Tablets Vs. Textboks

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Maria Claudia Toledo

Persuasive Paper: Tablets vs. textbooks

Principles of Writing

Teacher: Thomas Kelly K.

May, 2016

        Over the decades, technology has been developing and advancing in a way that nowadays, we depend on it, because the human interaction has been influenced through the introduction of new technological devices. We use various types of technology to accomplish specific tasks in our lives, especially when it involves education. Many schools are switching the methods of studying with the use of tablets, instead of textbooks, in order to have a better outcome for students.

        The future of the classroom is clearly related with technology because of the ingenious and effective use of tablets or computers. Speaking of tablets, they are a $35 billion industry with roughly one in three adults owning a tablet, it is a huge growing industry that can help kids learn constantly. Earlier this year, Apple sold 19.5 million iPads, while Samsung sold 8.8 million tablets to schools or districts (Reiss, 2013). This shows that a lot of schools are deciding to head toward the direction of tablets. One of the main reasons why schools are starting to switch is because textbooks need to be re-bought every three to five years, but tablets can be automatically with new content and information. Meanwhile, too many students still have textbooks that are 7 to 10 years old. An example that can support this statement is that some students are using textbooks that don’t even cover the tragic 9/11 that happened in New York, or anything about Barack Obama becoming a president. Students need newer content to learn. Tablets can be updated instantly to get information and help your education.

In these days, humans always cling to some type of electronic, for example, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest; which indulge the attention of all ages of people.  According to the US Department of Education and studies by the National Training and Stimulation Association, technology with based instruction can help the students achieve the learning objective by 30-80%.  (Schumacher, 2013)

        Another important point is that tablets contain technological features that cannot be found in textbooks. Tablets give the students the ability to highlight, edit text, and writes notes without ruining a textbook. They also have a search function, a built-in dictionary, among others.

        In addition, with the large number of classes that students take, carrying around a different textbook for each class can definitely hurt. Textbooks are too heavy and may cause injuries, while a tablet only weights 1 or 2 pounds. Doctors recommend students to carry less than 15% of their body weight in a backpack, but the average combination of textbooks of many subjects (History, Science, Math, etc.) certainly exceeds that percentage. This results in over 13,000 backpack-related injuries a year for kids between the ages of 5 to 12. Tablets, on the other hand, weigh only about one to two pounds, yet are able to store thousands of information for numerous courses and hold tens of thousands of times the content that textbooks do. (Alvarez, 2013)