is, A, kids carrying around gigantic volumes all day long,” Schwartz said. “Two is the updating of materials. Generally we keep textbooks a long time.”

For history and science, in particular, Schwartz said, the material often becomes dated when new discoveries are made.

“There’s a new discovery of a star,” Schwartz said. “That won’t be in the textbook.”

Rather than buying new books when there is new information to teach students, Schwartz said, the district would be able to get faster updates in electronic form. Avon High Principal Jason Beaudin said that the high school staff has primarily been exploring electronic textbooks for the science department.

More widespread use of electronic textbooks probably won’t be requested until the following budget cycle, Schwartz said.

“There are e-book subscriptions that we’ve continued,” Schwartz said.

The district has received two grants that amount to about $8,500 to help pay for e-books, one of which is a smaller grant from the Avon Education Foundation.

School board secretary Houston Putnam Lowry (D) had several questions about the logistics, including cost and whether the high school’s WiFi network would be fast enough to support more electronic reading. That is all being researched, but Schwartz did say that there is currently enough capacity on The Cloud for the limited electronic textbooks the district has and that the district bought a bigger server to accomodate that.

This transition to e-books is one of the reasons the district is pushing for a technology coordinator.

Schwartz said that the schools would form relationships with e-book companies and make arrangements for licensing and the amount of subscriptions, though the e-book industry is still evolving, she said.

“I don’t even think the companies know what the strategy is,” Schwartz said. “They’re still playing with it. Give one answer and it might change. It’s like the record industry. Think about the transition. You bought the album, it was $12. Now you buy a tune, what do you charge. A dollar a tune? If you buy an album, do you get a discount on it?”

The question also remains how the students would read the e-books. While students already read online textbooks for some classes through websites, some e-books require e-readers, like Kindles or Nooks. Who picks up that expense, the school district or the parents?

Not likely the parents, Schwartz said.

“It would be a cost that we would incur,” she said.

It’s possible the school could acquire E-readers to lend to students, but the quantity and availability, as well as cost, are still under review.

“We did that in my old district,” said Schwartz, referring to her time as a principal in Summit, NJ. “We had computers. You didn’t have a computer at home, we either gave you a rental agreement for the year or you needed it for a special project. Now as more and more kids have availability of that, it’s less of a school need. Same thing with calculators.”

The district has already purchased some standard e-readers through grants.

Will this mean the eventual end to purchasing hard copies of books in Avon schools?

 “It’s important to continue acquisition of library books,” Mala said.

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this article stated that the computer rental agreement Paula Schwartz referenced from her previous district pertained to Region 10, where she was superintendent. However, she was referring to her time as principal in Summit, NJ. The article has been updated with that clarification.


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