Blog 9 -B- E-books with Students

As a class we just completed a great research assignment of reading electronic books to young students. I say that this assignment was a research one, because we were investigating a new tool and the effectiveness on young students. We were first introduced to e-books in a previous assignment where we had to view, judge, and share our feelings about the e-book we were assigned to view. However this assignment we were to view the e-books with a child between the ages of 4 and 11 to see how he responds and feels about e-books over the regular picture books. It was not which one do you like better or would rather read questions, but which type of material is engaging more, you can learn more, and which one is more suitable for the expansion of learning in a classroom. These are the real answers we were seeking when conducting this project, because the other questions are just bias and only answered according to our feelings of the subject. After we viewed the e-books and conducted an short interview with the student answering some engaging questions, i sat down at wrote a essay of my experiences and what i learned from it.

I absolutely enjoyed reading the e-books to the young student, even though i know they are for elementary and lower middle school classrooms, but i really enjoyed the thought of using them in a classroom setting. I plan on becoming a high school history teacher, so for me to use e-books in a classroom would be very difficult and mostly not useful for my students. Nevertheless, I have never had the opportunity in school to have been given such a fantastic tool as an e-book in my early educational years, but the value it can hold is amazing.

From this activity I learned a lot about how technology can enhance and alter the curriculum for certain subject areas and how little tools can greatly increase the learning ability of some students. E-books create an environment for lower level readers to greatly advance their skills and have a fun and great time accomplishing this. There are a variety of e-books currently out there and more and more are coming out each day. This can be a great tool for lower education levels that will greatly enhance their students reading level. I have learned from this activity that no matter how small or insignificant i think a technology tool can be, there is always a way for that to enhance my classrooms traditional way of learning. If it can help enhance my classroom, then i have no choice but to utilize it and let my students grow from it.

I did not encounter many challenges while conducting this assignment and the whole process went very smoothly. I got the child without a problem (since he was a long time friends son), i had no problem accessing the website and getting the e-books ready, and there was not much trouble interviewing with the young child. The only problem that i really encountered was a time management, the essay was around 3000 words and that is to long for a prerequisite educational computer class. But in all fairness, all the assignments are like this, but it helps us be prepared for the future.

As a learner i have realized that i have to have a open mind about technology that is out there, even though i may not be able to use e-books in my particular class level, there are many other levels that will greatly accept e-books and use them to enhance their students ability to learn. To go with that, there are going to be some technology that those grade levels will not be able to use that my level can use daily or with every project. That is the beauty of technology, everyone can use some form of it, but at different levels of usage. As a future teacher i have to be aware of when to use it and what type to use, but the question will never be should i use it.