Quote:
Originally Posted by Barcey
If tactile learning is important I can see possibilities where as children touch objects in a room the word for that object displays on a screen?
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Younger children love interactive whiteboards, which allow them to 'get hold of' words and manipulate them. They can match the words to images, sounds or even animations. Some of the available software is really flexible, and allows you to script pretty much whatever interactions between user and language you can invent.
For me, two key problems remain with this technology.
- There's one board and up to thirty children. They can learn by watching others using the board, but the level of engagement can't match that of while they are at the board. This problem will be solved when the technology is cheap and robust enough / the government are prepared to invest properly and every child has a interactive slate device with a colour screen. Practicality demands that this is developed by an educational company - the iPad is not the answer for a number of reasons.
- It still remains that the current technology is not particularly useful for having the children read a story themselves (not necessarily in silence on their own). Yes, children learn through play. Yes, there's nothing inherently uneducational about whizzy graphics and learning on a screen. However, I still think OP is right, and a physical book is a more tangible thing to a child than what are obviously pixels on a screen with current technology (this from somebody who is enirely happy to get rid of pbooks once I have them as ebooks). There's a benefit to a book having a cover, blurb and physical presence for a child learning to read. I suspect that it is easier for them to 'take ownership of' a story when they are holding a pbook.
The relative benefits of pbooks may become less if devices much more specifically tailored to this purpose are developed in the future. Devices that become the property of the child and are used throughout the day. Devices that have much more tactile touch interfaces to aid interactivity. Devices that are able to handle two-way communication with an e-board controlled by the teacher and the students.
If the student considers the device to be truly their own,
if it has a colour screen, sound and an intuitive touch interface as well as striking presentation developed specifically for the medium, and
if the screen no longer resembles a screen (so as to make the child think of it as a tangible physical object rather than an electronic device) - then pbooks will cease to have an advantage over ereaders as reading devices for young students of reading their native language.