The Case for PDFs in Class Revisited

Jacqui

Jul 29

I published this about a year ago and have updated it to reflect our current teaching environment. Let me know if this fits your experiences:

The biggest reason teachers report for NOT liking internet-based cloud accounts has nothing to do with money, security, or privacy. It's that they aren't inclusive enough. Students can't access cloud storage, Google Classroom, or their LMS for a project they're working on because of the lack of Internet at home or slow internet service--or a teacher can't get to lesson plan resources because of dead spot in the school or overload, the excitement of learning melts away like ice cream on a hot day.

That's why no matter how good webtools sound, I won't install them if they're problematic--for example, they are slow to load, the website is unreliable, or saving is an issue. The most dependable method of accessing resources is through programs preloaded onto the local computer or available as PDFs that are easily shared.

I get it. Schools have moved many of their educational resources to the cloud. This might be to save money on maintenance or to make them accessible from anywhere or any number of other great reasons, but the change results in the problems I've mentioned. Too often and annoyingly That has spawned a rebirth in the popularity of Portable Document Formatted books and resources, commonly referred to as PDFs. While not perfect for every situation, they are exactly the right answer for many.

Here are ten reasons to consider when evaluating PDF vs. cloud-based resources:

PDFs play well with others

PDFs work on all digital devices, all platforms. No worries about whether they run better in Firefox or Chrome, Macs or PCs (or Chromebooks or iPads), Windows or MacOS (or Linux or iOS). They work on all of these and most others. With a free PDF reader (like Adobe or many others--check this link for ideas), students can open a document and get started right away. Even if they're school system is a Mac and their home is a PC, the PDF opens fine.