Books vs technology...again

Scholastic undertook a survey of 501 children aged 5-17 and their parents in order to explore reading in the digital age. You can find the report here and it suggests that children, sensibly, 'believe that technology will complement — not replace — book reading'. The report also indicates that 'Many children are extending the book reading experience online — from looking for more books in a series or by the same author, to visiting websites that immerse a child in content related to a book, to connecting with authors and other readers. ' So, will this mean the end of endless surveys that seek to explore whether or not technology is driving children away from reading? I fear not...

Future of the book

I met with Bob and Chris from the Institute for the Future of the Book last week, who showed me some fantastic software the organisation has developed, which will enable pupils and teachers to create multimodal, online texts. The software is called 'Sophie' and will be free to dowload from here from the end of February. I know I won't be able to create anything like as fabulous as 'Inanimate Alice', but I am a looking forward to digital authoring using the software. However, much as I love 'Inanimate Alice' for all sorts of reasons, I do not like having the pace of reading dictated to me, which would prevent me from engaging in widespread reading of similar texts. I am a fast reader and feel frustrated with the pace of that story. Maybe I'm just a bad example of the 'twitch generation'?!