Tablets or Books? (Spoiler: I like tablets)
The iPad has become synonymous with the word "tablet" largely due to Apple having a gigantic portion of the tablet's market share, and not without good reason, but this has become a bit detrimental in some regards. I use an iPad and it is an incredible device with a beautiful screen, aluminum body, and great media capabilities, but it is an entertainment device. Apple is trying very hard to make their iPad an educational device, but it never can be without making certain compromises to their entertainment applications and this is something Apple will never do. I am not an iPad advocate in schools and would prefer seeing Electronic Ink tablets for a few reasons.
First, every screen needs to be lit in order to be seen. The iPad and most phones have their own back-light which is extremely harmful to eyes. Electronic Ink displays do not use a back-light, but rather a reflective film behind the display which reflects ambient light; which could be from the sun, light bulb, etc. to light up the display. This means it is exactly as harmful to your eyes as a normal book and no where near as harmful as a tablet.
Second, it is durable because its screen and back are made of plastic. The iPad screen is made of glass because they care more about picture quality which glass does better, but picture quality and media consumption are lesser concerns to schools. The iPad is made of a premium aluminum shell, but aluminum is malleable and terrible at shock absorption, plastic is less so.
Third, the battery life of the iPad is lauded in the tech community for lasting 10 hours on a single charge, which is a feat indeed, but many of us don't go out with a fully charged device. An Electronic Ink display does not draw nearly as much power as an iPad because of the nature of the display. It will take 60 hours for an E-ink tablet to die if it had a battery the size of the iPad's, which means it'll last the whole school day at only 10% charge.
We pitted tablet technologies against each other, but what about books? There's no denying books are some of the most incredible tools we have, but tablets offer everything a book does and way more. They are far more portable; every single gigabyte can hold 3000 books which is unfathomable. Modern phones have 64 of those gigabytes, and I mean base model phones. Native storage is so old-school though, everything is on the cloud now. This is an incredible strength because should anything happens to the tablet, the data is still in your account on the cloud service you choose. Wait, what if something does happen to the tablet? Will it cost much to replace? Well, the iPad does cost upwards of $350, but we're not using iPads, we're using E-Ink displays. The Kindle Paperwhite is stellar and costs $120 to purchase. In contrast, my parents would put aside $1200 per year for my textbooks. The price they'll spend on the tablet is $120 and, depending on the school, a subscription service to hundreds of thousands of books for $8.99 a month; Scribd. This not only gives them access to all the textbooks they'll require but it will also give them a selection of story books with track-able progress meters, which could be motivating and might help students compete against their past selves.
Tablets seem like a perfect replacement to books, they just need the infrastructure and they'll be there. Sadly, however, there is so much push-back against them because everyone is playing Fortnite and parents could see them as a distraction, but cars didn't take over horses overnight. Tablets are inevitable, it's just a question of when and how to implement them.
First, every screen needs to be lit in order to be seen. The iPad and most phones have their own back-light which is extremely harmful to eyes. Electronic Ink displays do not use a back-light, but rather a reflective film behind the display which reflects ambient light; which could be from the sun, light bulb, etc. to light up the display. This means it is exactly as harmful to your eyes as a normal book and no where near as harmful as a tablet.
Second, it is durable because its screen and back are made of plastic. The iPad screen is made of glass because they care more about picture quality which glass does better, but picture quality and media consumption are lesser concerns to schools. The iPad is made of a premium aluminum shell, but aluminum is malleable and terrible at shock absorption, plastic is less so.
Third, the battery life of the iPad is lauded in the tech community for lasting 10 hours on a single charge, which is a feat indeed, but many of us don't go out with a fully charged device. An Electronic Ink display does not draw nearly as much power as an iPad because of the nature of the display. It will take 60 hours for an E-ink tablet to die if it had a battery the size of the iPad's, which means it'll last the whole school day at only 10% charge.
We pitted tablet technologies against each other, but what about books? There's no denying books are some of the most incredible tools we have, but tablets offer everything a book does and way more. They are far more portable; every single gigabyte can hold 3000 books which is unfathomable. Modern phones have 64 of those gigabytes, and I mean base model phones. Native storage is so old-school though, everything is on the cloud now. This is an incredible strength because should anything happens to the tablet, the data is still in your account on the cloud service you choose. Wait, what if something does happen to the tablet? Will it cost much to replace? Well, the iPad does cost upwards of $350, but we're not using iPads, we're using E-Ink displays. The Kindle Paperwhite is stellar and costs $120 to purchase. In contrast, my parents would put aside $1200 per year for my textbooks. The price they'll spend on the tablet is $120 and, depending on the school, a subscription service to hundreds of thousands of books for $8.99 a month; Scribd. This not only gives them access to all the textbooks they'll require but it will also give them a selection of story books with track-able progress meters, which could be motivating and might help students compete against their past selves.
Tablets seem like a perfect replacement to books, they just need the infrastructure and they'll be there. Sadly, however, there is so much push-back against them because everyone is playing Fortnite and parents could see them as a distraction, but cars didn't take over horses overnight. Tablets are inevitable, it's just a question of when and how to implement them.
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