They are adorable, but the most noteworthy fact is that they already know how to operate a smartphone! They know they can talk through it and that when people press certain keys, something moves across the screen, and light and sound come from inside.
They want to talk to each other, so they look at their cell phones. Take the phone away and give them a book. A device that you can converse with and that converses back to you, or a book that doesn’t do much?
Kids like digital technology because schools and colleges understand its power. They discovered that smartphones and tablets could also be used for learning, which is how textbooks got popular. Textbooks are a big part of the curriculum in many schools today.
Are eTextbooks the next big thing?
Some academics believe that digital technology cannot compete with traditional learning methods. No technique is ideal, but the trick is to work around their flaws and improve them to get the most out of them. There are many ways to improve textbooks and eliminate the issues they have.
When we say that K-12 kids should receive the finest education possible, we mean they should have a positive learning experience and access to high-quality educational materials. Students from kindergarten to high school have grown accustomed to being around technology.
So, preventing children from digital devices doesn’t make much sense. Educational institutions & publishers are using new technology by putting instructional content on tablets and computers.
We can say that textbooks will be the next big thing in K–12 education because there are many ways to make an e-textbook more interesting and immersive for students. These digital textbooks are a great way to learn because they have many interactive features.
Let’s examine why e-textbooks are the best option for teachers and students.
Increases motivation through games
You understand how online games work: you keep playing, earn points, start moving on to the next level, get more reward points and special features, and start moving on to the next level. The same ideas are used to make things that help people learn.
Students receive points for submitting assignments on time, performing well on tests, and performing well on other activities that can be altered into games. Gamifying the content gives them a sense of achievement and makes them want to do well on their tasks to earn more points.
Simulations give a real-world experience.
You can act out real-life situations online, making learning more fun. Students can choose from several options and make decisions in a simulated exercise to determine what to do next. The nicest part about pretending is that kids may start over and redo the entire thing if their selections don’t work out as planned.
In a virtual lab, for instance, students can combine different chemicals to see what happens, like if the mixture changes color or blows up the test tube. This helps them gain insight from their errors and helps them acquire analytical skills quickly and make good choices.
Access to extra learning resources through Content Library
Some publishers get a digital content library where students can look through thousands of learning videos to find ones on topics that interest them. Videos are a great way to learn; if there are many of them in a library, students can look for one for every idea.
Most of the time, these videos are made by experts in the field, each for a distinct grade level. These videos give them another way to learn, allowing them to comprehend things quickly and well.
Augmented reality turns learning into a more immersive experience.
Regarding learning, augmented reality takes things to the next level. It makes a picture or object look better and demonstrates interesting information about it or it on the device’s screen. Augmented reality mixtures the entire world with the digital world, making learning easier for students.
AR is great for subjects that require a deep understanding, like science and math. It is also a useful tool for teaching history and geography because it may display a more detailed representation of a location or monument on the screen, complete with connections and the ability to flip the image around and view it from all sides.
Analytics are used to make detailed performance reports.
eBooks come with built-in analytics that tracks what users do and how well they do it. In this case, teachers can look closely at their students’ reports. Analytics show how many students opened a certain chapter, how many videos they watched, and how long they spent on average on each chapter or video. This report enables educators to discover their students’ interests in their work.
Read-Aloud Allows Multisensory Learning Experience
When people read out loud, they can hear what is being said. This is helpful for students who don’t speak English as their first language. It helps them learn how to say words and improve their talk. It also helps students who can’t see well, have trouble reading, or have dyslexia.
It makes interacting with features like highlight, note, and bookmark possible.
eTextbooks are the same in every way as other eBooks. It lets students highlight important text parts, make notes, and save documents for later use. Students can also share the notes with their teachers and classmates.
Search Option Makes Finding Text Easier
A search function in digital textbooks makes it simple for students to find specific texts. They don’t have to look through pages to find that paragraph manually.
Utilize an online dictionary to know new terms.
Students who don’t know what some words mean may consult an online dictionary.
Interactive quizzes will test your knowledge.
Students can find out how much those who know by taking online quizzes. Teachers can observe how students did on the quiz. Quizzes might be inserted between chapters, after each chapter, or both. Teachers can also give quizzes and assignments to the entire class, grade them, and post the results online.