A question from a children's book publisher
Saturday, October 8, 2011 at 10:51AM I get asked a lot of questions via e-mail that I am totally unqualified to answer. Of course my lack of knowledge or experience doesn't keep me from providing an opinion anyway. Hey, I'm a guy. What can I say?
Here's the latest:
We are publishers of books used in the primary grades to help children who are learning to read and write. Most of our books are 8-, 12-, and 16-page fiction and non fiction for the first three years of school. We have been observing the move to all things digital and we have dabbled. I am now working toward making all 174 of our English language books and 82 of our Spanish language books available as eBooks.
I have a question and would welcome your insight. To over simplify everything, we have a choice of creating plain eBooks or enhanced eBooks. I want to believe that teachers using eBooks for instruction will want plain eBooks--just the story, no bells and whistles. At school I can picture a teacher using an eBook with a smartboard for a shared reading, just as she might use a big book. And I can picture a small group of first graders, each with their own tablet, sitting on the floor with the teacher in a small group instruction. Again, it seems to me that the best digital form of the book would be without enhancements. Do you know if schools are thinking this way, or are they thinking they want all sorts of gimmicks and doodads? By the way, I think differently about books available as apps for tablets and computers that could be purchased by parents at home. Maybe the heart of my thinking has to do with a difference between instruction that involves the teacher and independent reading and activity, whether at home or at school.
My response:
Your question about e-books is a good one. While I have reservations about books that "sing and dance,*" I am also staring to think that the expectation of some kind of multi-media or interactivity in children's ebooks is growing.
If the primary purpose of your books are for reading instruction, a simple text/graphics only version is probably the way to go. If they are meant to be sold directly to parents and kids for independent reading, the enhanced features are worth considering. You will also need to think about what e-book format to use or if you wish to publish each book as an app for Apple or Android.
How would you respond to this publisher?
Oh, I buy my grandsons books, e-books, and e-book apps that sing and dance - every format I can find.
* Does experiencing literature in highly interactive, multimedia formats actually lead to more reading? Or does it simply create a desire for more multimedia experiences? If the print book is vanilla ice cream, the electronic book that sings and dances is the whole hot fudge sundae with cherry and whipped cream. Who's going to want the plain vanilla anymore?
I certainly don't think it is intentional, but these e-books seem another step down the path leading toward a post-literate society. (The postliterate are those who can read, but chose to meet their primary information and recreational needs through audio, video, graphics and gaming.) How ironic that products designed to develop reading may instead doom it.
Reader Comments (10)
I think there can be interactivity that is useful for instruction without "song and dance" or "bells and whistles" ... so maybe there's a place for the enhanced version in both locations?
Definitely a read aloud version and a read to yourself version. And the read aloud versions that can have the text on the screen sort of light up, or change color along with the audio, helps. A real human reader demonstrating fluency and expression ... not just a computer-generated recording. Yes, in direct instruction the teacher can model the reading (hence the read to yourself version). And the goal is having the child be able to read it themselves. But the option for them to listen on their own is invaluable for independent practice until they get to that point.
Then the option to double-click on words and have a definition or specific illustration of what that word is can be helpful.
It is a delicate balance. As much as I LOVE the Morris Lessmore book app I've watched my niece race through the story just to get to the parts where she can play the piano or make the tornado swirl or turn the people getting books into different charactersl. Of course, she is only just barely four. And she still LOVES to read real books and simpler app books. So it's a balance.
In my personal experience as an educator it is still VERY difficult to get permission to purchase "apps" ... even though we do have access to at least a few iTouches and iPads. The whole Itunes gift cards and will someone else accidentally (or on purpose even though we'd hope not!) sync this app even though our license is only for X number of devices has made my district pretty much say "freebies only." Still working on that because I get different stories from different sources.
It's a little easier to get ebooks. We have a district subscription to Tumblebooks and we can suggest titles to be purchased and put into our Overdrive collection.
As a teacher and librarian either format would be okay, I would love to work with anything given to me. My problem is...I have a chalk board and a very old computer and no wi-fi in my classroom or library. Oh to dream of iPads and smart boards for my class! Until technology is considered as important as textbooks it won't matter what format the ebooks are in, as most children won't see them.
For the publisher, I would recommend they produce all three versions of the book and market them to each audience. Parents may want the enhanced eBook, the basic eBook, or the traditional one, and teachers should have a choice as well. I'd charge a bit more for the extra "bells and whistles", just like a car manufacturer would charge more for a fancier version of their product.
Teachers and librarians should work with both types of eBooks in their classes, and evaluate students' learning to determine which version works the best for their kids. I'm like you Doug, I say provide the kids with all available media, from dead-tree books to enhanced eBooks and everything in between. These kids may finally become post-literate, but they still need to become literate along the way.
Reading is not doomed, IMHO, it is just going through an evolution. Our brains are also evolving, and some would argue our minds are becoming shallow (http://www.theshallowsbook.com/nicholascarr/Nicholas_Carrs_The_Shallows.html) . My contention is that our brains are adapting to their surroundings, much like our bodies did when our ancestors climbed down from the trees and started using tools.
This response is a good example. I have used many of the reading and writing skills I learned in school in the 1980s, but I have also used digital skills learned in the last 10 years or so to look up the website for Carr's book and paste the link above.
I'm wondering about the legality of projecting a single purchase eBook to a class full of students on the Smartboard or any other digital device. In Canada, at least, our laws do not allow us to project and show the entire book onto a screen from a personal eReader device to a group of students. We can project ebooks if they are part of a package we have subscribed to such as Tumblebooks. Please correct me if I am wrong but please remember that the copyright laws of Canada and the US are obviously different.
Hi Angie,
I like your emphasis on balance! So true. Thanks for the reminder.
Doug
Hi C,
Thanks for the perspective! I wonder if the publisher is thinking about those schools that do not have access to e-book reader technologies?
Doug
Hi Len,
I suspect we've lost the ability to track game and mark trees to lay out territory - and we don't miss it. Maybe some future generation won't miss reading paper books either?
Doug
Hi Jo-Anne,
My belief is that Fair Use in the US allows such materials to be used in face-to-face instruction without violating copyright. I would suggest that you actually find the law that prohibits projection of e-books to make sure this not just a rumor, and that you check the user agreements of individual e-book publishers for their take on it. Such a prohibition seems overly restrictive to me.
Doug
Hi Doug,
I appreciate your comments re: ebooks but I know for a fact that in Canada, we do not have a Fair Use policy that allows us to project a book that was purchased for single use for multiple users, even in regard to education. Recently, our school division's library staff undertook a study of Overdrive and Audible.com ebooks and audio books. We had hoped that we could use one of these systems in our schools without breaking Canadian copyright laws. Turns out that we cannot.
We have an expert in Canadian copyright law as it pertains to education who lives in Winnipeg. His name is John Tooth and he's just waiting for the Canadian government to pass new copyright legislation before he publishes his book on copyright for Canadian schools. It is our hope that the law will be updated in Canada to include a Fair Use policy for educators. Until that time, we have to be careful in Canada not to violate our copyright laws. It's difficult for educators to understand that just because you can do something in the US, doesn't mean we can do it in Canada!
Jo-Anne
Thanks, Jo-Anne. i bow to your knowledge of Canadian law. What I have been seeing here in the US is that too many educators err on the side of over compliance out of fear when we should be erring on the side of consumers (our kids). Copyright laws here are a confusing mess!
All the best,
Doug
I've gone from working for print publishing (textbooks), to the process of creating book apps, and what I would suggest for this person, is to evaluate what his current target is: if his line of books is only targeted at schools, then maybe he doesn't need enhanced books in the short term. If his books go to both markets (parents and schools), then I would suggest investing in enhanced options, that could always be turned off by the teacher if she doesn't want to listen/see them, by providing settings at the beginning of the books. Nevertheless, I do think in the long run, (say several years) young readers will get used to more and more interactivity, and therefore they will demand more than just audio when they see a digital publication. I think digital natives will realize the difference between paper and digital, and will come to expect much more from digital. If you don't include it, and your competition does, then in the long wrong customers will prefer the product that best engages children. And I daresay that won't be a just an EPUB file, in the case of children's books. On the other hand, I'd like publishers, reviewers, parent and teachers to grasp the notion that book apps are not just enhanced books, but a medium that opens the possibility for a new language. The person developing them should be able to think in terms of the possibilities of this language, and know how to operate in it. This means that the effects incorporated into the story must have a meaning, they should be justified in terms of adding additional layers of significance, or providing children with what educators call "divergent thinking" skills. And this is not obtained by simply adding a direct cause-effect interaction, like tapping on a cow and having it moo. Anyone wishing to follow news related to book apps is invited to go to the Scoop.it page where I collect these articles:
http://www.scoop.it/t/book-apps-business-and-related-news
@Allikidzcontent
Thanks, Allison. I hope the original person who posted the question sees your thoughtful response. I agree we are actually looking at a new medium here.
Doug
If that e-book is for children, I think learning would be a lot more fun with the enhancements - pictures and all.
I agree with all of the comments here, However for me, I would still prefer the old traditional way of reading and learning. I'd still buy the hard bound books for my kids!