Explorations In Reading, Writing, and Publishing
Some like paper, some like pixels, some like both…
But, if you check out my previous post, E-Readers vs Paper Books ~ What’s The Fuss?, and scroll down to the thought-experiment by Joe Konrath, you might see some clear advantages of e-readers…
Also, an article in The Wall Street Journal, An E-Reader Revolution for Africa?, spells out some critical advantages for the digital version of reading—-some excerpts follow:
“The Humble School, which serves needy children in a part of Africa ravaged by poverty and HIV, is on the front lines of an effort to reinvent developing world literacy programs with technology.”
“Africa is littered with well-intentioned technology programs that fail because devices don’t get used, fall into the wrong hands or just can’t find enough power to run.”
“Compared with traditional books, e-readers make it easy to distribute works from African authors that can be hard to get in print. Previously, Humble School’s library contained mostly books donated from America. ‘The first books we got were mainly about the U.S., with kids playing in ice—which our pupils would not understand’, says Ester Nabwire, the school’s head teacher. ‘With the Kindles, there are African authors, African names which are exciting the kids.’”
“In Worldreader‘s first test, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development at six schools in Ghana starting in 2010, the group found that primary-school students who got Kindles increased their performance on standardized reading tests from about 13% to 16%.
“For kids who develop a love for reading, there is another benefit that is hard to quantify: a seemingly endless library. ‘I can access every book I want to read very quickly’, says Eperence Uwera, a 13-year-old Rwandan refugee at the Humble School. ‘I would love to go [home] with the Kindle during the holidays.’”
There are other exemplary programs that aid literacy, like GoneReading…
And, from the Humble School blog, this compelling testimony:
“I did not really like to read until we received the e-readers. Now I love to read!”
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My thoughts and feelings are that I wish I could donate some ebooks to these kids and that this is a really good example of how technology can overcome the problems of space and access that real life can often impose on individuals. This also reminds me of the $100 XO laptop in the One laptop per Child initiative, which can also be used as e-readers : http://one.laptop.org/ This is how computers/e-readers should be used – to improve real quality of life and to give access to education.
I’ll have to check on the possibility of doing that, Jane—donating e-books—I suspect the site I linked to, Worldreader, might have that feature but my ISP is acting up and Google and WordPress are all I can get to :-(
ISP’s working right again, Jane :-)
You can send a gift that gets more e-books to these kids right here.
Excellent, thank you. I am doing that right now:)!
Yay, Jane :-)