EduKindle

As a blogger on a topic tied to a specific device, the Kindle, it has been easy to overlook the real hero of the ebook revolution, and that is the digital text itself. The virtues of ebooks for schools reside not in the features and benefits of a specific reading device, despite what the pundits prattle on about as they compare the virtues of the Kindle or the iPad. Whether you turn the page with your finger or your thumb, whether you can read better in the light or the dark, whether a thousand or a million titles are available in one store or the next, whether the cool factor is high or low–these are ephemeral to the reasons that digital text can make a difference in the education of young people.

Should I get a bunch of Kindles for my school? It’s a question the answer to which is up in the air. A bunch of iPads? Still in doubt. Here’s the real question: should I be taking advantage of the properties of digital text in my teaching? The answer to that one is unequivocal, and the answer is yes.

OK, you say, digital text has been around for a long time. What’s the big deal right now? The answer to that one is easy, too: the emergence of dedicated mobile reading platforms, like the Kindle and the iPad (and the iPhone, and the Sony Reader, and the Nook). Digital text has been available for a long time in one form, primarily, and that is formatted as HTML and viewed on a computer monitor. (In fact, it is indicative of this history that 50% of ebooks today are read on a computer, even with the proliferation of choices in mobile readers.)

So what’s different now? For the first time we have devices and software that are dedicated to taking advantage of the virtues of digital text. My quick list of those virtues includes:

• variable text size
• variable type face
• distribution of text electronically
• availability of free text
• storage requirements for digital text
• amount of the world’s knowledge already captured in digital text
• user control of digital text
• the sustainability of digital text
• fresh formats for prose enabled by digital text

In this and the next few posts, I am going to discuss  these virtues and link them to what we know about how students learn. First up, variable text size.

Digital Text: The Advantage of Variable Font Size for Reading

Something that has been widely reported is the pleasure that a lot of people take in reading text on the Kindle at a larger font size than is typical for them. That is certainly true for me; I am a declared lover of Kindle Font Size #4 which, as it turns out, is roughly equivalent to a 14 point font. In an unscientific survey I conducted on this blog a while back, 70% of the participants indicated a preference for Kindle Font Size #3 or higher. While this was a very small sample, the preference for larger font sizes was clear.

In the meantime, students have put their thoughts on the record about font size, and bigger is certainly preferred by the middle school students polled by Kathy Parker at Seneca (IL) Middle School, where Kathy has run a Kindle pilot program this past school year. They like the largest font size, period. They say it helps them read better.

Recently, a blogger in the UK noted that reading text on his iPhone was easier than in books or other settings. Why? A bit of investigation told him that larger fonts reduce the amount of print on the page; words are less jammed together. The blogger, it turns out, is dyslexic, and receives this diagnosis of the situation validated by a prominent neuroscientist, who comments that “Many dyslexics have problems with ‘crowding’, where they’re distracted by the words surrounding the word they’re trying to read.”

I did a little research myself on the “crowding” phenomenon, which has been carefully studied by researchers here and abroad, especially as it affects the reading rate of “normal” and “dyslexic” readers. The findings across many studies are clear:

• all readers benefit from increasing text size up to a maximum, after which increased reading rate associated with the larger text flattens out
• the optimal font size for “normal” readers is larger than average, but not as large as it is for dyslexic readers
• much of the reading rate difference between normal and dyslexic readers can be mitigated through increased font size

In a Research Brief I wrote recently on the subject, I provide an overview of “crowding”: “In the research, crowding specifically refers to “the difficulty in identifying a letter embedded in other letters” (Chung, 2007). Studies have shown that the crowding effect impacts reading rates in both the horizontal and vertical proximity of text, so that larger font size creates more space between adjacent letters in the text, and may increase line spacing as well, reducing crowding.”

I have also summarized the findings of a number of studies. For example, a 2009 study conducted at the University of Rome, Italy, tells us that for both the control and experimental groups, “…the reading rate increased with print size up to a maximum. In dyslexics, the fastest rate was obtained at a significantly larger character size than in controls” (Martelli, DiFilippo, Spinelli, and Zoccolotti, 2009).

You can read or download a copy of the study in PDF format right here.

And if the research doesn’t persuade you, maybe the words of the middle schoolers who have reported on their Kindle-enabled reading will:  “The font that everyone prefers to use with the Kindle 2 is the largest font size.”

For all the users of Kindlepedia over the past year, I am delighted to announce that, in partnership with Joshua Tallent and the “talented” folks at eBook Architects, we are launching a new Kindle content tool called eReadUps. Like Kindlepedia, eReadUps builds Kindle-formatted books based on articles from the largest open source provider of information on the planet, Wikipedia.

But eReadUps goes farther, a lot farther.

At eReadUps, you can build multi-article books using the first few results from Wikipedia for free, always. And once we emerge from the “beta” period in a few weeks, you will be able to sign up for a premium membership and enjoy many other features that the site has to offer, like:

1. Access to every every source on our growing list
2. Ability to build eReadUps from as many articles as you like
3. Free storage for all your eReadUps in your own personal My Stuff page
4. Access to more articles in other languages
5. Choice of article format: .mobi for the Kindle and ePub for most other readers
6. A free book just for signing up, and free content every week on the site

The free book currently offered to members is Wikibooks’ extensive guide to First Aid, a handy reference to have on board for Kindle lovers.

So, if you like to grab information that interests you or that you need, get it formatted especially for the Kindle, store it online, and have the option to add it wirelessly to your Kindle library, give eReadUps a try! To request a beta code, just click on Join Now and send us your email address. We will send out invitations as they become available.

(Special thanks to Len Edgerly and the Kindle Chronicles for featuring eReadUps in the TKC Podcast #83, which also contain Len’s interview with Kindle guru Stephen Windwalker, author of the Kindle Nation blog and several books about the Kindle. Well worth a listen!)

One of the most active Kindle implementations that I know of in a school is taking place in Seneca IL under the supportive leadership of Kathy Parker and her “Kindle Crew.” Kathy’s unabashed enthusiasm for kids and reading has found another object in the Kindle. In addition to her enthusiasm, Kathy has been incredibly willing to take the time to share her experience and that of her colleagues and their students as they begin their Kindle journey. Her blog posts at the Ning make for interesting reading for anyone who wants to see the Kindle through the eyes of a middle schooler.

I want to share some of the information here because I think it is incredibly valuable for those of us who see a future for ereaders in education. I have long felt that font size and clarity play an important role for many students in becoming proficient readers. Over a year ago, I wrote about this and my thoughts at the time were these:

Research that I have seen over the years suggests that font size also plays a part in students’ ability to access text. We certainly see larger text supplied for very young eyes in picture books and early readers. What we don’t know about how the size of print affects older students’ reading is astounding. That is another reason to investigate the Kindle for educational purposes.

The first student reports bear this out:

We are 7th grade students at Seneca Grade School and enjoy using Kindles in our RTI class. One reason we like Kindles better than using a book because we can change the font size. We like the largest font because it makes us read faster.

There is so much concern today about the fact that most eighth-graders in this country do not read at a proficient level. In response to this concern, there are a ton of reading remediation programs to address this need, and many different theories about its cause. I guess I think that being able to see the text clearly is a pretty good starting place. The Seneca students are clear about their preference in font size, given a choice:

The font that everyone prefers to use with the Kindle 2 is the largest font size.

Um, that’s a 20 point font, far larger than what they encounter in their textbooks. So, a summary of this admittedly informal bit of research is that 1) kids naturally select the largest font available because 2) it makes them read faster. Hmmm, pretty encouraging stuff for literacy directors to consider as they plan for ways to get their struggling and resistant readers reading again.

I love the students’ comment that “when you go to the next page, the “flash” on the screen, doesn’t bother our eyes.” Take that, Nicholson Baker and your ilk! The ominous, untoward flash that has led many reviewers to recoil in indignation quite simply “doesn’t bother” their eyes.

The kids even comment on what is really the game-changer embedded in the Kindle: books come to you and follow you around:

…another feature is we like the fact we don’t have to carry around alot of books because the Kindle has a variety of titles downloaded onto it.

In Len Edgerly’s interview with him, the headmaster of Cushing Academy said something to the effect that being able to have in his bag a device that holds the greatest literature of western civilization is “thrilling” to him. Yes, that’s the scholar’s view of the Kindle! It is also something that matters a great deal to young readers–access to material that they want to read. Lee Ann Spillane in Orlando has noted that her high school students liked it best when she had books like Twilight loaded onto the Kindle. It provides tons of reading in a very portable package.

Finally, these kids have conquered the gnarly problem of position versus page number on the Kindle. Because their Kindles are shared, synching to the furthest page read can be a disaster! I mean, whose furthest page are we talking about? So the Seneca students and their teachers have a simple fix:

We keep our place/location using the Kindle 2 by writing it down the location number. This way when we use the Kindle 2 we can search by location number.

There you have it, the secrets to Kindle success from the inventive students of Seneca IL: grab a Kindle, load it up with a lot of good books, crank the font, and jot down your location number. Pretty simple, and pretty effective! Thanks Alex M., Alex H., Ashley, Thomas, and Kale (and all the others who helped) for helping us grown-ups see the road ahead.

The remarkable finding that there is a LOT more water on the moon than previously thought makes for an excellent story in the annals of modern space science. I mean, quasars and pulsars and the like are pretty interesting, but what could be more fun to minds of a scientific bent than throwing a rock really hard at the moon and seeing what splashes up? (Thanks to NASA for the picture.)

So I used Kindlepedia to make an article on LCross, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, from the page at Wikipedia. You can download it here.

One nice feature of viewing this article on Kindle for PC is that all the external links are live, meaning that you can follow all the footnotes and references to their sources. Of course, you can also use those links if you are reading on your Kindle and the Whispernet wireless connection is on.

At any rate, we are back on the moon, and the article points out that the results from LCROSS are expected to have a big impact on a decision about whether we ever could colonize the moon. With the amount of water kicked up by this little rock-throwing experiment, I’d say the future of the moon looks bright.

As you can tell, I have been expanding my consciousness of the ereader world beyond the Kindle. I have a Sony Pocket Edition, an Aztak Pocket Pro, a Cybook Gen-3, and am sorely tempted to purchase a Nook, should one ever become available. But I was Kindle born and raised as an ebook reader, and I still think (along with others) that the Kindle 2 still represents the best value out there.

One of my reasons for thinking so has to do with the Kindle’s almost seamless connection with the mother ship at Amazon. When the Kindle came out I was struck by Amazon’s brilliant step forward with the ereader by making it a part of a business system. The unexpected addition of the wireless lifeline to the world’s biggest bookstore brought the value proposition of ereaders and ebooks into crystal clarity for me in a heartbeat.

But that very same tethering of the device to Amazon’s cloud of convenience poses what some see as a “darker” side of the device. In several lucidly argued posts, Ted Striphas raises the concern:

I’m rather taken with the idea of a right to read given the ways in which new e-book systems, such as the Amazon Kindle, tether reading to corporate custodians who in turn mine the machines for intimate details about how people read.

Striphas’s concern is one that resonates even more powerfully in the age of the Patriot Act:

The [Kindle] automatically archives detailed, even intimate, information about what and more importantly how people read on the Amazon server cloud.  This kind of information [...] can instead be subpoenaed by prosecutors who are anxious to dig up dirt on suspects.  The question I raise in the speech, and the question that also seems to emerge in the case of Google Books and the coming Editions service, is, what happens to a society when privacy is no longer the default setting for reading?

That’s a little bit scary, and gives me pause. (Not that I am reading anything I shouldn’t be. Really.)

It’s just that we have so many examples of how centralized control of media historically reverts to commercial or political exploitation. A hegemonistic book authority could easily limit or control people’s reading for its own purposes. Look, for example, at the situation in medieval Europe before Gutenberg hit the scene, or at what happened last summer when, for all the best corporate reasons in the world, Amazon remotely deleted a book from its customers’ Kindles without asking or even warning them.

If it is reasonable, and I think it is, to see Amazon as the “custodian” of our books and our reading history and our notes and our marks and our highlights, then we may have a problem, since we depend on the idea that the interests and intentions of our custodians are benign, at least, and certainly not pitted against our own. And yet the relationship with this corporate custodian is that of a vendor and a customer, two roles that overlap in certain areas but certainly not in all. Trusting that free market forces will reign in abuse–well, that premise is somewhat out of favor these days.

Striphas summarizes his concern:

As these devices become more prevalent, I worry about the effects they might have on how people practice and conceive of reading.  Until now it was relatively difficult to monitor closely how and what people read.  What will become of reading, and people’s relationship to it, once that freedom is definitively diminished?  Indeed, a right to read seems to me of paramount importance in a context where someone is looking over your shoulder every time that you open an electronic book or periodical.

Yes, I guess we do have a problem.

I recently purchased a Sony Pocket Edition Reader to see how the rest of the ereader world looks compared to my Kindle. The view from here is surprisingly good. The Pocket Edition is small, tight, handsome, and, it actually does some thing that my Kindle can’t do. Like check a book out from the library.

If you, like me, entered the ereader world through the Kindle, the idea of impulse buying has been deeply ingrained by the slick Amazon consumer model, based on instantaneous access to the most popular titles. With the discount price of no more than $9.99 per book, this system encourages the kind of anytime, anywhere buying that Amazon pioneered when it opened its online bookstore in July 1994. I personally succumbed to the Amazon system in the late 90s, and I have been a fan and customer ever since. When I saw the Kindle, I had to try it and to this day use my Kindle 1 more than any other device, including the print book, to read with.

But last night my daughter looked at my sony Pocket Edition sitting on the table and asked “Dad, is that your new favorite ereader?’ Stricken by a pang of guilt for having been caught loving an ereader more than my Kindle, I mumbled something to the effect of “Oh, for right now I am using it more.” But the truth is , maybe I do have something going on on the side with my Sony.

Aside from the sleek simplicity of the Pocket Edition, and its VERY CONVENIENT size, my current infatuation with the device has to do with its ability to do something my Kindle can’t do: borrow a book.  My public library in Southern Maryland is part of a state-wide consortium that offers ebooks and e-audiobooks for download if you have a library card from a participating library. The process is simple. I navigate to the portal through my local library’s website, log in using my library card, and search or browse the catalog. What I am looking for are books I want to read that are formatted in the EPUB format that my Sony Pocket Edition likes. When I find what I am looking for, I check the book out for 14 days using the eBook Library software that came with my Pocket Edition. The interface is like the iTunes interface, except more primitive and a little buggy at times, but very workable. Voila! I am reading a book for a couple of weeks and my credit card bill is $9.99 lighter. Does anybody think that this isn’t how it will work in the future?

What are the downsides of this arrangement? Well, my local library has all of 71 titles available in the EPUB format. The eBook Libaray software does inexplicably “do nothing” at times when I ask it to do something on my Windows XP machine, though that has only happened once and it was resolved by closing the program and reopening it. The Pocket Edition has to be cabled to my computer to make any of this happen–zero direct internet connectivity. No keyboard for notetaking on the Pocket Edition, and the bookmarks I place are only useful as long as I have the book.

But for getting a popular title for free for two weeks, having it display in different font sizes clearly and reflow properly on what I would call a state of the art e-ink screen, on a piece of consumer electronics that feels solid and fun to use and that can truly fit easily in my pocket, the Sony Pocket Edition does things that I can’t do with my Kindle.

Yesterday, President Obama delivered a speech remarkable for its mainstream admonitions and for the brief firestorm of controversy it generated in the past week. Was the President trying to “politicize” the process of getting an education, as some critics suggested, or was he using the bully pulpit to encourage kids to crack the books? You be the judge. Here is the President’s speech, rendered in pristine condition for reading on your Kindle:

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama

What I liked reading in the coverage of the event were the comments of school children themselves, most of who were pretty impressed that the President would take the time to speak to them directly…about anything. How did your students react?

What sad news to awaken to this morning–the report of the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. I shook Ted Kennedy’s hand once, or rather, he shook mine. Having wandered into the lobby of a Boston hotel in the early eighties, a bit woozy from the dim lighting and libations of the Tiki Lounge, I could tell that something was about to happen and started to get out of the way. Within a heartbeat or two, the doors to the hotel opened and in strode Teddy Kennedy at the head of his entourage. My eyes got as big as saucers as he marched across the lobby, at first in my general direction and then, for the last ten paces, surely, inevitably, inexorably right at me, with a look in his eye like he had just spotted a relative in the crowd and needed to say hi. Which he did. He grabbed my hand, nodded, smiled as I choked out something to the effect of “Give ‘em hell, Teddy,” and then he was gone. I was left with the thought: the energy, the decisiveness, the genuineness, the power. Someone on NPR commented this morning that Ted Kennedy had more impact on his country overall than either of his brothers. And I guess what he said in 1980 has a special meaning today:

For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end.

For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.

For all you Kindlefolk, here is Teddy’s life captured from the up-to-the-minute Wikipedia in pristine mobi-formatting if you want to revisit the scope of the life of this great American: Ted Kennedy from Wikipedia.

The *New* Democratic Leadership Council recently published a white paper by Thomas Z. Freedman that details the rationale and the economics of deploying Kindle ereaders to schoolchildren across America. In a thoughtful approach to envisioning the cost, the method, and the timeframe for getting a Kindle into every backpack, Freedman says

We shouldn’t wait a decade or two to begin to achieve what is inevitable — an education system where each American schoolchild has an eTextbook, like Amazon’s Kindle, loaded with the most up-to-date and interactive teaching materials and texts available. The ‘Kindle in every backpack’ concept isn’t just an educational gimmick—it could improve education quality and save money.

If you are curious about this proposal, and want to read it (yes!) on your Kindle, you can follow this link to download the report from the DLC site. EduKindle proudly provides the Kindle-formatted report to the DLC and its readers.

Pierre Gorissen has produced a nifty video on how to use the Kindlepedia tool from EduKindle to create reference articles for you Kindle or any other ereader that supports the Mobipocket format.

In addition, Pierre has written a little script that allows you to make a bookmarklet in your browser (works fine in my Firefox) that will automatically send any page you are on at Wikipedia to the Kindlepedia engine and return the article for download, perfectly formatted with a linked table of contents and live links throughout. He demonstrates how to set this up in the video.

I am posting the video here, and you can see more of Pierre’s handiwork at the EduKindle Community site.