EBooks as teaching strategy

Preliminary investigation

Abstract

Besides serving as tools for leisure-reading and self-learning, eBooks can be effective in the facilitation of teaching and learning. Teachers can proactively make use of eBooks to facilitate teaching and learning. The Mobile Learning Project at The Chinese University of Hong Kong was exploring the use of eBooks from teachers' perspective. This paper was about two cases in which teachers created the eBooks themselves rather than using commercially prepared materials. In one case, the eBooks became reference materials for students to freely refer to when they were in need of more information. In the second case the eBooks created were tightly integrated with curriculum such they were required weekly readings that matched the weekly topics of the course. Much care had also been paid to make the eBooks viewable on the majority of students' handheld devices. Surveys and download statistics of the eBooks were used for evaluation. The findings pointed us to both promises and challenges.