Improve ebooks - fiction & non-fiction

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

If you can't engage with a well-written book (e or p), then you simply don't like reading. There's nothing wrong with that--watch TV, or play a game instead. Just stop trying to turn "reading a book" into a different activity than it is. If you envision "more than a book," then write (or buy) an app.

Originally Posted by applesauce

I love, adore reading. I also have MS which now has made inroads int my short-term memory. The ability to click on the names of a character and see the character biographies etc would be amazing, same for references to other books in a series. So I find the below above comment offensive.

It seems rather strange to me that you would bring in features that no mass market ebook I know of supports and end with your claim that the comment is offensive.

So perhaps the real question is exactly how the comment offended you? That diapdealer likes his ebooks to be digital version of deadtree books with no extraneous content to distract him? That is his opinion and he is entitled to express it. You are equally free to disagree with him with no need to play the political correctness card.

[tomfyhr]

Could someone provide more examples of interactive multimedia and pedagogical games?

I have myself played many of these pedagogical games as a child, but I must say that the degree in which I actually learned something was limited. A focus seems to be put on play and passively watching the action unfold, like watching TV. In that sense, pedagogical games cannot be compared to actual reading in terms of fictional literature, though when it comes to the natural science or math it may find its use. In many cases, the artist wish to communicate movement but is limited to a static image, where ebook can simple present movement. I have personally never seen a pedagogical game centered towards the natural science, in the sense that it teaches actual concepts.

When it comes to non-fiction, such as textbooks for math, natural science or other school subjects, do you believe that animation and other interactive experiences has more of a practical use there?

It will certainly make it easier to comprehend using moving images, especially in labs, hence the students liking of videos. Instead of having to surf on the internet, which takes focus away from the reading and sometimes the quality of the video may be inconsistent, they can simple acquire high quality content directly on their ebook and read it.

[meeera]

There are a heap of "educational games" for primary school students on computers and tablets. The only ones we ever found were particular useful were the ones who made rote drill a bit less painful, like those that gamified arithmetic and phonetics.

Senior school is a different story and my kid's school uses a lot of computer based apps for all sorts of things. However, English literacy generally isn't one of them; they're primarily for STEM and music (eg aural skills drill) and languages. Animation can be very useful to explore things like physics laws, mitosis, maths graphing, etc etc etc. There doesn't seem to be any shortage of these pedagogical products, but they're not ebooks either, and they're not there to make literature "more engaging". They are there to transmit information that is best transmitted by animation/video. Students still have to study printed words (or their accessible equivalent, if they have disabilities) just like they ever did.

What is your goal for this thread? What are you trying to learn and achieve? Your questions seem very unfocused to me, which makes them difficult to respond to.

[tomfyhr]

Originally Posted by meeera

What is your goal for this thread? What are you trying to learn and achieve? Your questions seem very unfocused to me, which makes them difficult to respond to.

I am trying to learn how digitalization and books can be used in ways that was previously restricted when the book was printed physically.

For example, previously before technology took hold, you could only paint static images. Thanks to technology, animation (moving images) is possible, which was something unheard of before. Firstly, I am wondering what the possibilites are for digitalized books and secondly how they can be combined to make reading more "fun" and less intimiating to young adults and children who dislike reading.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by tomfyhr

I am trying to learn how digitalization and books can be used in ways that was previously restricted when the book was printed physically.

For example, previously before technology took hold, you could only paint static images. Thanks to technology, animation (moving images) is possible, which was something unheard of before. Firstly, I am wondering what the possibilites are for digitalized books and secondly how they can be combined to make reading more "fun" and less intimiating to young adults and children who dislike reading.

And what have you learned so far in your research elsewhere? This is by no means a brand new idea.

[tomfyhr]

Originally Posted by meeera

And what have you learned so far in your research elsewhere? This is by no means a brand new idea.

To put it shortly, make the ebook as "masquareded TV" to quote a user who posted on this thread.

[tomfyhr]

For children, what are features from interactive multimedia that you believe are good and what features would you like to see implemented in the future? Just want to highlight, for children and from interactive multimedia.

[meeera]

Could you stop PMing me with your research requests, tomfyhr? This forum isn't your free consultant machine, it's a user-to-user discussion forum. In general, you will get out of it what you put into it.

[darryl]

@tomyfyhr. If this is a thesis topic or academic assignment of some sort you probably find the answers you are getting here disappointing. I doubt a conclusion that ebooks are close to perfect as they are and don't require these new features would be particularly satisfying. Nor that such features are to be found in other existing products and are neither needed nor wanted in ebooks. If there's still time and you have the option choose something else. I doubt persisting and continually adjusting the questions is going to elicit different answers.

[tomfyhr]

Originally Posted by darryl

@tomyfyhr. If this is a thesis topic or academic assignment.

Nope. It is not, I am just curious. (Just for the record, I do not study journalism or pedagogy.)

I was just asking him/her if he/she could provide examples of pedagogical products for higher education which he/she mentioned in her/his previous post, since I had not heard of their existence due to the fact that they are not advertized at all in my geographical point of residence.

I also asked him/her what the terms chapter sink graphic and scene break ornament meant, which he/she mentioned previously. I did a google-search but didn´t find anything.

And that is everything I asked her. No idea where he/she got the research-part from. I just want to discuss about media.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by tomfyhr

I was just asking him/her if he/she could provide examples of pedagogical products for higher education which he/she mentioned in her/his previous post, since I had not heard of their existence due to the fact that they are not advertized at all in my geographical point of residence.

I am finding it 100% impossible to believe that a google search for educational software found you nothing. I'm getting a billion hits. Literally. If your only source of information is what is advertised at you... maybe you should... read more books? Just a suggestion.

Again, you get out of it what you put into it. So far you have shared nothing at all, just peppered us all with questions then largely ignored the answers.

[tomfyhr]

Originally Posted by meeera

I am finding it 100% impossible to believe that a google search for educational software found you nothing. I'm getting a billion hits. Literally. answers.

I google-searched pedagogical products, not educational software, since that was how you phrased it. I did not find pedagogical products in the sense that it is packaged in a manual or disc in that google-search. They were mainly group discussion and seminars.

Where I have had the competence, I have provided the input. Please see the previous posts.

[GlenBarrington]

People who want to read, tend to read, and don't really need that extra stuff. That being said, Microsoft has created a new application in their Office Suite called "Sway" (Currently free with Windows 10), which claims to do that very thing. Well, not in Kindle or ePub formats, but in it's own unique format that no eBook reader that I know of supports.

I have experimented with it a bit as a possible alternative to videos for my Photography blog. It is not ideal for casual users. Most citizens of first world countries, have a built-in cultural knowledge of story telling via text, still and video photography as stand-alone vehicles. They know when they are seeing effective examples of those sorts of media. Not so with mixed media alternatives.

I found it takes the development of a solid mixed media sensibility to produce effective mixed media titles. And I suspect, cultural agreement on just what effective mixed media standards should be, will be required before such media becomes commonplace.

The technology is do-able both on the production and display ends of the spectrum, but we will need cultural and corporate buy in on mixed media entertainment and educational titles before we can even begin to hope to convince users to consider something like this.

[tomfyhr]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

And I suspect, cultural agreement on just what effective mixed media standards should be, will be required before such media becomes commonplace.

To some extent, mixed media, where different methods of communication are integrated, already exists in some form. One way is via story-driven video games, which combine watching, hearing and experiencing to entertain the player. Another way is via websites, whose layouts may combine visuals, words and audio to communicate. A third way is via magazine layouts and graphic novels (comic books), which combines pictures and words.

The concept of having mixed media is a concept that has been present since post-modernism and is a post-modern form of expression, as exemplifed by Ulysses which really transcends the barrier in terms of expression. Comic books is a post-modern form of expression, hence its mixture of pictures, words and onomatopeia. As some may already be aware, post-modernism sought to break the boundaries of expression and as a result its content became very experimental. The thoughts introduced in post-modernism never died out and are still relevant and present culturally.

Therefore, it appears that there already is some cultural acceptance of mixed media, however that seems not have surfaced to the realm of ebooks/multimedia.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by tomfyhr

Therefore, it appears that there already is some cultural acceptance of mixed media, however that seems not have surfaced to the realm of ebooks.

I still don't get the point of trying to change eBooks. You want multimedia, use one of the (several) multimedia channels already available. Meanwhile just let me READ my eBooks.

Non-problem solved.