Posts from — May 2009

The release of the latest version of the Kindle has many waxing poetic on the future of books in the digital age.

While books seem to gather the most interest, perhaps a more important and certainly more sophisticated notion is to examine what it will mean to be called a writer/author in the age of new media.

Current Status

Tim O’Reilly of RadarOReilly.com describes the idea of putting a book on an electronic device as analogous to “pointing a camera at a stage play, and calling it a movie.”

While that might have been the initial thrust of Hollywood, O’Reilly points out that the “tools of production and consumption actually changed the format of what was produced and consumed. Camera angles, pacing, editing techniques, lighting, location shooting, special effects: all these innovations make the movies (and television) of today very different from the earliest movies.”

Likewise, we are in the early stages of a new world, one that is shifting to an online medium featuring greater and greater portability. The question thus arises, how will books change in the digital age?

To get a sense of the basics, we turn back to the latest version of the Kindle. The device features the ability to display a wealth of different document styles and formats. As one would expect, the Kindle 2 provides access to and readily displays books, newspapers, and magazines. However, the latest version also displays a vast array of other document formats: Microsoft Word, PDF, HTML, TXT, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PRC and MOBI files. Therefore the Kindle now has the potential to be a document repository and full-fledged library.

Perhaps an even more exciting option, albeit still in its infancy as a polished product, is that the Kindle 2 can turn a traditional book into an audiobook. There is still much work to be done before the device can be considered a perfect swap for the audio created by a soothing and polished human voice, but the device offers an amazing step forward in the overall reading process.

As proponents tout, one can use the Kindle as an ebook reader on a train or airplane just as you could pull out a book to read. But then later, the earbuds can be connected and you can continue to read (as in listen to the audio production) as you walk through the station or airport.

Of course, the new ereader means that no book has to be printed and therefore there is no such thing as a truly finished product. The ereader concept certainly makes nonfiction works more practical as updates can be easily uploaded to ensure that the book available for purchase always represents the latest edition.

Mixing Platforms

Of course, one of the beauties of the internet and thus the Kindle is the ability to provide documents that then hyperlink immediately to provide a relevant citation or reference. Perhaps even more importantly, nonfiction works can consist of fewer collected chapters as some of the text that would normally be incorporated to build upon or explain certain concepts can instead be simply linked to.

Readers without expertise can peruse the linked material at their leisure while those who have a grasp may forgo those links and delve directly into the new material.

According to O’Reilly, such a concept likely means we will need to develop useful modular formats. In such cases, many books could become more of a collection of loosely-related pages allowing for greater depth and breadth of issue exploration.

Therein comes the real challenge: how does one actually write material for the potential to cross platforms? How can the author ensure her book translates well to an ereader or iPhone application?

As but one example, what happens if a writer uses hyperlinks instead of footnotes but the reader doesn’t have internet access? And even when the reader does have such access, how can writers ensure such cross-referencing links are still active and reliable at the the time the reader examines the link?

Scott Meyers, an independent author and consultant, examines the notion of cross-platforming in “Authoring Challenges in a Multiplatform World.” To the right we present a visual of one of his slides that depicts some of the existing challenges (click to enlarge).

Currently, the conventional manuscript from an author is often designed for the traditional book format. Later, that document is translated where it is viewed on a computer or laptop, an ereader, or PDA or listened to on one of those same devices.

While most everything that works in printed form will work on these devices, simply translating existing documents fails to take advantage of the new technology available. As Meyer notes, text, diagrams, tables, photographs, etc. all work with new media, they just might not work as well.

At the same time, new media offers so much more: color, video/animations and audio are what make the newer platforms so enticing. It is truly as O’Reilly notes, the stage when movies were simply still films of stage plays.

Author Issues

Meyer notes that effective multi-platform publication will require greater author cooperation. It will also mean that writers may well need to develop additional skills if they are to ensure the portability of their work to different platforms.

As it is currently constructed, the idea of designing and writing for traditional print formats then attempting to translate or port that work to other new media platforms makes little sense. Instead, according to Meyer, we will soon see the adoption of new expository and software tools that allow for the construction of documents that are easily ported among devices.

It will also demand new writing skills and that authors understand two relatively new concepts: how to properly express capability-dependent content (eg., displaying a table on devices that have limited viewing screen sizes) and how to apply capability-dependent formatting (eg. including colors when such an option is available, falling back to black and white when color is not present). And as we noted, there will need to be careful consideration for how cross-references and links are utilized, especially given that documents and web sites will not remain static over time.

Teachers are fond of saying that we are educating students for jobs that do not even exist today. Thanks to ereaders and other portable electronic devices, one of the world’s greatest inventions, the book, is undergoing a major review.

At the same time, the notion of what it means to be a writer or author is also undergoing a thorough look. Perhaps it will give rise to a new descriptor or title.

And to a wealth of new career options, much as we saw with the development of the movie industry.

Once the magic word was plastics. Today, however, the magic advice might lie in a two word phrase:

Keep working.

According to recent research, it turns out that the solution to preventing dementia might well be the very same one proffered to help our underfunded social security system remain solvent.

Yes, it might be time to forget about retiring early. Heck, it might just be time to forget about retiring period.

Mental Activity Is Critical

It has long been suspected that those who remain mentally active later in life may be able to postpone and/or lessen the effects of Alzheimer’s. While that notion has spawned a whole industry devoted to brain fitness, it turns out that simply working later in life might be that ticket to warding off the effects of the debilitating disease.

That fact came as a result of the research of the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London. Experts took a look at more than 1,320 dementia patients, approximately 30% of them men.

Those who retired later in life developed Alzheimer’s at a later stage. As a simple association, for each additional year of employment there was about a six week later age of onset of the disease.

Use It or Lose It

There is a growing body of evidence pointing to the concept of cognitive reserve. For example, research shows that a quality education correlates to a reduced risk of dementia.

What is still unknown is whether we can continue to create cognitive reserve later in life or if by remaining mentally active we are able to preserve that brain status for a longer period. But the new philosophy of use it or lose it has moved from the world of physical fitness into the mental health field.

The study reveals that brain fitness may be maintained simply by the stimulation of the work environment.

Still, there were no findings to suggest that working longer would end the risk of Alzheimer’s. And others, like Dr Susanne Sorensen, head of research at the Alzheimer’s Society, noted that the study’s small sample size minimizes the ability to draw firm conclusions.

“There could be a number of reasons why later retirement in men is linked with later onset of dementia,” Sorenson told the BBC. “Men who retire early often do so because of health conditions, such as hypertension or diabetes, which increase your risk of dementia.”

Time to Keep Working?

Sorenson went on to add that working helps keep your body active as well, another key factor to reducing the risk of dementia.

One aspect that was mentioned but received little discussion is that it might well be time to put an end to the notion of working full time until that one magic day when a person draws the retirement line. Currently, for many the process is a precipice that marks the end of the world of work and the start of the retirement years.

It would stand to reason that for a vast array of reasons, financial, societal (social security and medical impact), as well as mental, the shift away from the work world should be more gradual. Instead of calling it quits one day, older workers should be able to reduce both their weekly and their yearly number of hours on the job in a more gradual manner.

Brain images courtesy of jj_judes and Institut Douglas.

When it comes to early literacy and the teaching of reading, Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell may well be the two most recognized experts in America. More than a decade after releasing “Guided Reading, Good First Teaching for All Children,” the number one selling professional teacher resource in the US, these two literacy experts have released another noteworthy book as part of a new program called Leveled Literacy Intervention.

Fountas and Pinnell

When it comes to reading instruction in the early grades, the names Fountas and Pinnell are likely the two most referenced authors in the country. Fountas is currently a professor in the School of Education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The former classroom teacher, language arts specialist, and consultant currently directs the Literacy Collaborative within the School of Education at Lesley.

Pinnell, professor emeritus at The Ohio State University, is the recipient of the International Reading Association’s Albert J. Harris Award for research and the Charles A. Dana Foundation Award for contributions to the field of education. Generally considered the catalyst for bringing Reading Recovery to schools in the US, she too has an extensive background in classroom teaching and the development of comprehensive approaches to literacy education.

In 1996, the two reading experts revolutionized classroom teaching with their systematic approach to small-group reading instruction. Today, the concept of Guided Reading is a featured technique in nearly every elementary school in America.

Their latest efforts, the Leveled Literacy Intervention program was created in response to the demands of teachers and administrators for a scientifically-based, early intervention program for struggling readers. Utilizing a comprehensive anchoring text, “When Readers Struggle: Teaching that Works,” the program focuses on preventing difficulties before they become long-term educational challenges.

Featuring an A–Z Text Gradient, “Benchmark Assessment System,” LLI provides teachers critical feedback on both the strengths and the needs of readers in kindergarten through Grade 3. While some aspects involve support within the whole class settings, a critical component of the program involves small group intervention and individual one-on-one sessions.

Response to Intervention

The new work from Fountas and Pinnell comes on the heels of a new educational term causing great consternation in many corners, Response to Intervention (RTI). The phrase is a result of
recent legal language changes in special education law that have resulted in a renewed focus on learners who struggle in the early grades.

There is growing body of evidence regarding the importance of reading at or above grade level in early childhood. One of the most sobering of educational research elements is the revelation that a child not reading on grade level by the third grade will in most cases be destined for significant educational challenges for the remainder of their schooling years.

In its simplest terms, “response to intervention” is a multi-step approach to providing children who struggle with learning additional educational instruction. The process involves teachers making specific teaching adjustments to help struggling students be more successful.

Such steps differ significantly from taking a student aside and simply offering more time utilizing the same instructional techniques. RTI features a fundamental tenet that if students struggle with the initial instruction, teachers must use differentiated teaching practices for the additional sessions.

Those adjustments, referred to as specific intervention techniques, are then closely monitored to determine the effectiveness of each practice. Because the interventions are graduated and vary in intensity, teachers then have a much larger tool box for helping students master specific concepts.

The ongoing assessment process, referred to as progress monitoring, involves scientifically-validated measurement tools. Frequent and regular assessment of students helps teachers identify specific learning goals for those students.

Ultimately, the philosophy ensures that students who are struggling with learning are not doing so because they have been exposed to just one teaching technique that simply did not work for those students.

Most importantly, considering a child for special education services is postponed until such interventions have been used. At the same time, these practices can lead to an earlier identification of those children who have real disabilities and therefore require special education services.

Program Predates Current Stimulus Funding Measures

Begun entirely outside of the RTI push, Fountas and Pinnell’s Leveled Literacy Intervention program is a small group, intensive, supplementary intervention system designed specifically to help struggling readers and writers. In direct response to the urgency to have students on grade level in the early years, LLI seeks to bring each student to grade-level competency in just 14-18 weeks.

Under President Barack Obama, federal officials continue to focus on accountability measures such as test scores and the use of scientifically-based research learning tools. This push towards “outcome based” education, backed now by federal stimulus funds, has many companies hard at work developing new products to fit updated literacy theories and match the Response to Intervention concept.

However, well before funds were to become available from the federal government, Fountas and Pinnell were at work on their intervention program for students and teachers. The authors clearly understood one key issue early on. For as long as educators can remember, there have been few options available for struggling students unless they were referred for special education services.

Placing a learning disability or other special education label on a six year old has always been a concern for educators. By the same token, elementary teachers, reluctant to refer a child to special education, had little in the way of proven strategies to work with students who were performing below grade level.

Most importantly, the program focuses on the students within the teacher’s classroom, not the instructional materials.

“It’s about teaching children,” states Fountas. “It is about teachers becoming better observers of the learners.”

Uniqueness of LLI

Unfortunately, the over-arching issue of greater accountability is leading towards entire canned, intervention programs that are extremely expensive. Schools seeking grant money to tackle this important issue are often required to adopt one of these specific programs.

However, with Fountas and Pinnell, the approach is more of a two-fold process focusing on teacher actions that are known to garner proven results. It begins with a focus on high-quality instructional practices that ensure teachers utilize time-tested, proven first teaching techniques.

LLI features a fairly tight framework of 300 lessons based on 300 separate reading texts that give educators an arsenal of effective tools. Those reading materials include fiction, non-fiction, story series featuring recurring characters and some classic tales.

It follows with timely and developmentally appropriate intervention techniques based on the feedback obtained from progress-monitoring students. Therefore the program is less about purchasing a canned package of materials and more about developing sound teaching practices.

In the ongoing mold of “you can’t possibly make this stuff up,” we turn to a recent physics excerpt migrating through cyberspace. It appears to be traceable to Steve Detweiler at the University of Florida and Accelerated Physics 2060, though it is not clear who was the actual observer.

Fundamental of Physical Science

According to the one site that students are not supposed to turn to for research, Wikipedia offers that gravitation is the “natural phenomenon by which objects with mass attract one another.” Without taking that sentence too much further, it is quite evident that if an object has mass (we will skip the debate that an object by definition must have mass) then it will attract other objects.

In physical science, students learn that in order for this attraction to be noticeable, we need a substantially massive object, like the earth or the sun (or, yes, like the moon). In physics, we might take this a bit further to note that the so-called force of gravity exerted on an object by the earth just so happens to be equal and opposite to the attractive force that the object exerts on the earth.

We further reveal that smaller objects fall to the earth because that force of attraction is able to move the very wimpy smaller object easily but is not large enough to reveal any perceptive movement by the more massive earth.

With that in mind, we turn to Detweiler’s post, where it seems that a teaching assistant in a philosophy class at the University of Wisconsin, Madison was explaining Descartes. According to the tale, the TA was trying to create an example that would back the notion that things don’t always happen the way we think they will.

For his concrete example, the TA chose this beauty:

“…..while a pen always falls when you drop it on Earth, it would just float away if you let go of it on the Moon.”

The storyteller goes on to note his incredulity at the TA’s false assertion, but that his disbelief was not shared by the majority of the other students in the room.

The storyteller goes on to protest.

“But a pen would fall if you dropped it on the Moon, just more slowly.”

To which the TA responds.

“No it wouldn’t, because you’re too far away from the Earth’s gravity,” says the TA who then asks, “You saw the APOLLO astronauts walking around on the Moon, didn’t you?”

To which the storyteller responds, “why didn’t they float away?”

“Because they were wearing heavy boots,” asserted the TA.

Is This for Real?

My first thought when I heard the story was, no sir, no way. This guy had to be making this up.

But then he insists that he went back to his dorm room and began randomly selecting names from the campus phone book, calling 30 people and asking a two part question, if they could not in fact answer the first one.

He began:

If you’re standing on the Moon holding a pen, and you let go, will it
a) float away,
b) float where it is,
c) fall to the ground?

According to the storyteller, just 47 percent got the question correct. Of the other 53%, he asked this second follow up:

You’ve seen films of the APOLLO astronauts walking around on the Moon, why didn’t they fall off?

According to the storyteller, about 20 percent of the people decided at that point that they would change their answer. But according to the legendary story, about half of those getting wrong explained:

“Because they were wearing heavy boots.”

Huh?

Story Continues

If you’re like me, you like this clever little piece that demonstrates just how scientifically illiterate our people are but are still wondering, could this be for real?

It is certainly not likely that he could have randomly called eight of the students who had happened to be in the TA’s classroom that day. And it would seem unlikely that Wisconsin had had done that bad of a job teaching science to its citizens.

Yet, later, one begins to think there just might be some merit here as the story continues to the physics classroom one day where two multiple choice questions were placed on a Physics test right after the class had finished the study of elementary mechanics and gravity.

Question one:

If you are standing on the Moon, and holding a rock, and you let it go, it will:
(a) float away
(b) float where it is
(c) move sideways
(d) fall to the ground
(e) none of the above

Question 2:

When the Apollo astronauts were on the Moon, they did not fall off because:
(a) the Earth’s gravity extends to the Moon
(b) the Moon has gravity
(c) they wore heavy boots
(d) they had safety ropes
(e) they had spiked shoes

While the first question was generally considered by the tester as being of average difficulty (especially with the more robust questions that had to have been posed), just 57% of the students got it right. The second proved much easier as 73% went on to get it right.

But guess what? When it comes to the notion of heavy boots, well it still seems to be a tough one for even physics students, at least the weaker ones. Those who scored in the lowest quartile on the entire test actually selected heavy boots as their answer most often.

Then there comes the ultimate sign, the one certifying piece that ensures that the story must be on the up and up.

It seems that after the exam, two students reportedly asked if the professor was going to continue asking “questions about things they had never studied in the class.”