The Emotionality of an E-book

Just as the teachers harbored an emotional attachment to traditional books that inhibited their willingness to use e-books in their classrooms, they also had a negative emotional re- sponse— apprehension — about using electronic books. Participants’ lack of exposure com- bined with a healthy fear of technical difficulties based on prior experience with technology made the teachers a bit wary to try the electronic books. In the following sections I will present

and explore the subthemes related to participant’s emotional responses of fear and apprehension to the e-book.

“Not one inch of digital books”: the e-book as unfamiliar. In the initial interviews, each participant revealed that she had never read an e-book before. Because of this, in addition to their love for the traditional book, there was also some apprehension to use something so unfa- miliar. Not only was the e-book a new format for reading, but none of them had ever used an iPad, the technology on which they would read the e-books. This unfamiliarity with the iPad will be addressed in the next chapter, but it is important to note here that their inexperience with iPads was disconcerting to them and in some cases, inhibited their use of the e-books.

Even though Inga had used e-books on the Smartboard, the books that she had used with her children were simply digital books without any interactive features. She reported that she “didn’t even know that there were electronic books that would interact with the children until we met the other day.” (FI, Inga, 127-128), referring to our introductory meeting. She went on to share that she was hesitant to use them simply because she had never read an interactive story before and she didn’t know what to expect. In addition to that, she had never used an iPad, even though the rest of her family read digitally. The combination of the two factors made her “a little nervous” (FI, Inga, 134) because she felt she couldn’t be fully prepared with a device and a story that she had never used before.

Delta was more willing to try the e-books on the iPads, even though her teacher prepara- tion and her professional and personal experience “did not include one inch of digital books.” (FI, Delta, 22) She did add one stipulation, however, in that before she used them with her chil- dren, she wanted to have me model a reading for her. She said,

I just don’t feel like I know what to do with one. This isn’t something that I’ve ever done before. It’s like a totally foreign country to me and I don’t want to lead the tourists astray. I’ve been teaching for 26 years and I pretty much know what works and what to do. This is new ground. New ground. And I’ve got to get used to it. (FI, Delta, 62) These types of declarations, in which Delta expressed her determination that she needed to “step up into the digital world” (F1, 55) recurred throughout the study.

Lucy not only felt uneasy at the thought of using an iPad, but reported a general sense of discomfort with technology in general. She recalled vivid memories of the first time she ever used a computer, and remembered feeling nervous, thinking, “I’m going to do something wrong and it’s going to explode.” (M1, 116) She still harbors some discomfort with even the technology that she has to use every day in her instruction.

I think now, even still I just kind of do what I have to do, I learn what I need to learn, like to use the Smartboard all day, but I’m sure it does a lot of things that I’m not aware of be- cause I’ve not been able to dive into it and really get comfortable with it. (M1, 118-121) Later on in the same meeting, she repeated that she was uncomfortable with it, and she “didn’t like feeling uncomfortable in the classroom which is made worse when it doesn’t work right.” (M1, 246) Here, she sets up the second subtheme under the emotionality of the e-book: its unpre- dictability.

“I don’t know how to fix it”: the e-book as unpredictable. Throughout the first half of the study, all participants regularly expressed the fear of the technical issues that often come with technology. In the last five years, the school had installed Smartboards in every classroom. Along with great innovation, however, had come great frustration among some of the teachers as

they experienced technical problems with both the Smartboards and the outdated desktop com- puters associated with them. In addition to these technical problems, teachers were not given tar- geted professional development to help them learn how to use them effectively in their grade- specific classrooms. This created great frustration among the staff, especially because there was inadequate technical support until this year, when the school partnered with an on-site technol- ogy company.

Therefore, given a new piece of technology to use in their classrooms teachers were a lit- tle wary. Delta predicted that there would be many problems due to malfunctioning or nonfunc- tioning technology.

Well, I tell you. Wi-fi has to be working. Links have to be working. Just the hardware and the whole thing. Because that’s what happens with Smartboards. Some days it works and some days it doesn’t. What makes us think or actually believe that this thing will actually work like it’s supposed to? (FI, Delta, 167-169)

Past experience had taught Delta that technology is predictable only in its unpredictability. In addition to the technology not working, teachers worried that if indeed they did plan a lesson based around the electronic book, and for some reason it did not work, they would be left unprepared for their students. As Lucy explained,

I’m not always comfortable with things that involve electronics because of the uncer- tainty of is it going to be there when you get it, compared to a regular book. The way that the computer all of the sudden has issues. You know, I’ve tried to pull things up on the computer and it’s not working. I don’t like everything depending on an electronic device. I like to know it’s there and it’s working. You don’t want your lesson that you worked so

hard on based on this e-book and then it’s gone because all you have is the electronic. (FI, Lucy, 164-169)

Later she lamented that she didn’t want to “be responsible for going around and trying to fix eve- rything because then [she] also would have to be saying, ‘I don’t know what you did and I don’t know how to fix it.’” (FI, Lucy, 179-181), admitting to her students that she was incapable of helping them.

Lois also expressed the fear of not being able to help her students if the e-book didn’t work properly. This feeling of helplessness was one that she said she often felt when her Smart- board lesson went awry due to technical problems. She also felt overwhelmed at the amount of preparation it would take for her students to read e-books on iPads.

I’d have to download it, and I don’t even know how to do that. I’d have to make sure that all the iPads were working. I’d have to make sure that they were all charged, that the book had downloaded correctly, and that I knew how to navigate the book completely. With a book, you don’t have all those issues. You just take it off the shelf, open it up, and read it. (FI, Lois, 150-154)

This suggests that Lois was uncomfortable with the thought of using the e-book, something that was new and unpredictable, in her classroom. The data analysis implied that she was not alone in her apprehension, but that the other teachers shared her concerns.

I have shared the themes of the emotionality of a traditional book and the emotionality of an e-book; however, there was still another emotionally-charged aspect of integration: the appre- hension associated with the changing role of the teacher. Not only were participants anxious

about using technology because of the difficulties they might have in the classroom, but also be- cause of the changes that they would have to make in the way that they taught using e-books in their reading classroom.