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‘This could be the year of the e-textbooks,’ says Chronicle of Higher Ed…
September 8, 2009 | 1:10 pm
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By David Rothman
…but wait: How about which such issues as finding the right page on your Kindle—when your professor wants you to go there ASAP?
The Chronicle of Higher Education, to its credit, mentions some negatives such as burdensome DRM. But plenty more remain. The Kindle, for example, can be a disaster for disabled students, as Robert Kingett discovered, and we know about the less-than-stellar screen contrast. Just ask Nicholson Baker.
Friendly suggestion for Jeff Bezos: Could professors in the future use the Kindle’s wireless capabilities to send all students to the same page number automatically?
Related: E-textbooks not ready for college students yet?
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Comments:
Assuming the professor is also working from the same Kindle file the students have it is very easy to tell them exactly where to go in the text.
“Go to location 2345.”
Students then tell their Kindle to go to location 2345.
All done in 5 seconds.
I’m genuinely curious how an ePub file which may be read on a variety of different hardware devices deals with that. Does ePub have some navigation process similar to the Kindle files/devices use of “locations”?
HG, the item clearly indicated that things could go faster, as far as people getting to the same location. Even at five seconds, the time adds up. So why not use the wireless capability so the professor can send students to the right location without their doing anything?
As for page numbering in ePub, if a more complete standard is needed, it can come. Meanwhile it isn’t as if the ePub community is ignoring page numbering and other navigational issues.
Thanks,
David
P.S. I’d love to see nonproprietary standards for “send-to-page” via wireless. A perfect example of a feature the IDPF ought to think about for the educational market!