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As lovely as they are to behold and consume, the million-dollar question is whether Inkling books provide more value to the learning process than print books.

The company addresses this in different ways, allowing for easy searching, for social-networked note-taking and highlighting to allow for robust group discussions online, and quizzes and self-assessment tools so learners know when they’re ready to move on to the next chapter.

Elements of social capital such as how people identify themselves in relation to others, their levels of trust with others, how they work with others in various networks, and the number and type of networks people can live and work within, are significant and should be explicitly acknowledged and written into a new strategy. The literature sometimes presents human and social capital as a dichotomy, involving a choice to be made between one or the other, a form of vocational/social divide (Perkins 2009:31). We maintain, however, the two forms of capital are interrelated and that socio-economic well-being requires both forms of capital (Balatti, Black and Falk 2006).

Literacy and numeracy learning has a significant role to play in other sectors such as health, youth work, and welfare. To date, integrated literacy and numeracy has featured primarily in workplace and VET support programs, and has been slow to feature in these other social policy areas. There have been a number of local crosssectoral initiatives reported in the areas of health (Black, Innes and Chopra 2008), family literacy (Leske, Harris and Francis 2005), youth studies (Widin, Yasukawa and Chodkiewicz 2008) and aspects of community development (Black, Lucchinelli and Flynn 2006, Shore 2009), but these initiatives have been undertaken primarily with short term innovative funding from the federal government.

Another area of potential cross-sectoral partnerships involves employers, unions and literacy and numeracy providers.