While the Internet is a text–saturated world, reading online screens tends to be significantly different from reading printed text. This review essay examines literature from a variety of disciplines on the technological, social, behavioural, and neuroscientific impacts that the Internet is having on the practice of reading. A particular focus is given to the reading behaviour of emerging university students, especially within Canada and the United States. A brief overview is provided of the recent transformation of academic libraries into providers of online digital text in addition to printed books and other materials, before looking at research on college students’ preferences for print and digital text, and the cognitive neuroscience of reading on screen.
Florence Dujardin on 04 Oct 11Social bookmarking websites enhance and improve the learning experience by encouraging group collaboration and making organizing and saving web resources faster and easier for students. Social bookmarking services offer greater scope for research, integration, and collaboration compared to the more traditional bookmarking applications such as browsers, which offer limited functionality. Among social bookmarking services, Diigo has features and functions that make it useful for the classroom, giving instructors tools for setting up groups of students, highlighting key information, and commenting.
