Archive for the ‘Digital Audio’ Category

AWAKEN: A novel that opens up great discussion opportunities about life online

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

awaken-book-cover-katie-kacvinsky-978-0-547-37148-1.jpg

Many school librarians are asked to hold conversations with parents, staff, and/or students about internet safety or life online. And sometimes, when I have done that, I’ve wished I could create a scenario that isn’t scary, isn’t about predators, but rather allows for a more thoughtful discussion about the impact of living online on our offline selves.

A new dystopian YA novel launches today. Awaken, by Katie Kacvinsky (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; ISBN 978-0-547-37148-1), is the story of online high-school student Maddie, who lives her entire life online. School, visits with friends at the coffee shop, sitting by the fireplace — it’s all done virtually. And no surprise, as her father was behind the movement to send all children to digital schools. Drug use, murder, and teen pregnancy have steadily declined to almost nothing. Everything is safer and more fair than ever before. Or is it?

What astonished me about this book was its opening. From the very beginning, there is an air of the cautionary tale in Kacvinsky’sdebut novel. Not preachy, but underneath the surface as Maddie rediscovers the pleasures of unplugging.

Imagine the conversations this could provoke in a book club, in a parent discussion group, or in a unit on online etiquette and safety. From the preamble to Chapter 1:

…They don’t make paper books anymore — it’s illegal to chop down real trees. They still grow in some parts of the world, but I’ve never seen one … When trees were dying off in fires and overharvested, books were the first to go. These days books are downloaded digitally and you can order any book you want to be uploaded into your Bookbag in seconds, which I convert onto my Zipfeed. It reads the words out loud to me on my computer. Simple. Convenient.

I know how to read, of course. We learn it in Digital School 2. I still read my chat messages on my phone. But it was proven that audio learning is a faster way to retain information, according to some Ph.D. researchers who studied rats in a cage. By observing rats they figured out the best way for humans to learn. Some politicians thought this theory sounded glamorous, so they changed a law that changed the world. That’s why I listen to almost all of my books.

I didn’t escape the chore of using my eyes to read. Mom still enforces it. She saved all her old novels and stores them in these wooden cabinets with glass doors called bookshelves …

I have to admit, I like the look of them. I also like to escape inside their world, tucked behind their colorful spines. It forces me to fully invest my mind into what I’m doing, not just my ears or my eyes …

…you can imagine my surprise when my mom gave me a blank book. I rarely see a book with print in it, and now a blank one - what a waste …

And I’m supposed to write in this thing. Longhand. …. It’s so slow! …

Why should I take the time to write down my thoughts when no one else can read them? I’m used to millions of people having access to everything about me. I’m used to a fountain of feedback and comments trailing every entry I type, every thought I expose … it shows that people genuinely care about me. It reminds me that I’m real and I exist. Why try to hide it all in a book? Besides, there are no secrets.

Imagine the conversations you could have just from these excerpted passages. Environmentalism and the loss of trees. The switch to digital texts. The perceived value of print books as ones you can sink into versus the implicit understanding that you don’t do that with digital ones (especiall ironic as I read it via NetGalley on my Kindle). The “realness” of online communication. The perception that comments equal care.

Might a book like Awaken be an awesome jumping-off point? And might students be able to speak more frankly about “fictional” life online before discussing their own habits? Oh, the possibilities!

Cover courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

E-Reader accessibility reminder from USDOE/DOJ

Saturday, July 3rd, 2010

Lots of educators are talking this summer about e-readers, especially now that the iPad has captured our collective imagination. T.H.E. Journal has an article summarizing the agreement between the U.S. Department of Education, the Department of Justice, and several universities who piloted use of the Kindle DX that reminds us that accessibility for our visually-impaired readers must be part of our thinking when we consider adopting these devices.

Although the Kindle DX, the device specified in this agreement, does read text aloud, making it initially a groundbreaking tool for those with visual impairments, the device itself cannot be navigated using voice commands. I don’t know if this is also true for the iPad, but it’s something to consider before making a purchase.

Happy Free Comic Book Day today and every day!

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

Today is the official Free Comic Book Day at many local comics shops. Stop in to meet comic book authors and artists and to pick up some free samples.

But even better, today I heard about an amazing new resource.  Many of you already know the publishing line Toon Books, run by Art Spiegelman (Maus) and his wife Francoise Mouly.  We have many in our library and the rest on order.  Toon Books creates comic books with very simple language for emerging readers — and they definitely caught the eye of this year’s Geisel Committee!

I just learned today from The Graphic Classroom that Toon Books - the whole line - are available for full-text reading online.  A simple navigation device lets kids control the speed at which they change pages, and a “read to me” option highlights the word bubbles as they are read orally to the child.

Wait — are you a secondary librarian thinking this post isn’t for you? It is — many of these simple texts are available in other languages like Russian, Chinese, French, and Spanish — perfect as supplemental texts in world languages classes!

Click the link at the bottom below to explore.

http://www.professorgarfield.com/toon_book_reader/index.html

Toon Book via kwout