The enhanced ebook: Its past, present, and future place in the North American publishing industry

The enhanced ebook format—an ebook featuring multimedia elements such as audio, video, and animations—was released in 2010, yet it has been largely unused. Despite its potential, only 23% of publishers in Canada produced an enhanced ebook each year between 2014 and 2017.1 The format can excel in the scholarly/professional, trade/consumer, and educational/K to 12 marketplaces; however, it is held back by the same hurdles that halted its progress in 2010. Poor retailer and device support, lack of classification and discoverability, slow consumer adoption, and caution from publishers to invest were, and still are, roadblocks that inhibit the enhanced ebook format from gaining popularity. In an effort to understand why the enhanced ebook format has not gained traction, this report will assess the enhanced ebook format, and its past, present, and future place in the North American publishing industry

Modalities Matter

This thesis is a qualitative study that seeks to investigate pupils’ experiences, preferences, and attitudes when reading a fictional novel on different modalities. The motivation behind this study is a wish to spread the love of reading to a generation consisting of digital natives. We, therefore, wanted to explore how we could use fictional novels in the English classroom. A common thread that runs through our study is the focus on phenomenological immersion. We consider immersion to be the key element for a positive reading experience, and thus we have attempted to facilitate the reading experience for the pupils to enter this mindset. Our research was conducted in a 9th-grade classroom and lasted for four weeks. During these weeks, the pupils read the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (2003) by using the E-book, paper book, and audiobook. In order to answer our research question, we have collected data from observation, interviews, reflection logs, questionnaires, and our personal continuous reflection log. Our overall methodology was action research, which allowed us to implement changes and interventions we believed to improve the reading experience for the pupils. By following the development of each pupil’s reading experience, we have gotten an impression of how their mindsets change and are affected by the book being read, and the modality the book is read on. We have found that attitudes towards the book and comfortability with the modality are essential factors that affect the experience of reading a novel. Our study suggests that a reader may enter four different mindsets based on how they relate to these factors. If the reader is comfortable with the modality and has a positive attitude toward the book, the reader achieves immersion. If the reader is comfortable with the modality but has a negative attitude toward the book, the reader experiences boredom. If the reader is uncomfortable with the modality but has a positive attitude toward the book, the reader feels stressed. However, if the reader is uncomfortable with the modality and has a negative attitude toward the book, the reader gets disengaged. We have created a model called “The Mindset Map of Pupils’ Reading Experiences” to visualize this interplay of factors. Our intention for the model is in no way to label the pupils as one certain type of reader. On the contrary, we wish to visualize the dynamic process of reading, and how easily affected a reading experience can be

The Effects of Using Multimedia Presentations and Modular Worked-out Examples as Instructional Methodologies to Manage the Cognitive Processing Associated with Information Literacy Instruction at the Graduate and Undergraduate Levels of Nursing Education

Information literacy is a complex knowledge domain. Cognitive processing theory describes the effects an instructional subject and the learning environment have on working memory. Essential processing is one component of cognitive processing theory that explains the inherent complexity of knowledge domains such as information literacy. Prior research involving cognitive processing relied heavily on instructional subjects from the areas of math, science and technology. For this study, the instructional subject of information literacy was situated within the literature describing ill-defined problems using modular worked-out examples instructional design techniques. The purpose of this study was to build on the limited research into cognitive processing, ill-defined problems and modular worked-out examples by examining the use of a multimedia audiobook as an instructional technique to manage the cognitive processing occurring during information literacy instruction. Two experiments were conducted using convenience samples of doctoral nursing students (Experiment 1, n = 38) and undergraduate nursing students (Experiment 2, n = 80). Students in Experiment 1 completed a pretest, were exposed to a brief eight-minute and sixteen-second (8:16) multimedia audiobook instructional session, and then completed a posttest. The pretest and posttest consisted of one ill-defined problem presented as an essay-style question, and eleven multiple-choice questions. Experiment 2 built upon Experiment 1 through the addition of three questions measuring extraneous processing, generative processing and essential processing. Experiment 1 results indicated a large Cohen\u27s effect size for the multiple-choice set of questions (d = 1.08) and a medium effect size for the essay-style, ill-defined problem (d = 0.73). Experiment 2, results indicated a medium effect size for the multiple-choice set of questions (d = 0.55) and a medium effect size for the essay-style, ill-defined problem (d = 0.67). With respect to Experiment 2, there were statistically significant differences between generative processing and extraneous processing, t(79) = 6.84, p \u3c .001 and between essential processing and extraneous processing was t(79) = 4.37, p \u3c .001. There was no statistically significant difference between essential processing and generative processing was t(79) = 1.69, p = .09

The New Hampshire, Vol. 106, No. 48 (May. 4, 2017)

An independent student produced newspaper from the University of New Hampshire

Listening to the library: Preadolescent student perceptions of the impact of downloadable audiobooks on their literacy development

The purpose of this narrative inquiry was for me to learn from students about their perceptions of changes in their literacy practices from listening to downloaded audiobooks in their free time. Participants were preadolescent students from one international school in South Korea. Data were collected from regular recorded interviews over a period of two school years. Much has been written about audiobooks in popular media, and especially in educational publications, but there is a surprising lack of significant research about using audiobooks in education, particularly for fluent readers and writers with no learning difficulties. This research aims to fill a gap in the educational research and recent technological advancements in downloadable audiobook technology make this a timely topic. Narrative inquiry is shown to be an ideal methodology to present student 'voice' research. Results are presented as fourteen themes with sub-themes in four thematic categories, namely, what students gain (or not) from listening to audiobooks, characteristics of listeners, agency and organisational structures. This research found that participants were selfmotivated to listen to audiobooks in their leisure time and that they did perceive a change in their literacy practices, particularly in generating story ideas, providing a model of verbal fluency and learning vocabulary in context. However, the research also revealed that there are significant organisational structures, such as technical challenges and the influence of adults, which either enable or constrain a student's agency to listen to audiobooks. Additionally, it became apparent that these preadolescent audiobook listeners display notable characteristics such as the proclivity to multitask while listening, a preference for story regardless of mode and the ability to critically analyse both the story and narration. This dissertation concludes with a discussion of the implications of this research for educational knowledge and practice

Case Studies in multiliteracies and inclusive pedagogy: Facilitating meaningful literacy learning

This thesis presents the results of a study designed to examine ways to engage and scaffold primary school students who experience literacy learning difficulties. Utilising a pedagogy of multiliteracies, proposed by the New London Group (1996, 2000), and a framework for inclusive pedagogy (Florian, 2014), this thesis sought to investigate ways to facilitate meaningful literacy learning for students who experience challenges when participating in print-based classroom activities. A qualitative case study approach was adopted to support the broader sociocultural and multiliteracies perspective that underlies the theoretical direction of this research. Three student case studies were constructed illustrating the students’ in-school and out-of-school literacy practices. Research data indicated that while these students exhibited strong engagement with multiple literacies in their out-of-school environment, their experiences in a classroom context were, at times, challenging and marginalising. During the fieldwork period, which took place in a Western Australian Year 6 primary classroom, a multimodal literacy activity was implemented over one school term. This activity required students to: 1. Audioread the novel The Bad Beginning 2. Create a storyboard utilising the iPad app Kid’s Book Report and 3. Create an iMovie review about the novel. Data analysis revealed that engagement with the multimodal literacy activity emerged in similar ways for the case study students. These students appeared to be engaged with the literacy activity when they were: • Activating prior knowledge and immersed in meaningful practices via situated learning. • Experiencing opportunities to create meaning in multiple ways. • Fostering shared meanings - scaffolded within a community of practice. Results indicate that engagement with multiple literacies, beyond the printed word, allowed the students to navigate literacy within various contexts. Exploring multimodal ways to present their thoughts further enhanced the students’ engagement with the multimodal literacy activity. This study provides insight into key areas in the field of literacy research and contributes to understandings of: multiliteracies; inclusive pedagogy; sociocultural approaches to literacy; and open-ended and flexible approaches to literacy learning. The study may be of interest to pre and in service primary school educators and education researchers and policy makers

Smart Universities

Institutions of learning at all levels are challenged by a fast and accelerating pace of change in the development of communications technology. Conferences around the world address the issue. Research journals in a wide range of scholarly fields are placing the challenge of understanding "Education's Digital Future" on their agenda. The World Learning Summit and LINQ Conference 2017 proceedings take this as a point of origin. Noting how the future also has a past: Emergent uses of communications technologies in learning are of course neither new nor unfamiliar. What may be less familiar is the notion of "disruption", found in many of the conferences and journal entries currently. Is the disruption of education and learning as transformative as in the case of the film industry, the music industry, journalism, and health? If so, clearly the challenge of understanding future learning and education goes to the core of institutions and organizations as much as pedagogy and practice in the classroom. One approach to the pursuit of a critical debate is the concept of Smart Universities – educational institutions that adopt to the realities of digital online media in an encompassing manner: How can we as smarter universities and societies build sustainable learning eco systems for coming generations, where technologies serve learning and not the other way around? Perhaps that is the key question of our time, reflecting concerns and challenges in a variety of scholarly fields and disciplines? These proceedings present the results from an engaging event that took place from 7th to 9th of June 2017 in Kristiansand, Norway