Divisions stock up on digital books to banish boredom

Students who say they’re bored to death by traditional textbooks are becoming history as the use of electronic books increases across South Hampton Roads school divisions.

At Portsmouth’s Victory Elementary, third-graders Anthony Hardy and Makayla Watson whiled away a recent classroom hour engrossed in “Awesome Air,” an online book assigned for a science lesson. As they scanned flat-screen monitors, they recorded facts on air pollution and wind on a worksheet. “It’s on the Internet, and it’s kind of like a video and a book,” Anthony said. “The computer is much more fun than the regular books.”

Easy access to e-books via home or school computers and their appeal to a digital-age generation of students have inspired all five South Hampton Roads divisions to offer more titles, including textbooks and library reference materials.

In Virginia Beach, the division has built its online library to more than 600 works, said Bill Johnsen, director of instructional technology. Johnsen said e-books solve one of the most vexing problems that hardcover books pose for librarians: giving students equal access to reference books for which there may be just one or two copies.

In the old days, libraries restricted many reference books to on-site use, frustrating whole classrooms of students.

Now, as the Beach division has bought e-books over the past two to three years, Johnsen said, “We’ve concentrated on nonfiction: the type of research books students used to check out overnight, the kind of book librarians have a hard time getting students to return.”

Multiple students can “check out” or use one e-book through the division’s electronic library management system, he said.

Another plus with digital books is their add-on features – things publishers and educators never dreamed of even 20 years ago.

“Most online books provide enlarged text, graphics and a dictionary,” said Kimberly Richardson, media specialist at Creekside Elementary in Suffolk.

Educators say audio narration, vivid coloring and video components can grab the eyes of students who might otherwise glaze over still photos, graphics and inky print in a hardcover.

On a recent Thursday at Victory Elementary in Portsmouth, teacher Jacqueline Wilson surfed her laptop to the website of the Library of Virginia. She opened the library’s public inventory of TumbleBooks, an early child literacy series, then launched the e-book edition of “Burro’s Tortillas.” Students bunched together on the floor, captivated by the pages on a wide­screen as the talking book narrated the story.

Enid Costly, the Virginia library’s youth services consultant, said digital editions allowed TumbleBooks and online reference materials to be made available statewide to schools and students.

“I look at TumbleBooks as a way of getting kids interested in books and also supporting what is done in the classroom,” she said.

With TumbleBooks, each word is highlighted as it is spoken by the narrator. Costly said that helps children make connections between pronunciation and the meaning of the written words.

Does that mean children learn faster, better or easier with digital books?

Some do and some don’t, according to Fiona Nichols, Portsmouth’s math education director. Children learn differently, and some respond to e-books more than others.

“It goes to each individual student’s comfort level,” she said. “Some want to see the words on paper; some are very tech-savvy.”

That’s why Portsmouth’s latest purchase of math textbooks included both hardcover and digital versions of the same editions. “It opens up a lot of options for students,” Nichols said.

Schools’ hunger for online books has driven publishers to offer more digital schoolbooks over the past five to eight years, said Jay Diskey, executive director of the School Division of the Association of American Publishers. “They believe there’s a digital market out there, and there clearly is.”

Sales and use of digital textbooks vary widely by district and state, Diskey said. A big reason is hardware: Some districts have more computers, e-readers and digital tablets than others, and the erosion of school funding because of the struggling economy means less money is available to buy the devices.

The cost of hardware, software, applications and other digital features means e-books aren’t always cheaper either to publish or buy, Diskey said. Most local schools are relying on computers they already own to stock or access e-books, and cost is not a driving factor in their interest in e-books.

“The cost will vary for the e-books, from approximately $6 to $60, with some reference materials costing more,” said Doug Dohey, Suffolk’s coordinator of middle school instructional services. “That is the unlimited, simultaneous-access cost, compared to the cost of one hardcover, which may have the same price range.”

Publishers can make digital titles available on a single-user basis, as unlimited simultaneous access or by annual subscription, Chesapeake school spokesman Tom Cupitt said.

His division prefers permanent access to e-books to avoid the recurrent cost of subscription books, Cupitt said. The division, which began using e-books about four years ago, is focusing purchases on titles that tie in with Standards of Learning topics, he said.

Virginia Beach uses about 30 textbooks that come in digital form. Sometimes a hardcover set also is purchased for use by students who don’t have access to a computer outside the classroom, said Joe Burnsworth, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction.

Burnsworth noted that digital textbooks don’t yet fully dominate in Virginia schools and said one reason has to do not with technology, but content. Most textbooks don’t reflect Virginia’s standards, he said.

“Texas and California and Florida are the largest consumers of books, so most textbook companies write their texts to meet the standards of those larger states.”

But local educators have little doubt that use of e-books will continue to expand in South Hampton Roads and Virginia.

“Our students are so savvy as far as technology,” Victory Elementary Principal E. Ann Horne said. “As a teacher, you really don’t want to be boring; you want it to be challenging. I love the e-books – we’re really just getting started.”

Steven G. Vegh, 757-446-2417, steven.vegh@pilotonline.com