With the start of the second semester, students are taking new electives, the intramural basketball season is heating up and the seniors are finally in the home stretch. One of the biggest changes currently happening at Trinity, however, is the replacement of hardback textbooks with eTextbooks.

This year marks the first time that Trinity has utililized eTextbooks as part of the curriculum.

“It’s just a handful of classes, mostly AP (advanced program) classes that are using those. Next year it may be a handful more,” Trinity Principal Dan Zoeller said.

Zoeller said the school is moving forward slowly with eTexts, attempting to make the transition gradual.

He said, “We wanted to have teachers who were comfortable with the material and had a chance to look at it before classes began. We also wanted to go slowly and just have a few teachers using them so we could gauge how well they worked in the classrooms, how effective they were.”

And just how effective have the eTextbooks been so far?

According to physics teacher Mr. Joseph Chittissery Mathai, it seems they have been quite effective. “Teaching is not affected at all,” he said. “I’m saving time.”

Chittissery Mathai credits this boost in efficiency to the fact that he does not have to spend 10 to 15 minutes at the beginning of every class checking homework.  He added that eTexts eliminate rushed work during lunch. “Many students would do homework at lunch, but they can’t do this with online homework.”

Josh Julian, an AP biology student, mentioned other benefits from using the eTextbook in his class.

Julian said, “The eBooks all have the study areas, a little feature with the eBook that gives you questions over the chapter aside from what your teacher assigns. So you can do a little extra studying, which is helpful.”

Jose Espinoza, who has an eTextbook in his AP statistics and AP biology classes, mentions that the eTexts are simply more convenient for practical purposes.

He said, “It’s easier just to carry around and just to have all the time whenever you need it. And you never have to worry about forgetting it because there’s always a means to get to it.”

Like all new things, there appear to be some potential issues with the eTextbooks as well.  

Espinoza noted some difficulties with the online homework that comes with the eTextbooks.

“I think I’d say it’s a little less convenient,” Espinoza said. “Sometimes with stats, the system will be down, or you have to save every time you complete a question, so you might forget to save. And there’s just problems because it demands very specific answers, so even if you get an answer that’s kind of close to the right answer, it’ll count you wrong for the whole question.”

Julian said some of the more traditional aspects of paperback textbooks appeal to him. He said, “Paperback is easier to read, and you get to look at it. I think flipping the pages kind of helps, like knowing where it is.”

Julian also pointed to a particular accessibility issue with the eTextbooks: “If you’re in the car and you want to study, you can’t do that because you don’t have WiFi.”

Some students say they prefer eTextbooks but not by much.

Julian said, “I think it’s kind of a tossup. Honestly, I’d probably prefer the eBook but not by a lot.”

Espinoza agreed, saying he’d like to see more eTextbooks at Trinity: “I think it’d be more convenient to have them used in a fair amount of my classes instead of just two.”

According to Zoeller, we will definitely be seeing more of the eTextbooks in coming years.

“You see more and more eBooks every year on the market. When we talk to textbook companies, they say within 10 or 15 years, the majority of all textbooks will be electronic textbooks,” he said.

Will the addition of eTextbooks affect Trinity’s technology policy?

Zoeller said there will be some changes starting as early as next year: “Next year we are going to require students to bring their own devices. This year it’s just voluntary, so next year — and we’ll be getting out more announcements about this this spring — all students will be required to bring some device so they can access the Internet — and you have to have that if you’re going to expand (eTextbooks).”