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Princeton University - Kindle pilot results highlight possibilities for paper reduction - 20 views

  • However, e-readers must be significantly improved to have the same value in a teaching environment as traditional paper texts, participants said.
  • but they also said the ability to highlight directly on traditional text, to take notes and flip pages for ease in navigation suffers in the e-reader.
  • With hopes of assisting industry with the refinement of e-readers, and providing useful information to other academic institutions considering the devices, information and data from the one-time pilot have been compiled on an Office of Information Technology (OIT) website.
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  • About 65 percent of the participants in the pilot said they would not buy another e-reader now if theirs was broken. Almost all the participants said they were interested in following the technology to its next stages, because they think a device that works well in academia would be worth having.
  • "I found the device difficult to use and not conducive to academic purposes," he said, and added, "But I can see how it can be used for pleasure reading."
  • What they liked best about the devices was: the battery life, the wireless connection and the portability of the e-reader; the fact that all the course reading was on one device; the ability to search for content; and the legibility of the screen, including the fact it could be read in full sunlight. The top five suggestions students had for improving e-readers were: improving the ability to highlight and annotate PDF files; improving the annotation tools; providing a folder structure to keep similar readings together; improving the highlighting function; and improving the navigation within and between documents on the reader (including having more than one document open at the same time for comparison).
  • "The Kindle would be better for an academic setting if the PDF format worked more effectively,"
  • "There would be a greater benefit realized if the devices could develop a better way to deliver the ubiquitous PDF document, which is used by many journals and libraries to deliver documents, and is the common format in which dissertations and theses are published and read by faculty," Temos said. "Some students said they spent a considerable amount of time printing PDF documents during the semester, and hardly ever referred back to them once the semester was over. I don't expect that is unusual."
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The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens - Scientific ... - 25 views

  • The matter is by no means settled. Before 1992 most studies concluded that people read slower, less accurately and less comprehensively on screens than on paper. Studies published since the early 1990s, however, have produced more inconsistent results: a slight majority has confirmed earlier conclusions, but almost as many have found few significant differences in reading speed or comprehension between paper and screens. And recent surveys suggest that although most people still prefer paper—especially when reading intensively—attitudes are changing as tablets and e-reading technology improve and reading digital books for facts and fun becomes more common.
  • Compared with paper, screens may also drain more of our mental resources while we are reading and make it a little harder to remember what we read when we are done. A parallel line of research focuses on people's attitudes toward different kinds of media. Whether they realize it or not, many people approach computers and tablets with a state of mind less conducive to learning than the one they bring to paper.
  • Both anecdotally and in published studies, people report that when trying to locate a particular piece of written information they often remember where in the text it appeared. We might recall that we passed the red farmhouse near the start of the trail before we started climbing uphill through the forest; in a similar way, we remember that we read about Mr. Darcy rebuffing Elizabeth Bennett on the bottom of the left-hand page in one of the earlier chapters.
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  • At least a few studies suggest that by limiting the way people navigate texts, screens impair comprehension.
  • Because of their easy navigability, paper books and documents may be better suited to absorption in a text. "The ease with which you can find out the beginning, end and everything inbetween and the constant connection to your path, your progress in the text, might be some way of making it less taxing cognitively, so you have more free capacity for comprehension," Mangen says.
  • An e-reader always weighs the same, regardless of whether you are reading Proust's magnum opus or one of Hemingway's short stories. Some researchers have found that these discrepancies create enough "haptic dissonance" to dissuade some people from using e-readers. People expect books to look, feel and even smell a certain way; when they do not, reading sometimes becomes less enjoyable or even unpleasant. For others, the convenience of a slim portable e-reader outweighs any attachment they might have to the feel of paper books.
  • In one of his experiments 72 volunteers completed the Higher Education Entrance Examination READ test—a 30-minute, Swedish-language reading-comprehension exam consisting of multiple-choice questions about five texts averaging 1,000 words each. People who took the test on a computer scored lower and reported higher levels of stress and tiredness than people who completed it on paper.
  • Perhaps, then, any discrepancies in reading comprehension between paper and screens will shrink as people's attitudes continue to change. The star of "A Magazine Is an iPad That Does Not Work" is three-and-a-half years old today and no longer interacts with paper magazines as though they were touchscreens, her father says. Perhaps she and her peers will grow up without the subtle bias against screens that seems to lurk in the minds of older generations. In current research for Microsoft, Sellen has learned that many people do not feel much ownership of e-books because of their impermanence and intangibility: "They think of using an e-book, not owning an e-book," she says. Participants in her studies say that when they really like an electronic book, they go out and get the paper version. This reminds Sellen of people's early opinions of digital music, which she has also studied. Despite initial resistance, people love curating, organizing and sharing digital music today. Attitudes toward e-books may transition in a similar way, especially if e-readers and tablets allow more sharing and social interaction than they currently do.
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calibre - E-book management - 54 views

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    Calibre is a free and open source e-book library management application developed by users of e-books for users of e-books. It has a cornucopia of features divided into the following main categories: Library Management, E-book conversion, Syncing to e-book reader devices, Downloading news from the web and converting it into e-book form, Comprehensive e-book viewer, Content server for online access to your book collection
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    calibre is a free and open source e-book library management application developed by users of e-books for users of e-books.
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Educational Leadership:Strong Readers All:E-Readers: Powering Up for Engagement - 33 views

  • E-readers have tremendous potential to entice reluctant readers to read more. A study that we recently conducted among low-reading-ability middle school students demonstrated that potential. Students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades became more engaged and motivated during their scheduled silent sustained reading periods when they were given the opportunity to use e-readers.
  • Responding to text is one way that students establish comprehension and improve their skill in understanding, predicting, and critically analyzing what they read. Larson (2009, 2010) observed students spontaneously using the highlight feature of the Kindle called "My Clippings" to leave personal notes and questions about what they were reading.
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Kindle Experiment Falls Flat at Princeton | Open Culture - 53 views

  • Last fall, Princeton launched a small experiment, replacing traditional textbooks with the Kindle DX, Amazon’s large e-book reader
  • Last fall, Princeton launched a small experiment, replacing traditional textbooks with the Kindle DX, Amazon’s large e-book reader
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    Keep in mind that this experiment was focused on "classroom use" of Kindles, not necessarily "library use." Libraries have never supplied the resources used directly in the classroom for literature study (students don't markup library books!). At Cushing Academy, we are using Kindles to support recreational and personal interest reading rather than directly supporting the curriculum. In that role, they have worked very well.
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    Yes, this seems to be the case. Ebook readers would most definitely work in a library environment, just like plain books.
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    Well, maybe not just like plain old books. Ebooks have many nice advantages for libraries, such as 24/7 access, always pristine and readable copies for the user, built-in dictionary (which our students tell us they really like) and, for the library itself, very efficient use of space and staff time.
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    "Last fall, Princeton launched a small experiment, replacing traditional textbooks with the Kindle DX, Amazon's large e-book reader. Almost from the beginning, the 50 students participating in the pilot program expressed dissatisfaction with the devices. Yesterday, a university report offered some more definitive findings. On the upside, students using the Kindle DX ended up using far less paper. (Paper consumption was generally reduced by 54%.) On the downside, students complained that the Kindle was fundamentally "ill-suited for class readings.""
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E-Book Sales Rise in Children's and Young Adult Categories - NYTimes.com - 28 views

  • now that e-readers are cheaper and more plentiful, they have gone mass market, reaching consumers across age and demographic groups, and enticing some members of the younger generation to pick them up for the first time.
  • Kids are drawn to the devices, and there’s a definite desire by parents to move books into this format,” Ms. Vila said. “Now you’re finding people who are saying: ‘Let’s use the platform. Let’s use it as a way for kids to learn.’ 
  • I didn’t buy it until I knew that the teachers in middle school were allowing kids to read their books on their e-readers
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  • the family used the local library — already stocked with more than 3,000 e-books — to download titles free, sparing her the usual chore of “lugging around 40 pounds of books
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    "Ever since the holidays, publishers have noticed that some unusual titles have spiked in e-book sales. The "Chronicles of Narnia" series. "Hush, Hush." The "Dork Diaries" series. At HarperCollins, for example, e-books made up 25 percent of all young-adult sales in January, up from about 6 percent a year before - a boom in sales that quickly got the attention of publishers there. "
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    Interesting to read how children are now increasingly choosing to buy eBooks and a role for schools.
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5 Myths About the 'Information Age' - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Ed... - 0 views

  • 1. "The book is dead." Wrong: More books are produced in print each year than in the previous year. One million new titles will appear worldwide in 2011. In one day in Britain—"Super Thursday," last October 1—800 new works were published.
  • 2. "We have entered the information age." This announcement is usually intoned solemnly, as if information did not exist in other ages. But every age is an age of information, each in its own way and according to the media available at the time.
  • 3. "All information is now available online." The absurdity of this claim is obvious to anyone who has ever done research in archives. Only a tiny fraction of archival material has ever been read, much less digitized. Most judicial decisions and legislation, both state and federal, have never appeared on the Web. The vast output of regulations and reports by public bodies remains largely inaccessible to the citizens it affects. Google estimates that 129,864,880 different books exist in the world, and it claims to have digitized 15 million of them—or about 12 percent.
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  • 4. "Libraries are obsolete." Everywhere in the country librarians report that they have never had so many patrons. At Harvard, our reading rooms are full. The 85 branch libraries of the New York Public Library system are crammed with people.
  • 5. "The future is digital." True enough, but misleading. In 10, 20, or 50 years, the information environment will be overwhelmingly digital, but the prevalence of electronic communication does not mean that printed material will cease to be important. Research in the relatively new discipline of book history has demonstrated that new modes of communication do not displace old ones, at least not in the short run.
  • I mention these misconceptions because I think they stand in the way of understanding shifts in the information environment. They make the changes appear too dramatic. They present things ahistorically and in sharp contrasts—before and after, either/or, black and white. A more nuanced view would reject the common notion that old books and e-books occupy opposite and antagonistic extremes on a technological spectrum. Old books and e-books should be thought of as allies, not enemies.
  • Last year the sale of e-books (digitized texts designed for hand-held readers) doubled, accounting for 10 percent of sales in the trade-book market. This year they are expected to reach 15 or even 20 percent. But there are indications that the sale of printed books has increased at the same time.
  • Many of us worry about a decline in deep, reflective, cover-to-cover reading. We deplore the shift to blogs, snippets, and tweets. In the case of research, we might concede that word searches have advantages, but we refuse to believe that they can lead to the kind of understanding that comes with the continuous study of an entire book. Is it true, however, that deep reading has declined, or even that it always prevailed?
  • Writing looks as bad as reading to those who see nothing but decline in the advent of the Internet. As one lament puts it: Books used to be written for the general reader; now they are written by the general reader. The Internet certainly has stimulated self-publishing, but why should that be deplored? Many writers with important things to say had not been able to break into print, and anyone who finds little value in their work can ignore it.
  • One could cite other examples of how the new technology is reinforcing old modes of communication rather than undermining them. I don't mean to minimize the difficulties faced by authors, publishers, and readers, but I believe that some historically informed reflection could dispel the misconceptions that prevent us from making the most of "the information age"—if we must call it that.
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Readlists - 149 views

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    Create an ebook from a group of webpages. Send to Kindle, iPad/iPod, or download as an epub (for Nooks and other readers).
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    This site lets you bundle web pages for mobile devices
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    Take any bunch of web pages and turn them into an e-book. gone are the days when you photocopy readers. Now, e-publish! Weightless, instant, and free!
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U. of Notre Dame Reports on Experiment to Replace Textbooks With iPads - Wired Campus -... - 35 views

  • replace traditional textbooks with iPads as part of a yearlong study by the university’s e-publishing working group into the use of e-readers
  • students were more connected in and out of the classroom
  • said that the iPad made it easier to collaborate and manage group projects
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  • Dropbox
  • Students lamented not being able to write in the margins of their assigned readings
  • computer-based final exam,
  • iAnnotate
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    Research report emphasizing cultural change to iPad for e-reading sharing/collaborative work (e.g., Dropbox and iAnnotate) but online final exam still chose laptops (since not collaborative effort?)
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Department of Psychology | JMU - 10 views

  • If the new trend in textbooks is moving them to computer screens, the switch could have negative consequences as many suggest that people skim more, process more shallowly, and may retain less information when reading online, Daniel said.
  • he readers’ goals are different: Individuals reading an e-book for enjoyment aren’t required to pass a comprehension-based test afterward. While they found that learning is possible from both formats, learning from e-textbooks takes longer and requires more effort to reach the same level of understanding, even in a controlled lab environment. At home, students report taking even more time to read e-textbooks as well as higher rates of muti-tasking (e.g., Facebook, electronic chat, texting, email, etc.) than do their peers using printed textbooks.
  • In their preliminary findings, the scanning pattern produced when the student read a textbook showed consistent reading from line to line down the page. But the scanning pattern from reading on the screen was less intense.
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  • Daniel and Jakobsen argue that the information dense textbooks characteristic of natural and social science subjects are not a good fit for current e-textbooks, but there are exceptions for subjects like chemistry and math that include doing formulas and other activities. The liability, Daniel emphasizes, comes when math and chemistry teachers hope their students will learn the explanations, not just the formulas, “Students tend to skip the text and go straight to the formulas, especially if they are graded.”
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Brainchild's Kineo Android Tablet Is Teacher's New Pet - 38 views

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    Cool 'new' e-reader.... $299 / debut march '11 has security features for teachers...
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Screen Reader Demo - YouTube - 3 views

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    How do people who can't see a computer screen navigate a website? Colleen explains the basics of how she uses a screenreader and how to design for visually impaired users. Listen to the podcast episode that explains how to easily design website that is more accessible: http://www.blindinspirationcast.com/e... Write in to blindinspirationcast@gmail.com
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Diagnosing the Tablet Fever in Higher Education - 17 views

  • So it's worth taking a careful look at whether the company will once again create a new category of device that make waves in education -- as it did with personal computers, digital music players, and smartphones -- or whether the iPad and other tabletss might be doomed to remain a niche offering.
  • Mr. Jobs did mention iTunesU twice when listing the kinds of content that could be viewed on the iPad, referring to the company's partnership with many colleges to offer them free space for multimedia content like lecture recordings. But he otherwise focused on consumer uses -- watching movies, viewing photos, sending e-mail messages, and reading novels published by five trade publishers mentioned at the event. That does not mean that the company won't later promote the iPad's use on campuses, though, since it waited until after iPods and iPhones were established before beginning to work more heavily with colleges to promote those in education.
  • the biggest impact of the iPad would be in the textbook market.
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  • only 2 percent of students said they bought an e-textbook this past fall semester.
  • The City University of New York, for instance, is looking closely at encouraging e-textbooks as part of an effort to lower student costs. "At end of the day, it's how do you drive savings for our students, who are feeling a great economic impact," said Brian Cohen, CUNY's chief information officer.
  • If students do buy them and begin to carry them around campus, they could be a more powerful educational tool than laptop computers.
  • Jim Groom, an instructional technologist at the University of Mary Washington, expressed weariness with all the hype around the Apple announcement. He said he is concerned about Apple's policies of requiring all applications to be approved by the company before being allowed in its store, just as it does with the iPhone. And he said that Apple's strategy is to make the Web more commercial, rather than an open frontier. "It offers a real threat to the Web," he said.
  • He also pointed out that several PC manufacturers have sold tablet computers before, which have been tried enthusiastically in classrooms. Their promise is that they make it easy for professors to walk around classrooms while holding the computer, while allowing them to wirelessly project information to a screen at the front of the room. But despite initial hype, very few PC tablets are being used in college classrooms, he said. Now that Apple's long-awaited secret is out, the harder questions might be whether the iPad is the long-awaited education computer.
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Annie Murphy Paul on Why 'Digital Literacy' Can't Replace The Traditional Kind | TIME.com - 117 views

    • Matt Renwick
       
      The F-pattern when reading online could have been helpful for the reader in this article.
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    Both the author of the article and the people she criticizes are making a fundamental mistake. It is an illusion that kids once learned facts in some deeper way. If the tree octopus had been presented in a book, the kids would have made the same mistake. Much of traditional teaching was not about absorbing certain facts but about learning techniques for accessing those facts. The internet and google really have changed the way we access information. The real challenge is how to restructure knowledge itself to take advantage of the new forms of accessibility. And as for using technology in the classroom: banning computers is like forcing kids to memorize arithmetic tables in an age when everyone has a calculator. We don't need slide rules nor an abacus and there is no reason to teach kids how to use them.
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Educational Leadership:Teaching Screenagers:Too Dumb for Complex Texts? - 72 views

  • Willingness to Probe
  • readers may need to sit down with them for several hours of concentration.
  • hey insert a hesitant question before moving on.
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  • That willingness to pause and probe is essential, but the dispositions of digital reading run otherwise. Fast skimming is the way of the screen. B
  • they have grooved for many years a reading habit that races through texts, as is the case with texting, e-mail, Twitter, and other exchanges, 18-year-olds will have difficulty suddenly downshifting when faced with a long modernist poem.
  • They are deep and semiconscious behaviors that are difficult to change except through the diligent exercise of other reading behaviors.
  • Texts like this one are too complex to allow for rapid exit and reentry. They often originate in faraway times and places and discuss ideas and realities entirely unfamiliar to the modern teenager. To comprehend what they say requires a suspension of present concerns.
  • Finally, the comprehension of complex texts depends on a receptive posture in readers. They have to finish the labor of understanding before they talk back, and complex texts delay the reaction for hours and days.
  • Digital communications, on the other hand, especially those in the Web 2.0 grain, encourage quick response.
  • Complex texts aren't so easily judged. Often they force adolescents to confront the inferiority of their learning, the narrowness of their experience, and they recoil when they should succumb.
  • reserve a crucial place for unwired, unplugged, and unconnected learning. One hour a day of slow reading with print matter, an occasional research assignment completed without Google—any such practices that slow down and intensify the reading of complex texts will help.
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Moving beyond "mountains of dead and mulched - 28 views

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    Cory Doctorow discusses the future of books and libraries and what appeals to adolescent readers in an age where technology both inhibits and promotes freedom.
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