E-Reading a Different Experience

As reading online increases -- on dedicated ereaders, iPads, computers and even tiny-screened cell phones -- it raises so many questions for educators. It's becoming increasingly clear that reading online has the potential to be a very different experience.

• Amazon has introduced a feature in their Kindle that allows readers to mark a piece of text and then send a (short) question to authors who participate in the program. Just another example of the walls coming down between authors and readers. YA authors have been eager to get on board with social media, and this is another in the arsenal. What's a bit different is that the interaction with the author is tied so tightly to the interaction with the text.

• Booktrak is creating books that come with a soundtrack. Interestingly, "Its first book featuring a soundtrack is The Power of Six, a young-adult novel published by HarperCollins," to be followed by some classic (read: out of copyright) books that are still often read by high school students, and only then will they release books for a primarily adult audience. 
• Digital textbooks are projected to make up 10-15% of textbook sales this year - a huge jump from just 3% last year, according to a Boston Globe article, More and more, college students go buy e-books.

• Ereaders often come with the ability to highlight and annotate books, something that people have done for years, but it is a habit not often acquired until college. But the ease with which one can do it in an ereader, and the feeling that you are not defacing something may encourage students and teachers to do more of it.

These are just a few very limited examples, but I'm interested to see just how different it will be to interact with text in a setting that has a much broader context and at-hand tools than a printed book.