eBook News

Ok, from my experience there are a few things here that should be addressed. I don't think that they study is wrong but there are some considerations about the situations. First, not surprised that there is the interference issue. I would much prefer to read from my Kindle than my computer screen, we have lots of years reading with a position and focus range that has become comfortable, so with that and the lack of things like email popup or text messages, it makes sense that readers with physical books or devoted ereaders would be better, also while the iPads have a nice size screen, they do have all the other distractors and most phones have a much smaller screen for reading.  To me Madeline has the most important quote  "I don't mind what I read as long as it's interesting,"  to her it is the story, and she is fine with Kindles. The part about the pictures is also important and is something that I think that ereader programs should consider. We already have lo...

Ok, here are not unexpected results from research, but it is still important to trust (or in this case expect) but verify. Books are books, be they ebooks, popup books or printed chapter books, and with books interaction helps, creates more engagement and motivation. What I'm hoping from this is also the research on the books without parent (or other person) interaction, then does having the book read itself help there. Reading to children is great, but not all adults do read to their children, and many children live in a text sparse environment.  Does the book reading aloud help those students with the lower vocabulary when there is no one to read to them? As for comprehension, the study also found that the "children with above-average vocabularies did well on the camouflage post-test regardless of whether the adult or the book read to them." But again, what about a non-read to group? Well ebook research continues. http://www.maryrvogt.com Kids with lower vo...

According to the survey results in the UK, students generally had positive responses about their etextbook experiences. The authors go on to state the differences and key factors that influenced the student's engagement included: training, integration into the curriculum and functionality. "Sixty-one percent of surveyed students said they used eTextbooks during their university studies. The majority of students borrowed one from the library (65 percent) or received one through their institution (55 percent), while 35 percent purchased a copy for themselves." "All participants own at least one portable digital device, most commonly a smartphone, followed by a laptop. More significantly, 89 percent take their devices to lectures. " The first Kindle, released in November 2007. What I'm taking from this are a few things. First, there is the integration of the tools that students are using already and prefer, such as their phone or other portable devi...

I find it interesting how many times I have discussions with others about what classifies as "reading". So many don't include other forms, such as audio although they get very hesitant when I ask about braille. I do understand that with print, such as you are reading now, it is the combination of the saccades and fixations to combine the elements into a whole word, and the words into sentences, and on and on. But if part of that "literacy" is the understanding, then listening to the words, or feeling the letters and words should also count. In one of my classes the students are required to "read" a book by listening. One good thing that I think that they experience is the struggle in "learning to read" as an adult. For most of us, learning to read occurred so long ago that you don't remember what it was like to learn that. Now as my students as adults are trying to read their audio book they talk about the fatigue they experiences through...

Teaching and traveling again this summer. This time to Kunming, China, with a stop off in Hong Kong. Ending up reading thirty books (including plane time) this trip and once again this was made easier by traveling with an ebook reader. Considering that the average paperback weighs between half and a pound, and the average hardback is about 1-1.5 pounds, that would have been a least an extra 20 pounds of books to carry, instead just carried a device that weighed less that one pound and fit in my pocket (and I can honestly tell you that the book stores in Kunming don't have books in English-nor did I expect them to).  One other great thing was I converted things that I needed, like maps of towns, subways, and other documents into PDFs, and then moved them into my e-reader, so that I always had them available that way, right in my pocket. Reading with the Big Buddha :-)

If you are planning your next semester for your students, you might want to consider using some open source textbooks for them to use instead of purchasing or renting. I know that my students have commented on their appreciation of me providing them a free open source text over them having to purchase an additional book. I believe that the numbers that I read before were along the line of undergraduates having an ongoing credit card debt of over $5K, and graduate students of over $8K, a good portion of which was attributed to extra costs at college/university of which a big part was textbooks. I know that the college board estimates that the average student spends about $1200 on books and supplies and that a single book can cost as much as $200. I read that according to National Association of College Stores, the average price of a new textbook increased from $57 in 2007 to $65 in 2010 and to $79 in 2013, which would include some pretty low cost required reading like pape...

Perhaps it is familiarity breeds contempt, or maybe it is just familiarity breeds a giving break. Either way, we do know that students will work harder on their writing when they know that what they are writing is going to be read by more than just their teacher, their parent, or the student next to them. So as the school year is ending and you are thinking about what to do next year, think about having your students produce and publish their work and put it out to the world. Below are two articles about how teachers have gotten their students to activity publish their work either as books or magazines. If you want to try some book publishing yourself (or with your students), you might want to start with a tool like StoryBird (https://storybird.com/), there you can write your story, then have it published into their digital library, and if you really want to you can even buy a printed (soft- or hard-cover) copy of the book for your shelves - or the school library's collection. ...