Link Round Up!

Hi, all!

I thought as a final post I could include some annotated links for those who would like to learn more about Nicholas Carr and his book, as well as research and articles on eTexts and eBooks. Check 'em out and feel free to comment on what you find or share your own links!

On Nicholas Carr's The Shallows:
Nicholas Carr's Website Read a summary and reviews of The Shallows, and then check out a blog and other books by the author.

NPR Book Review This review includes a link to Carr's original article that inspired him to expand his research into a full-fledged book, as well as a detailed summary and excerpt from the book.

NY Times Book Review Another review, this one with more thorough analysis and critique of Carr's ideas.

Video: Presentation via 2015 Ideacity Conference A 20-minute TEDtalk-style presentation by the author.

Video: Bookstore Discussion with Q&A A longer, 50-minute bookstore discussion with the author about the ideas and research behind the book, plus a great Q&A session at the end. Definitely worth a watch if you have the time!

On eBooks and eTexts:

Traditional Textbooks vs. eTextbooks: Pros and Cons  a straightforward breakdown of pros and cons from the collegiate perspective (via College Readiness LOOC).

eBooks and Reading Comprehension A 2014 study from West Chester University examines the connection between eBooks and reading comprehension (via USA Today). 

Current Advantages and Disadvantages of Using eTextbooks in Texas Higher Education  A scholarly article. From the abstract, "This study investigates the emergence of E-textbooks in higher education and looks at current advantages and disadvantages of E-textbooks." 

eBooks as Textbooks in the Classroom  Another scholarly article. From the abstract, this "paper provides some insight on what an e-Books is, and its advantages, limitations, strategies and framework of using it as a text book in classrooms." Click on the .pdf link at the top of the webpage to read the full article.

Top 10 Reasons Teachers are Using eBooks  A breakdown of the benefits of eBooks in the classroom, plus links to a variety of resources and eBook subscription services. (via Britannica Online).

Why eBooks are Bad for You A critical evaluation from an economical and ethical perspective - a good read for high school students (via PCWorld).

Resources:

RAZ-Kids An eBook subscription service that includes leveled readings, comprehension assessments (eQuizzes), and data collection tools for teachers to track individual and whole-class progress.

Tumblebooks Another eBook subscription service whose eBooks enhance student engagement through animations and read-aloud text. I could see this being a fantastic resource for beginning readers and students with disabilities.

Best 9 Free Websites that Offer eBooks  A straightforward collection of free eBook resources!

Teacher Created eBooks  This link actually directs to the "Help" section of their website, which contains a wealth of information on eBooks, what they are, and the features that eBooks can offer students and teachers. 

eTexts and eBooks in the Classroom

Many textbook publishing companies (like Pearson, for example) still publish and sell many paper textbooks to schools. To “get with the times,” however, many publishing companies also offer online versions which include not only the original text in .pdf and eReader formats, but dozens of online activities that support the information included in those texts. These companies sell copyrighted licenses to school that allow both student and teacher access.

In my neck of the woods, language teaching, Vista Higher Learning is the big player in online texts and resources. Their “supersites” allow students to complete online assignments curated and customized by the teacher, which then report back data on how students are doing, how much time they’re spending within each module, etc.

While these new online features are great a marked improvement from traditional paper textbooks, there are some major issues with content. The issue of textbook use in schools today really don’t seem to be about eText vs. paper, but rather: Should we be using textbooks at all?

Pearson is under quite a lot of scrutiny over the content and effectiveness of their texts, as well as their mini-monopoly on everything from textbooks to testing. The problems with bias and inaccuracies within textbooks is well documented, and can have lasting effects on students of color and minorities. Textbook learning is not seen as best practice anymore, particularly in the study of second language acquisition.

In response, many school districts and teachers are stepping away from textbooks entirely in favor of alternative online resources (TED talks, articles, archives, databases, etc.). In Loudoun County, many subject areas - mine included - are no longer renewing their textbook contracts and are halting future textbook adoptions.

As a language teacher, I find myself searching for YouTube videos to use as listening comprehension activities rather than the scripted audio recordings provided by our textbook. Our 7th grade history department has gone completely paperless, providing primary and secondary resources directly to students via Google Classroom. These educational cloud services are a great alternative to textbook teaching, as they help keep students organized and on track while providing a central location for finding resources, submitting work, and collaborating with others. Teachers have more control over the content, and can provide multiple perspectives on a singular issue. The downside is that without massive teacher-to-teacher collaboration and district support, creating these assignments and curating resources is an arduous and sometimes impossible task.

While there is much debate and controversy over eTexts, eBooks are in a slightly better position. An eBook is exactly that: a book that is in an electronic or digital format. These books can be children’s books, novels, plays, fiction or nonfiction. The differences between eBooks and eTexts are the same as with their traditional paper counterparts. Many classrooms are using eBook technology such at Tumblebook and RAZ-Kids. The use of eBooks in schools has skyrocketed, and the increase in their popularity has been seen as (mostly) positive.

There are always naysayers to new technology (Nicholas Carr, I’m looking at you), but most of the studies that show a decrease in comprehension aren’t conclusive (they are usually very small studies), and all of those  studies show an increase in student engagement when given a digital text over paper.

As it turns out, many issues teachers have with eBooks - and most new technologies for that matter - is not so much a problem with the technology itself but how it is used. Just like any technology we bring into our classrooms, we need to analyze what the technology actually does, and how our students can use it to best meet our learning objectives and their specific needs. I’ve pulled two quotes that I think sum it up best:

Tablets and mobile devices should never completely replace the human interaction between teacher and student. These devices should instead be seen as facilitators of enriched learning experiences, bringing stories to life and testing the reactions, knowledge and concentration of users. from "The Growth and Effectiveness of Interactive Ebooks for Learning” via Digital Book World

Heather Kirkorian, who helps run a cognitive development lab at the University of Wisconsin, said she has had similar experiences, but has seen positive results with ebooks. They just have to be used correctly. "We do find toddlers learn more from the screen when they’re interacting in a very specific way, not just any way,” Kirkorian said. “Really focusing on the device and what the device can afford is not as productive of a conversation as ‘How can we use this tool?’ This tool is in our lives, in kids’ hands, how can we use that tool and create media content that’s actually beneficial" from “Are Ebooks Good Or Bad For Learning?” via The Huffington Post

So what do you think? What is your school’s stance on textbooks? Do you and/or your students have access to both paper and digital texts? Or are you moving away from textbooks entirely? If so, what are you replacing them with? What role do eBooks play in your classroom? Leave a comment below, I would love to hear your thoughts!

My Turn

I’ll be honest, I really hate the Kindle. I cannot read anything online. Every article I was assigned to read in college (and in this grad program) I printed out on paper so that I could highlight and annotate. I developed a deep relationship with paper books as a child. I am one of those people who flip through books, too. I’ll pick up a novel, read the first half, then read the last chapter to see how it ends, then flip back to the middle and read it in order.

My mother read Little Women to me when I was 7 (we all were crying on the couch over Beth), and Great Expectations when I was 9. On family road trips to Canada every summer - 10 hours in the car - we listed to Tolkien and Swiss Family Robinson on tape. We were all about reading in my house.

On the flip side, my husband would never identify himself as “a reader.”  He really struggled in school with reading, mostly because his “reader voice” (the voice in your head that you hear when you read stuff) was not very strong. Because of his ADD, his reader voice is stilted, and puts pauses in the wrong places and emphasis on the wrong words. But he is one of the best auditory processors I’ve ever met. You tell him something once and he’s got it down. When he went to college to get his associate's degree, he would record his professors rather than take notes. I bought him an oral dictation software for his computer so he could “talk” his papers rather than write them. He knows the words to every song on the radio. Like, every song. He hasn’t read Shakespeare, but when he watches the plays he laughs at all the right parts and seriously can’t understand why Hamlet doesn’t just kill his stupid uncle and move on with his life.

When my mom bought him a Kindle for Christmas, his whole world changed. He’s read more books in the past 3 or 4 years of his life than all 32 combined. Something about the format just works for him. His vocabulary has skyrocketed (probably because he can look up words with the press of a button), and he’s really gotten into philosophy and logical argument (thank you, Ender’s Game). His “reader voice” is more fluent, and he now enjoys reading passages aloud to me that he finds poignant or funny.

So I’m not completely sold on Nicholas Carr’s idea that eReaders and the Internet are making us stupid. I agree that it has changed our brains - absolutely - but I’m not sure that deep, critical thinking is in as much danger as he believes. He laments over a “loss of elegance” and “virtuosity,” and to degrade “society’s attitude toward intellectual achievement.”

But here’s the thing: Best seller lists have always hovered around a 7th/8th grade reading level, so I’m not sure if the  “readers” he’s talking about are everyday folks or the intellectuals you find in academic circles (i.e. folks like Nicholas Carr).

With my students, I’ve found if the book is compelling, they’ll read it. I have to wrestle books away from my kids, and not just eBooks, either. They are reading constantly, but they are reading books that are more conversational and narrative than in the past. They’re reading Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, not Jane Eyre or Ulysses, but they’re 12. They are reading to escape, to transport themselves somewhere other than middle school (can you blame them??), and they are learning about themselves and the world around them in the process.

Intellectuals and avid readers of the classics like myself: we’re still gonna do our thing. We’re still going to stand around a cramped art studio drinking wine and talking Voltaire. Because we like it! But that doesn’t mean society is going down the drain because our kids don’t want to come with us. In fact, young people are having a lot of these same types of conversations, but they’re in brewpubs and coffeeshops and they’re talking about Black Lives Matter and gender equality.

Students are looking for a connection - a relationship. Ask the student in the back to read Maya Angelou’s poem “I Rise” aloud to the class and watch them all roll their eyes and shut down. Here she goes again. But let them listen to Serena Williams read it. Or Nicki Minaj. And watch the goosebumps show on their skin.

So I argue this: let our students read in peace, on their Kindles, on their phones, whatever. Let them choose what they like, and encourage them to keep reading and sharing their thoughts with others about what they’ve read. Let’s allow our students to develop a relationship with the page (or the screen, as the case may be) before we ask them to autopsy the author’s “message.”

I’ve always hated making high-schoolers analyze text for a variety of reasons, but the main one is this: reading is hard. Reading is personal. Reading is the universal “smart kid” litmus test, and it’s totally unfair (see: my brilliant husband). When I taught 9th grade English at a military boarding school, I read everything out loud to them. Everything. The Odyssey, Romeo & Juliet, To Kill a Mockingbird...it was storytime with Ms. D every day. I did this because I didn’t want it to be about the reading - I wanted to spend my time talking about the books. Which characters to you like? Who is a jerk? Why do you think he’s a jerk?

If we don’t start working with our kids, we’re going to lose them. Simple as that. What do we want to foster and preserve? Deep thinking, critical thinking, analysis, problem solving, making inferences and connections, reflection, mindfulness. But do all of these things have to be learned through reading?

Challenge kids with paradoxes and philosophical quandaries. Ask a group of teenagers if a hot dog classifies as a sandwich and watch the debate ignite.

Watch a movie like Ex Machina and create a classroom definition of humanity and then challenge students to pull out literary elements like foreshadowing, suspense, identity, irony. Identify character archetypes and tropes (Chekhov’s Gun, for example). Give students multiple examples over a wide range of media (music, theater, poetry) and pull the threads together. Give students poor examples of directors or authors trying to do something profound and failing. When “identifying” literary elements, what counts? What doesn’t? Why not?

Our kids don’t have to read page after page of paper text in order to develop these skills, they just need someone to ask them the right questions.

WWCD? (What Would Carr Do?)

eBooks and eTexts...What does Nicholas Carr think? Is it really to anyone’s surprise that he’s not a fan? While Carr does see the value in eBooks, he is also a staunch critic of the new medium. It is easy to guess what he would think about these eTexts in 2017, because The Shallows, while written in 2010, has an entire chapter dedicated to eBooks: Chapter 6 “The Very Image of a Book.”

In this chapter, Carr lays out the benefits of traditional print and electronic books as follows:

Benefits of Print Books	So What?
timeless/eternal	no batteries to charge
resilient	can drop in the sand at the beach, sit on them, spill coffee on them and they are none the worse for wear
relatively portable	with exceptions of gigantic textbooks, dictionaries, and Anna Karenina
easy to navigate	can flip to parts both past and future, without needing to know the exact page number
easy to annotate	scribble in the margins, highlight, underline all you like, as long as it's not a library book, please

Benefits of eBooks	So What?
portable	can hold an entire personal library in one device - no need to schlep heavy hardbacks around town
economical	eBooks usually cost dramatically less to both purchase and manufacture
green	think of all the paper you’ll save!
user friendly	forward and back buttons are self-explanatory, no need to go to the library or bookstore - books can be downloaded directly from online book sellers
customizable/adaptable	built in dictionaries and author bios, read-aloud features, and increasable text size help books become more accessible to all

After - briefly - discussing the pros of eBooks, he then dedicates the rest of the chapter to describing everything that’s wrong with them, including a prediction of how they will ruin literary discourse completely. Dramatic, to say the least.

So what’s so bad about eBooks? Carr himself admits that the book has been the “most resistant to the Net’s influence,” as there’s not a whole lot that can be done to “a long sequence of printed pages.” Or so we think. For all the praise that eBooks have gotten, Carr calls it all “wishful thinking,” and accuses supporters as naive, with an “inability to see how change in the medium’s form is also a change in its content.”

Now you may be asking yourself, How different can Jane Eyre really be on my Kindle compared to the printed version? A fair question, to be sure. Carr doesn’t take issue with eBooks themselves, or even Kindles for that matter. He even praises how the Kindle has avoided the backlit LED screen for one that resembles paper and reduces eye strain, a common struggle for those who read a lot of online text.

Carr’s worry is more about where they are headed. He quotes a senior vice president from HarperStudios (an offshoot of publisher HarperCollins), who wants his eBook designers to “create something dynamic to enhance the experience.” This includes adding hyperlinks, embedding video (to create something Simon & Schuster are calling "vooks") and allowing readers to connect with each other via an in-reader platform similar to social media. Carr notes that these so-called “enhancements” just “turns it into something very like a Web site.” No longer are our books just books; they have become yet another hypertext we have to navigate - one that interrupts and distracts us as intensely as any other Web-based text. Carr quotes author Steven Johnson, who laments that “total immersion...will be compromised,” and our abilities for reflection and deeper thinking will surely go the way of the Dodo. Carr imagines a future world in which readers “chat and pass virtual notes while scanning electronic text” like naughty teenagers rather than reading and comprehending the text.

This shift in reading will also begin to affect the way we write. Carr references the popularity of “cell phone novels” in Japan: narratives stories written solely on a mobile device and posted piecemeal via an online social media platform or blog. He worries that as our reading becomes “scanning,” our writing will also evolve to fit our new superficial, easily distracted brains: “Writers seem fated to eschew virtuosity and experimentation in favor of a bland but immediately accessible style...our indulgence in the pleasures of informality and immediacy has led to a narrowing of expressiveness and loss of eloquence.”

Does such a grim future truly await us? Or is Carr simply overreacting? What do you think? Feel free to leave a comment below, and be sure to tune in next week to see what the research says as well as  learn my Thoughts and Opinions on the matter. See you then!

Swimming through "The Shallows" (Part Two)

While the first half the Carr’s book is dedicated to the history or neuroplasticity and intellectual technologies, the second half of the book focuses on the specifics of the Internet, and how its systems are affecting and ultimately rewiring our brains.

For the sake of brevity, I have designed this post as an FAQ on the topic.

What do our brains look like on the Internet? What is really happening?

Benefits	Drawbacks
Efficient processing	Distracted / Interrupting
Quick decision making	Craving / Addicted
Evaluating	Forgetful
Collaborating	Impulsive / Impatient
Communicating	Limited Focus

Why is this happening?

Carr describes the Internet as having 4 major characteristics, each of which contribute to the issue:

1. Hypermedia; decision making process (to click or not to click) overloads our short term memory and affects comprehension.
2. Multimedia; information overload - we no longer speak of the Internet in terms of “pages” but rather as a “stream” or, even more worrisome, a “feed”. Our brains are hardwired to consume (and crave) information, and these new multimedia platforms can crank up the information volume to a damaging level.
3. Messaging; constant interruption! Every time you check your email (one study found up to 20-30 times an hour), you’ve interrupted - and possibly derailed - your train of thought, making it increasingly difficult to stay on task and get work done.
4. Multi-tasking; everyone thinks they are good at multitasking, but it’s really just a myth. Many “multitaskers” are actually worse at juggling and completing cognitive tasks.

What are we losing?

Singular, sustained focus / Attention

Deep, critical thinking

Mindfulness / Reflection

Reading comprehension / Meaning making

I’ve never been much of a book reader anyway, and I’ve always been scatterbrained. Why is this such a big deal?

As we begin to lose our complex thinking skills, the results of those skills also begin to diminish. For example, complex thinking skills are essential to developing advanced emotional responses like empathy. Once we give up on skills such as mindfulness, reflection, and other deep thinking, everything around us begins to become superficial. Creativity and “big ideas” begin to dwindle and as complacency sets in, progress comes to a halt.

The other big problem has to do with the way our brains process information. We have two types of memory: long term, and short term. Everything starts in short term memory, and then after time to process and reflect, this information can then be moved to long term memory (knowledge, learning). Without time to process information in an interruption and distraction-free environment, our brains cannot make connections and create meaning. As humans, meaning and purpose are essential to our well-being, and therefore the processes that develop them need to be protected.

So what can I do? How can I protect my brain?

Well, there’s good news and bad news:

The Bad News

There isn’t a whole lot to be done about the effects of the Internet on our brains, especially as the professional and social consequences of avoiding the Internet continue to grow. In his book, Carr does not offer many practical solutions to the issue, but it can be said that awareness is the first step to making a (hopefully positive) change.

The Good News

While Carr doesn’t offer too many solutions other than practicing deep thinking and removing oneself from the digital map, there are a ton of great resources and ideas out there for becoming a more mindful, reflective, and critical Internet user:

1. Consider implementing an Information Diet.
2. Take a break and practice Mindfulness.
3. Practice multiple ways of thinking by Making Your Thinking Visible.

It is important to model these behaviors for our students, who are more entrenched in technology than any generation before. What are ways you can integrate these methods into your classroom? How does affordance analysis fit into the puzzle? What other ways have you found to protect your brain and preserve the benefits of all forms of cognition? Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments below!

Swimming through "The Shallows" (Part One)

As promised, I have read through the first half of Nicholas Carr’s book, “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.”

This section of the book is dedicated to setting up the scientific and historical basis for Carr’s main argument: that the Internet and the new digital literacies associated with online communication are physically rewiring our brains and changing the way we think about and process information. Carr discusses the biological phenomenon of neuroplasticity as well as the cause and (cognitive) effect of invention and innovation, which he then logically connects them to prove his point.

Let’s walk through his points together, shall we?

Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity is a phenomenon in the brain that allows our neurons and brain cells to rewire themselves to create new connections, habits, and behaviors. This phenomenon has always been present in the human (and animal) brain, but scientists really began to understand its power and the implications thereof starting in the late 1960s. Originally thought as a “healing mechanism, triggered by trauma to the brain or the sensory organs,” scientist soon began to understand that plasticity is, as Alvaro Pascual-Leone puts it, “the normal ongoing state of the nervous system throughout the lifespan.”

Carr references a variety of case studies and experiments, the most interesting of which involved London cab drivers in the 1990s. The experiment scanned the brains of drivers with “between two and forty-two years of experience.” When compared to the control, they found the taxi drivers posterior hippocampus was much larger than normal, and grew over time with experience. In contrast, their anterior hippocampus was “smaller than average, apparently a result of the need to accommodate the enlargement for the posterior area.”

From all of these case studies and experiments, we can draw a few conclusions about neuroplasticity and the brain:

1. Neuroplasticity is present in human and animal brains, and is not purely limited to healing or recovering from trauma.
2. Repetitive physical activity can rewire our brains, but so too can purely mental activity.
3. The rewiring of our neurons takes time, repetition, and input. Changes in brain function are subtle, and develop in stages.
4. “Plastic does not mean elastic.” Our new rewired pathways take time to form, and “tend to hold onto their changed state.” (This explains why bad habits and addictions can be so difficult to break).
5. As in the case of the taxi drivers, space in our brains is limited. As we become stronger in one area, we can weaken in another. Carr states, “just as the brain can build new or stronger circuits through physical or mental practice, those circuits can weaken or dissolve with neglect.”
6. Nothing is permanent. With “concerted effort” we can “redirect our neural signals to rebuild the skills we’ve lost.”

The Cause and Effect of Invention

After Carr has established that our brains can change and rewire themselves to adapt to a variety of new situations, he then discusses the role in which new tools and inventions can play in this rewiring process.

Carr argues that there are four categories of innovation:

1. Physical - these inventions make us stronger, faster, more efficient; think combine harvester or cotton gin
2. Sensory - these inventions enhance our senses; microscopes, telescopes, satellites...
3. Evolutionary/Scientific - these inventions “reshape nature” to fit our needs; antibiotics, pesticides, GMOs...
4. Intellectual - these inventions “extend or support our mental powers”

It is upon this fourth category, the “intellectual technologies,” where Carr sharpens his focus. His argument is a little abstract, and not as easy to follow as the others, but he eventually makes his case. The basis of his argument is that while all inventions and innovations have historical, societal, cultural, and ethical effects, intellectual technologies have an additional, cognitive, effect. He argues that these tools eventually rewire our brains, and change the way we think.

For example, Carr cites the famous thinker Friedrich Nietzsche's typewriter as an intellectual invention that reshaped his brain and writing style to fit the new tool. Because of multiple health issues, Nietzsche relied on his typewriter heavily in his later years. A close friend and colleague, Heinrich Köselitz, “noticed a change in the style of his writing.” Köeslitz noted that his style became more forceful, tighter, and more “telegraphic.” Nietzsche agreed, concluding that “our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.”

Carr’s second, and even stronger, example is the invention of the printing press. Just as the rewiring of our brains takes time, so also did the evolution of literacy - of reading and writing in it’s most traditional sense. While the printing press didn’t change the world overnight, it certainly changed the world in a very permanent way. As soon as reading and writing books became the standard form of education and communication, our brains changed in a dramatic way as well. Linear, logical, and reflective thought became the intellectual ideal, replacing the emphasis on the lyrical and artistic ways of the oral tradition intended to help with memorization. Knowledge became less about remembering and more about analyzing and synthesizing, and so our brains have changed to facilitate these new processes.

How the Internet Fits

The Internet is the new black. The Black, of course, being the intellectual tools we use to communicate. Our tools are changing again, and therefore our brains will as well. There is a cycle of cognitive evolution here, which I’ve illustrated below:

Impacts on Modern Education

As the cycle of cognitive evolution continues to shift, we as educators need to teach to this new kind of brain. Just as Plato’s written theses replaced the oral rhetoric of Socrates, digital literacies and citizenship need to become our new focus in the educational world. Our lessons need to match the societies and communities our students will eventually serve.

Students are still reading and writing - some could even argue that they are reading and writing more than any generation before them - but the tools have changed. We have to be ready to help our students navigate these new tools, tools which will shape their habits and behaviors whether we are involved in the process or not. I for one, would like to insure that our students develop habits and behaviors that serve them for the better.