The Future(s) of the Book

Nelson, Coupland and Alice may be the reincarnations of beloved books you’ll own tomorrow. At least, that’s IDEO’s hope — and we love it when IDEO is right.

These three concepts somehow seem to maintain fidelity to the spirits of books we love while adding layers of community and practical application. In a way, you can enjoy the literary universe you’re in more fully and in more vivid colour — particularly with Alice, which has huge implications for children’s literature.

We can also imagine a near future where “lit-gamers” become a thing.

(Source: innovationexcellence.com)

Bringing Up Baby … via iPad

Courtesy of: Schools.com

A powerful broadcast tool that we don’t even consider “media” is our educational system. You know, that place you go to that’s a lot like TV, except you’re just watching one person (or several) quote things to you out of a book. Then you read that book, then you take tests.

Most of us will agree that this procedure is neither stimulating nor nurturing. It’s actually just cheap baby-sitting, coupled with maths and a few useful dates.

Technology to the rescue! A survey conducted in Maine, quoted to us by Schools.com, finds that kindergartners who used iPads in the classroom scored better on a literacy test than those who didn’t.

Well and good, you say, but what does that actually prove?

Studies have also shown that the ‘net has been great for literacy in general, and that iPads especially have been useful in breaking educational barriers with autistic children.

But look at this less as evidence than as promise. The iPad is one of those powerful tools that children pick up and can almost instantly just use. They watch films, interact with stories and play games with them, mainly.

It’s this tactile quality we care about: they’re actually interacting in a physical way with content. The act of doing versus just listening is actually better for learning everything from the simple rules of grammar to reasoning skills to decision-making to complex systems — one reason why interactive educational games are so powerful. 

If you happen to be poking around for good iPad apps for kids, they’re easy to find (and many are free). Best Apps for Kids has great ones for preschoolers; and The Guardian’s Apps Rush (run by our own Stuart Dredge!) provides a weekly recap of brand-new apps, including fun ones for children.

I remain a big fan of Draw Something, which enables me to engage with my nieces and nephews from afar while we exercise our spacial logic and artistic savvy. (They’re usually stronger at both.)

“There is a direct relationship between the child and the app or the digital book, and it is manipulateable with tremendous ease,” he said. Wilson, meanwhile, pointed out that the ability to offer voice narration means children aren’t reliant on their parents to read to them.

Is cutting parents out of the storytelling loop an entirely good thing?

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“Penguin, Macmillan and Nosy Crow talk digital books for children,” The Guardian.

It’s nice and all to think of storytelling as a fond pastime shared between parent and child, but it isn’t always the child that chooses the technology at the expense of the parent.

Case in point: when I was a kid, it really bugged my dad that I’d make him read me the same stories again and again. When he was too tired to read them perfectly through, I’d accuse him of cheating and make him start over.

Technology to the rescue: our local library implemented an automated call service where, after dialing a number, a voice on a machine would automatically read the listener a children’s story. The story changed weekly, but not terribly consistently. My dad fobbed that number off on me and was liberated from storybook hell forever.

As for me: I listened to If You Give a Mouse a Cookie 43432345 times. I will never, ever give any mouse a cookie for as long as I live.