School Tries E-Book Readers With Mixed Results

Several students at Northwest Missouri State University recently traded their printed textbooks for Sony’s e-book reading devices, which came loaded with assigned texts. But the students quickly discovered that the gadgets have limitations.

In a pilot program during the fall semester, about 240 students were loaned Sony Readers, and university officials contracted with McGraw Hill to provide electronic textbooks for four courses.

Students were initially fascinated with their readers, said Dean L. Hubbard, the university’s president, but they soon became frustrated with the devices’ limited interactivity capabilities — which made it impossible to highlight passages, cut and paste text, or participate in interactive quizzes.

(Via The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog.)