Teaching with an e-book - part 1

As in schools the e-book and e-reader debate continues, and hovers on the "which device?" and "which format?" sticking points, it also strikes me that we need to think about what we will do in teaching and learning if e-books become a reality.

I saw something recently where a teacher was talking about the difficulties of using e-texts in a classroom where you have some students using a traditional paper book, and some using a text book via the e-reader.

I am hoping that this post will attract some comments from teachers who have actually "done it" - some classroom teaching where some students are using an e-reader of some sort.

In case you are not experienced and don't understand what difficulties we could be seeing, here are just a few.

• A "paper" book has page numbers, and it is a relatively simple exercise to tell everyone what page to go to.
• The Kindle format uses location numbers (but not page numbers). The number of locations a book has remains constant regardless of font size. So if the whole class is using the same size Kindles then being at the same location is also relatively simple.
  • However I have discovered that Kindle for PC does not use the same location format (as a Kindle device)  for the same book. So then to be at the same location, you will need to use the Table of Contents (if there is one). Currently Kindle for PC does not have a "search" facilitiy, although it does Have "Go To"
  • Today I have compared e-copies of A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens. Until that practical experiment I had assumed that the Kindle formats would be the same.
• I've also experimented with another title THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES  by Conan Doyle on both the Kindle for PC and the Borders e-reader (on my computer).
  • The Borders application uses epub, so although the source of both copies is probably the Gutenberg Project, Borders numbers its pages according to how many there are in the chapter, and, just to complicate things, if you change the size of the font on the screen, the number of pages changes.
  • On Kindle for PC, the number of locations remains constant even when you change the font size.
  • Neither the Borders e-reader on the computer, nor the Kindle for PC have a search tool. Borders has a "table of contents" for this novel, as does Kindle for PC.
  • But how would you get on I wonder if the "table of contents" was not recognised?  Sometimes, I have noticed that the Kindle version of a book has not been formatted to show a table of contents. This is the case in the Kindle version of THE MEMOIRS.
• If we add a fourth e-reading device to the mix, namely the iPad, and you have running on that one of the above Apps or iBook, then life just gets a even more complicated.

But - it can be done!  I guess what it boils down to is that the e-reader is just the vehicle for the text. What happens in that context, with a variety of e-readers is up to the teacher's management strategies. It would certainly help if the teacher was aware of the limitations of each device.

But we really can't assume that a particular text will be delivered the same way on a variety of devices.

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10 second grabs and 140 characters

There's an interesting re-surfacing of the debate about whether going digital is making us dumber, or at the very least reducing our concentration span, making us cyber butterflies.

On one of my blogs I monitor what visitors do when they arrive. Many alight on a post from a Google search, and then, less than a minute later, they have departed on a link they have found on my blog. I've never thought of that in the light of reduced attention span. I've always thought it was a sign that they had found what they were looking for. Google Analytics tells me that even on this blog, the average visitor spend only 1:03 minutes before they bounce off somewhere else. Can they, I ask, get the meaning of my post in that time?

Critics of Twitter, who are invariably not persisent users, deride the fact that tweets have a 140 character limit. After all, what of import can you say in such a short space? They obviously don't understand the lengths you have to go to in reducing your message to the 140 character limit and yet still get your meaning across. Most of us can read 140 characters in 10 seconds or less.

In a recent article in The Age, How the internet makes us stupid, Nicholas Carr writes "A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that the net, with its constant distractions and interruptions, is turning us into scattered and superficial thinkers."  He's writing a new book The Shallows: How the Internet Is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember, and he says he was stimulated to write the book after realising his own capacity to focus and concentrate was changing. He attributes it to some sort of internet addiction. [Factors like advancing age, eyesight, and pressures of work crop up in my mind.]

Of course there are those who object strongly to this point of view. Computer World echoes "Digital Doesn't mean Dumb. It’s a myth that we have all become Twitter-brained visual grazers with no appetite for prose."
PC Advisor makes a similar point, claiming that  It’s a myth that we have all become Twitter-brained visual grazers with no appetite for prose. I’m with comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who said: “There is no such thing as an attention span. People have infinite attention if you are entertaining them.”  The article goes on to claim that good digital design helps us locate what we want to know more quickly.

It all reminds me a bit of the debate between the skim-readers and the rest. Those of us who can't skim-read a book for any length of time claim that those who do must miss a lot of meaning and nuance.

I'm more inclined to think that the pressures we are under to cope with information overload, and at the same time appear to be on top of it all, means that we have to be able to flit like cyber butterflies. The important this is to be able to recognise the good oil when we've found it, and to be able to think deeply about the issues.

That's why information literacy is so critical in education, more than ever before. Our students have to be taught to skim, to recognise, to select, and then dwell when needed.

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e-books and e-readers: criteria for choosing your e-reader

There are some common questions that educators and librarians ask about choosing an e-reader.

• Which comes first the e-reader or the variety of e-books that I have access to?
• What was the process that you used to select an e-reader?
• What criteria would you suggest in choosing an e-reader a) for ourselves and b) for our primary students?

Current evidence seems to suggest that many are waiting for answers to these questions before deciding to see which way to jump. I actually think teachers/librarians need to be a bit more pro-active than that and try to get some experience in using e-readers and in reading e-books.

For myself, I bought a Kindle because they were virtually all that were on the market here in Australia a year ago. Purchase was easy, delivery was quick, and I've added about 100 fiction books both manually and through purchase from Amazon.

Mine is the Kindle 6” which is fine for reading fiction, and I would say, suits both adult and secondary school readers, and perhaps even middle school.
There has been some research done with middle school students in the US particularly in relation to the effect on reading of being able to vary the size of text.
The research seems to say that for children/older readers with reading difficulties, being able to increase the size of text is beneficial, because they then have a better ability to “hold the line” with their eyes.
I’ve blogged about this at http://blogs.educationau.edu.au/ksmith/2010/05/12/e-book-readers-and-reading-competence/

In my opinion though, the 6” Kindle (or any other small e-reader for that matter) is for reading fiction, not text books where you would expect graphics and charts.
That is where the larger device, say the Kindle DX or the iPad or the Dream Books (http://www.pioneercomputers.com.au/products/info.asp?c1=183&c2=184&id=3172) probably comes into its own, and then you have to think about whether you want colour.
The bigger size (10 or 11 inches) and colour both add to the cost (although the Kindle DX still uses “black” e-ink)
And it becomes a question of whether you want the device to do other things as well as contain an e-reader.

In a poll that I ran recently here is what people chose from the criteria I listed
Colour  - 1 (6%)
adjusting text size - 7 (41%)
note making – 4 (24%)
dictionary – 3 (18%)
images - 2  (12%)
bookmarking (keeping your place) – 7 (41%)
audio -2 (12%)
not applicable - no experience – 9 (53%)
Other - 0

Now, I left cost off the criteria there, although I expect that for schools anyway that will be an important factor.
Whether you can justify buying an iPad for more than $600.

There is another factor to consider here at least in secondary schools: many students now have a laptop or a netbook.
What about if they had Kindle for PC software or some other e-reading device such as Calibre on their lap top – can you justify buying e-readers at all?

So I’d suggest you try drawing up a matrix with the important criteria on it (similar to the one below), and then rating them to see if that helps you make a decision.

Criteria for selecting an e-reading device

Importance	Most -5	4	3	2	Least -1
colour
Text size adjustment
Note making
dictionary
Images
Bookmarks
Keeps your place
Audio
Cost
Read fiction
Text books
Do we already have laptops?
Availability of particular books
Size and weight of device

However on top of these criteria you need to look at ease of use (and that's where the teacher/librarian's personal experience comes in, and the ease of adding new books, or isolating access to the account from students.

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