I’ve been sitting here for the last few minutes trying to come up with a number, a percentage that captures how much of what I read is read on a screen as opposed to a piece of paper these days. My first thought was 90%, but that sounded too high, so I’ve been sitting here trying to knock that number down. It’s really, really hard. Just about all of my books are on the iPad, all of my bills are online, all the newspapers and magazines that I read regularly are on the Web, all the RSS feeds, the Tweets, the videos… This may be TMI, but there aren’t even any magazines in the bathroom any more.
Maybe, in fact, it’s 95%.
Which, as is so often the case, leads me to think about my kids and the reading and writing they are going to do in the next school year. For my son who’s 11, I’m guessing about 90% will be given out and handed in on paper. For my daughter, who is 13 and has “adopted” my old MacBook as her own, it may be closer to 75% on paper coming in and going out as I’m sure she’ll be asked to print most of what she composes on the computer. In either case, I’m guessing not much instruction or discussion is going to be centered on the ways in which screen reading and writing are changing the very nature of the acts. They’re not creating links. They’re not deconstructing them.
They should be.
Two great pieces by Scott Rosenberg and Kevin Kelly have me thinking deeply about this. Scott’s piece, “In Defense of Links Part 3: In Links we Trust” neatly captures so much of the shift around reading that I think it should be required reading for every teacher (since every teacher is a writing teacher.) I’m serious. Here’s a fairly short snip that gets to the complexity of reading and writing in links.
The context that links provide comes in two flavors: explicit and implicit. Explicit context is the actual information you need to understand what you’re reading…you land on my page and you might well have no idea what I’m talking about, since this is part three of a series. Links make it easy for me to show you where to catch up. If you don’t have time for that, links let me orient you more quickly in my first paragraph with reference to Carr’s post. I can do all this without having to slow down those readers who’ve been following from the start with summaries and synopses. Again, even if the links that achieve this do demand a small fee from your working brain (which remains an unproven hypothesis), I’d say that’s a fair price.
By implicit context, I mean something a little more elusive: The links you put into a piece of writing tell a story (or, if you will, a meta-story) about you and what you’ve written. They say things like: What sort of company does this writer keep? Who does she read? What kind of stuff do her links point to — New Yorker articles? Personal blogs? Scholarly papers? Are the choices diverse or narrow? Are they obvious or surprising? Are they illuminating or puzzling? Generous or self-promotional?
Links, in other words, transmit meaning, but they also communicate mindset and style.
Which isn’t to say that written texts don’t communicate mindset and style. But it is to suggest that interacting with links, both by simply reading them and by clicking on them, creates quite a different experience, one with more complexity and, I think, more potential. It’s not as simple as “links provide context.” The choice of what we link to speaks volumes about our interests, biases, agendas, and those cues are now a part of the reading interaction, a piece of what we as readers then use to make sense of the text.
Kevin Kelly’s piece in the Smithsonian Magazine, A Whole New Way of Reading, also gets to the complexity of these changes.
But it is not book reading. Or newspaper reading. It is screen reading. Screens are always on, and, unlike with books we never stop staring at them. This new platform is very visual, and it is gradually merging words with moving images: words zip around, they float over images, serving as footnotes or annotations, linking to other words or images. You might think of this new medium as books we watch, or teleÂvision we read. Screens are also intensely data-driven. Pixels encourage numeracy and produce rivers of numbers flowing into databases. Visualizing data is a new art, and reading charts a new literacy. Screen culture demands fluency in all kinds of symbols, not just letters.
There is a lot going on in that paragraph, a lot about balance, about participation, multimedia, literacy and more. And a lot about the flows of knowledge vs. the stacks of knowledge that John Seely Brown and others write about in Pull.
So here are the questions I’m asking: Are reading and writing changing in these linkable, screen centered environments? If so, does the way we think about reading and writing literacy have to change to embrace these shifts? If so, what are we doing about that?
Right now, I think the answer in most schools is “not much.” In fact, I’m not sure many even realize the extent to which this shift is occurring. They have other things on their minds. (Case in point, see this snip from a local newspaper that Steve Ransom tweeted to me this morning.) Which is why I just sent these two links to the English Department supervisor and various others at my local high school and my kids’ two schools. As good as they are at what they do, my sense is that they need us as parents out here in this stew to send them this stuff to read.
Here’s hoping they click the links.
I agree that we are talking about new skills in literacies (both reading and writing) here. As a parent, I try to address this with my own girls.
As a teacher, I’m a bit stumped. I teach in a wealthy district, although a high-poverty school. We are lucky to have a fabulous computer lab as well as a several carts of laptops. These are used almost constantly. But with 850 kids that barely scratches the surface of what we need to truly address this. How can schools even begin to teach about this without constant access? How can they get that access without spending tons of money? In tight budgetary times how do we make this happen?
There is definitely a sense of urgency to help our students develop the strategies for digital reading and writing. We need to build our collective thoughts about what and how we teach these.
I just read an article this morning about listening in the digital world. Just another thing to think about as we support our students in the digital world.
Learning Through Listening in the Digital World
http://www.learningthroughlistening.org/Listening-A-Powerful-Skill/The-Science-of-Listening/Learning-Through-Listening-in-the-Digital-World/Abstract/144/
This post resonates with me on several levels. I’m pretty sure that 95% of what I read is from a screen; and this is indeed far from what I see in schools! I agree about the linking, too. For me, though, the big thing is the flexibility of the digital text on a screen. On a screen, text can be adjusted or adapted to meet the unique needs of each reader.
I’ve just written a post (http://bit.ly/cXkicu) about a personal discovery. When reading from a small iPhone screen, instead of from paper or a larger screen, my reading focus, reading rate, and retention rate all seem improved. This seems counter intuitive, but perhaps it is because I am forced to view only one small chunk of text at a time.
What would happen if we introduced a range of reading options to the learners in our classrooms right from the outset–at the very beginning of primary school?
Your personal discovery reminds me of the pinhole glasses they used in the 70’s to improve eyesight. These glasses only let in so much light and required the person wearing them to really focus on what he/she needed to see – strengthening the eye muscle and helping to improve a person’s vision without corrective lenses.
I believe there is a lot to be said for the allowances that digital text gives to the reader. Our textbooks that we have in the classroom definitely do not adjust or adapt to the reader. It is unfortunate that the lack of technology in our classrooms (due to funding and prioritizing) prevents us from providing the same environment that we would have at home. Many of our schools are years behind technologically – especially when I look across my classroom and see two 11 year old computers that my students have to use.
As a middle school teacher I can assure you that my coworkers and I do see this shift occurring and are concerned about how we will address this with our students. We want to change/adjust our curriculum and the way we approach teaching to get our students ready to embrace these awesome technologies. The problem lies in the fact that there is no money to bring these new and innovative technologies into our classrooms. Even grant monies are drying up. Public and some private schools across the nation are scrambling to find ways to pay for even the most basic supplies.
It is unfortunate that the divide between classroom practices/teaching approaches and technology is becoming wider. I fear that schools will never be able to catch up to the world that you hope for your children. Don’t get me wrong- I am not giving up, I just see this divide growing and it is unfortunate that we cannot close it because it is becoming more difficult to find funding to spend on technology.
I deal exclusively in screens. Every once in a while I will pass on using one note and scribble notes solely because I like the feel or creative penmanship! My son is a home learner and we find the annoyance associated with printing something out to be similar to that of a coffee drinker having to ground their own coffee – nostalgic once, but irritating twice.
Kate mentioned a divide – this divide is manifest in so many ways and I think starts with thinking like a digital native v a non digital native. The battle lines seem to really fall in the 30-40 age group, and I being a little older than that fatigue every once in a while keeping up. This divide it significant, and is more about culture than having a 10 -20% fail rate in the ability of people to lead digital lives.
I have frequently observed students being far more interested in following links than actually reading the content. The game of clicking, the “change of scenery” quickly becomes a distraction from focusing on the information that is being delivered. In addition, in my experience, students (and myself) seem to retain more from the text given to them on paper than from the same text on the computer screen. I am hoping to some day find ways to address these issues.
I agree that there should be more emphasis placed on digital literacy, and I think that schools should make much more of an effort to use modern technology and new media. At the same time, though, we cannot ignore the fact that at this point state tests are not designed for this kind of curriculum. I think that is the root of the problem; we need to change these tests first, then work on changing the curriculum in the American classroom. Also, we should not lose sight of how important basic reading, writing, and grammar skills are; these need to be at the center of any curriculum design.
I agree! Testing must change first! Teaching jobs are on the line because of thee meaningless tests..therefore, I will continue to forge ahead with basic curriculum and very little use of technology. Not that I don’t see the benefits of the use of digital literacy…there just isn’t time during the day after the “old fashioned” style of literacy has been explored.
I think it’s a great idea to embrace the fact that students and the world is getting much more digital. I also agree with the idea of where does the money come from for meeting the needs of a digital society? The government is making it much more difficult for schools to spend money on items that they deem to be unnecessary. I think for now the only way to get around the tight budgets is to read online at home or at school, when a lab is available, and possibly email papers back and forth or allowing elementary and high schools to have an angel system or a blackboard system.
The idea of the “Screen” as a separate, yet all inclusive media for reading and writing is very interesting. Perhaps to truly bring the way that students create and obtain information up to speed with the technological times, educators and parents have to start thinking of all of the small or large screens young people use as a stand alone medium that transcends paper. Just as scrolls were replaced by bound books, the iPad, Kindle, iPhone, and the never ending other types of screens we now use should begin to replace traditional paper books and handouts at least to some extent.
We are most definitely living in a world where the screen has taken over. This fact makes me think twice about today’s youth in schools — even Richardson states that both his children will deal with significantly less “screen time” than he. Why is this? In a world booming with technology, with absolutely no signs or intentions of slowing, why are we still remaining stagnant in our schools? Though budget does come into play, very much so, the desire for change alone is the first step.
Our world is changing rapidly around us. More and more people are purchasing books online and are reading from screens. The interactivity the screen gives is becoming superior to what some paper books can offer. As a teacher, it amazes me how much time my students spend reading from a screen at home but when they get to school many of these technologies are banned. Why should we take away the way that the students are most interested in learning? Two years ago I taught writing and decided that students would complete their writing pieces online through a wiki. It was amazing the number of students who wanted to keep writing even after the assignment was over!
I recommend people follow up this read with James Gee. http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/ask-the-expert-james-paul-gee-on-video-games-and-learning/ also on the NYT.
It is not the games, but the theory – and in that the archetypes in games; that regardless of the ratio of computers to kids – that makes kids digital refugees – even when using blogs, wiki’s etc.
There is are system, methods and cognitive learning experiences in games that don’t align with the functional literacy world view employed though Blooms that even ‘early adopters’ of technology ‘get’. Instead games are used in the media as ‘notice me’ articles.
There are many people using game theory already, and transforming educational experiences. But all of them are players in mmorpgs and virtual worlds – and most will know the work of Jenkins, Yee, Gee etc., very well to do it.
But when kids use technology in a classroom, to perpetuate functional literacy (digitally) I seriously question how you determine it as being ‘better’, regardless of the ration of computers. Games do not align with Blooms as well as Biggs – but regrettably, and in spite of the depth of literature in game theory – their use is often reduced to the novel.