The Horizon Report 2011 – ‘eBooks’ #eBooks #mLearning #eLearning
I’ve been wading through the 2011 Horizon Report and find it fascinating reading and quite a thrill to realise that some of my thoughts are not too far off the mark with what other people /organisations are thinking, saying, or planning.
Here are few passages that caught my attention – mind you most of the report did this too!
“As the electronic book moves further from a digital reproduction of a printed piece, some writers are seeing it become something far richer, allowing journeys through worlds real and imagined, undertaken not alone but in company with other readers. The gestural interfaces of new electronic devices enhance the intellectual experience of reading with tactile interactions. Electronic books have the potential to transform the way we interact with reading material of all kinds, from popular titles to scholarly works”
This is something I have touched on in a previous post on January 17th, 2011 “The Future of eBooks … my vision“, and the video below is referred to in the report after the passage above;
The Future of the Book. from IDEO on Vimeo.
“Despite their obvious advantages of size and weight, electronic books are not as established among scholarly readers as they are among the general public. Several obstacles have stood in the way of general adoption among academic institutions: scarcity of academic titles, lack of necessary features in electronic readers to support scholarly work, a restrictive publishing model, and digital rights management (DRM) issues Despite their obvious advantages of size and weight, electronic books are not as established among scholarly readers as they are among the general public. Several obstacles have stood in the way of general adoption among academic institutions: scarcity of academic titles, lack of necessary features in electronic readers to support scholarly work, a restrictive publishing model, and digital rights management (DRM) issues”
“Until electronic textbooks are divorced from reader-dependent formats, broad adoption will continue to be problematic for universities. Nonetheless, the promise offered by the technology is such that electronic books are being explored in virtually every discipline. Clear advantages for students (e.g., price and portability) are other factors that make this technology worth pursuing.”
“Mobile applications add easy social interaction around electronic books that could be marshaled in support of group study and focused teacher-student interaction at any point in the text. Electronic texts can be linked to a myriad of supporting materials that can extend and enrich them.”
I am still reading my way through the list of resources and links in the report, but there are some good ones there.
Some of this seems to be a retread of the 90s and the first wave of excitement generated by the Web and CD Roms.
1. The idea of following links in stories was pursed through ideas like hyperdrama. Whilst it looks fun, in practice when most people most of the time read or watch drama they want to be carried along rather than start making decisions. And of course there are only limited decisions they can make before the concept collapses under its own weight. This actually panders to the problem of superficial multitasking being mistaken for actually learning or participating. I think the written novel is safe yet.
2. Of course we are retreading the deadend of CD Rom multimedia with a lot of these ideas. I suspect some people involved are luckily too young to remember the fortunes spent on multimedia CDs only to see the market didn’t exist. Just because it’s on a ipad doesn’t suddenly validate it as an idea.
3. The idea that a computer program will pick the news stories for me to read surely must send alarm bells ringing! How on earth will it judge? If it is by popularity then that means new voices/alternative views would be lost completely beneath the average and the establishment view. Would a future Murbarak not ensure that he controlled such ‘trending software’ as well as the media?
I’ve seen no reason to buy a Kindle because it simply doesn’t replace a book in any way. It’s only virtue is storage, but I’m surrounded in this room by 50 years of reading and the experiences that means. I’d prefer to see the books that an icon.
I’ll wager my copy of the Ladybird Book of Computing that in 5 years ebooks will have run out of steam, found a niche on tablets and books will still be cluttering up my house!