Ebooks at Textbooks Part 6 - Taking Note

The process of taking notes, makes reading that much more of an active process and will aid in comprehension and retention. The addition of your own personal notes are usually easier to understand and remember than textbook material. As a student reads the textbook, he or she may not remember all of that they read when they have finished - this is especially true of very dense texts. But, if a student reads the information and also writes down notes about what he or she is reading at the same time, then that extra step reinforces that information and improves retention. So one of the best ways to retain information you are reading it is to take notes while you are actually reading it, for print books these notes were usually written in the margins of the text and so were called margin notes. 

The taking of margin notes is a strategy that focuses your attention on important information from the textbook, novels, or articles that you are reading. Because it involves tagging key words or phrases to anchor your notes as you read, margin note taking is an active reading strategy where you process information (even more active than just highlighting). When you are done with a chapter or book, your margin notes can be extracted or accessed to provide a summary of the important information you found while reading  - that extracted material can then be used to check your own learning or as a review for texts.

Activity Continuum for Reading
More Passive<----------------			--------------->More Active
Just Reading	Active Reading	Highlighting (effective)	Margin Notes	Full Notes

Learning from reading is an active process, you can't just let the words go by and hope to learn something - you might learning something, but it isn't an effective way to learn. Too often students may read through a page or chapter which is fairly dense or hard to understand. Here is where good notes while reading can enhance the learning as students read with more purpose. Taking notes increases the activity level and helps the student focus their attention as they actively engage with the reading material. Also it is not just taking the content as it is, instead better notes will be ones that the student puts into their own words, or adds questions and information to. So it is fine to copy and paste in content from the textbook into your margin notes, but if you do, even better is to rewrite the content into your own words, or add additional content such as examples or your own questions about that content - Reiterating,  condensing, and questioning text are excellent ways to understand and remember content.

Readers can use any number of strategies to integrate with digital margin notes while reading. For example a reader could use SQ3R - where they Survey, Question, Read, Recall, and Review. At the basic level they could use their margin notes as a form of "think aloud" or "self-talk" technique where the reader questions himself about what he's reading. For example, after reading a portion of the text, you could ask yourself  'what is the main idea of this section?' Then you would write out your thoughts using the notes tool. 

Process of taking margin notes: 

1. Begin reading your etextbook. Begin to take just quick notes using the note tool (like a margin note) while you are reading the text, and then after you finish a section you can add more content to your notes (or delete ones that were not needed).  As you read the section, in your notes, you might want to include relevant keywords, words with definitions  questions, and other ideas. I suggest that you first copy full sentences from the textbook, then use that sentence as the anchor for your notes (see Figure 1)  and paste that content into your notes and then add your own notations (Reiterating,  condensing, examples, questions/answers, etc.) (see Figure 2). For example if you are reading a novel as part of your class, you might be participating in a literature circle, where you have a role, such as someone to makes notes on the setting. If so then you could copy into your notes any actual statements about the setting and add your related thoughts which would then be shared with your reading group. 
2. Once you have concluded a section a good strategy would be to extract all your notes. For example if you are using a Kindle device you could copy the text from the MyClippings file and past it into a word processor (see Figure 6). Then either using the word processor or concept mapping software you could make a concept may of your notes to chart or diagram your information. Here too is where you could add the answers to any questions that you wrote as you read. 
3. Then you can write up a summary of your notes and what you've just read and add that as a margin note with the conclusion section or last words of the chapter. 

 

Figure 1: Highlighting a section of text from the textbook, next select Copy, then re-highlight and then choose the option to Add Note.

Figure 2: Pasting in the copied text and rewording the textbook into your own words. 

In today's ebook devices and programs these notes are created and stored in an annotation file which links to specific sections of the associated book. Most ebook programs and devices will allow the user to take notes, but some programs and devices are currently better than others for taking notes. While the Nook has the ability to make the necessary annotations, it currently lacks a way to export those highlights or notes, and cannot transfer annotation information from personal documents (ebook files not purchased from Barnes and Noble), so the notes are not synced between devices. Adding textbooks as personal document ebooks with the Kindle was much more effective. The Kindle has an annotation file that can exported, so the annotation file could be shared with multiple readers or the author (see Figure 3). The Kindle device also creates a My Clippings file, which is a text (TXT) file of all annotations on that Kindle. The My Clippings file can be accessed when connected to a computer and then opened with a text reader or word processor for printing or emailing (see Figure 4). The Kindle can also sync the annotations between multiple Kindle applications (Kindle devices, Kindle for Android, and Kindle for iPad/iPhone), but will not sync annotation notes to the free Kindle programs on the Mac, PC, or Kindle Cloud. To enable the Kindle to sync between devices the textbook (or any book) would need to be uploaded to a user's Kindle Library. An additional limitation of using the Kindle to take textbook margin notes is that while all the annotations are synced between devices, the annotations done on a different device will not show up in the current device’s My Clippings file. To have all annotations show up in the My Clippings text file, it would be necessary to go to each annotation on the device, then resave the note. The iBooks application will run on iOS devices, such as the iPad and iPhone, but there currently is no desktop, laptop, or cloud version of iBooks to use with the etextbooks. The iBooks application will not sync annotations between devices, but it is possible to email the notes (see Figure 5 & 6). Some advantages with annotating dissertations with iBooks was the increased size of the screen, the size of the keyboard for entry, and the device’s spell check ability as notes are entered.  

Figure 3: Reading and annotating a text using the Kindle ereader

Figure 4: Kindle My Clipping.txt file of annotations done from a text

Figure 5: Reading and annotating a text using iPad’s iBooks.

Figure 6: Exporting notes from iPad’s iBooks using email.

Ebooks as Textbooks Part 5 - Vocabulary

Vocabulary

/vōˈkabyəˌlerē/ 

1. The body of words used in a particular language
2. A part of such a body of words used on a particular occasion or in a particular sphere: "the vocabulary of law".  (Google's define: vocabulary)

Vocabulary is a basic part of any textbook or book, there is always new words to learn for each subject, with much of the new vocabulary appearing in the textbook's glossary. As for a students personal vocabulary, it only makes sense that there is a relationship between background knowledge and vocabulary: The more you know about a topic, the more likely you are to already be familiar with the vocabulary of that topic, although this can cause conflicts when students may be using words that they think they new in specialized situations - such as for science class. Also it just makes sense that better readers have a better vocabulary, and vocabulary can be used to explain current and future reading skills and achievement   As good percentage of new words learned are often acquired though reading, and are learned through the words' context, a process often called incidental vocabulary learning. Students learn from the word context by gaining understanding and connections between the new word and the already known words in the surrounding text (as a corollary, if the text is mostly not understandable or known then little new word learning can take place). Vocabulary interventions and and instruction has been shown to increase reading comprehension (Elleman, Lindo, Morphy, & Compton, 2009), so vocabulary instruction is usually a basic element of any reading curriculum.  To help students understanding with any textbook (no matter the format) they should be instructed on basic techniques for helping bust their awareness of the context clues such as :

• Modeling for them basic strategies for using context clues when reading from any text.
• Giving them explanations of how, when, and why to use context to understand word meaning.
• Providing them with guided practice in using context.
• And reminding them to apply contextual understanding skill when reading. (TRI/TEA 2000)

Unfortunately not all texts do provide good context clues, and some texts may (especially many textbooks) have too many new words to the student for them to understand the context surrounding the words, whereupon direction instruction or the use of a dictionary would assist. A problem example might be with science textbooks, as science texts are usually more difficult to read than other classes textbooks (Hayes & Ward 1992). This is supported by research that has found that often the amount of new vocabulary terms in science textbooks is higher than that recommended for secondary foreign language courses, and it's argued that this kind of overly high vocabulary load may contribute to the problem of science avoidance by students (Groves 1995, Yeager 1983). As a science teacher I would regularly instruct students about elements such as prefixes and root words to help them understand new vocabulary, such as the use of -ology for the "study of" working with their new terms such as biology and geology, or a prefix like bio- that works with biology, bio-science, biosphere, and even biography. And of course there were times when they were reminded to use the glossary to look up new vocabulary to look up new words or check other words meanings. 

The Interactive Dictionary

In my opinion one of the great things that ebooks can do is vocabulary support through the interactive dictionary. Not that printed books don't have vocabulary support, but looking anything up is a time/distance issue. In physics we have a special vocabulary word for this, "brachistochrone" which actually means "shortest time".  We see this when light refracts as it goes though different mediums (e.g. air to water), so instead of traveling in a straight line it refracts and follows Fermat's Principal of Least Time. Not trying to get too physics on you, but people do this too, it may be shorter for you to take a road from point A to point B, but if you know that that road is very busy, then you most likely take a different path (even if it is longer) to get where you want to go quicker (this is also why many don't follow sidewalks and create their own paths through the grass). I feel that this least time effect is one that can be supported by an ebook's interactive dictionary.

When students are reading from a book, ideally they will achieve what Csikszentmihalyia calls a state of Flow, where they are completely absorbed by what they are doing (1998), but to look up a word that a student doesn't know would actually stop such flow. Many educators are concerned about such stops in flow interfering and disrupting the comprehension process, something that Susan Night found wasn't a problem for students who were reading electronic text with an interactive dictionary, instead she found that it instead improved vocabulary and reading comprehension (Knight 1994) From my own experiences with students I've also noticed that they want that least time effect for the new vocabulary. When I was in the room while they were reading, they would ask me or a student near them the meaning of words that they didn't know, some would look in the glossary, but very few would ever get up and go to a dictionary and look up a word - instead they would just skip it and hope to understand better from context or just not get it yet. This to me is similar to Thomas Allen's research in the 1970's that found that there was a relationship between distance between people's offices and often they interacted. This is now known as the Allen Curve, and shows a strong negative correlation between physic distance and communication. I see the Allen Curve at work concerning vocabulary and looking up things, in this case not so much distance (although I do think it also applies), but how much time it will take.  So my adaptation on the Allen Curve for vocabulary is "The longer it will take to find the definition of a word, the less likely it is to be looked up." I've even now found for myself when reading novels, I'm more likely to look up an unfamiliar word with my ebook device, then when reading printed paper. And so because of the built in propinquity of the interactive dictionary, I'm more likely to interact with it.

So as students come across new or unfamiliar words they should be reminded that they can have their device tell them what that word means. That it will be a quick and easy way to find out more about that word and then they can continue (least disruption of flow). To find the definition of a word all they usually have to do is select the work and either the definition will appear or they can choose the define option. There are also given access to levels to the definition, first there is the general (short definition); then if they want, they can click to access the full definition, opening a dictionary (ebooks can support multiple dictionaries, so if desired, students can switch between different English dictionary (e.g. versions of the Oxford Dictionary), or use dictionaries available in other languages (not translating dictionaries - but still useful for foreign language classes).

Short definition using the desktop Kindle ebook reader program.

Access the full dictionary to see a definition using the desktop Kindle ebook reader program.

Other look up options for the desktop Kindle ebook reader program.

Dictionary within Dictionary:

If the student uses the interactive dictionary to lookup the definition of a word and the definition uses a word that the student does not understand, the interactive dictionary can look up that word instantly from within the definition. Many defined words are also hyperlinked to other definitions as "see" statements.

• Select the word that is not understood.
• The definition should appear, or choose the lookup option.
•  Within the dictionary if there is a word that you don't understand in the definition, you can  look up that word by clicking on the word and seeing the definition or by selection the option to lookup. 
• It is also possible to use the search option when you are in the dictionary for the system to look up which is not currently shown.

Searching for Context

Another advantage of etextbooks and vocabulary deals with the context clues mentioned before. Yes, all books have the context elements surrounding a word, but ebooks allow you to search for context. You can search a printed book for context, but unless that book has the word in bold or italics, it can be hard to find. With an ebook version of a textbook (or any book), instead the reader can search for that term and find the number of occurrences that word appears with surrounding words and direct links to where that word appears in the book. For example, if you were trying to understand SALT in chemistry class, then the white crystals used for seasoning food would most likely be insufficient  But by using the search term "salt", over a hundred occurrences of the word in different iterations appears in the text. By looking at the surrounding words in the results list, a reader can start to see the number of ways that salt is used in chemistry. Now they explore how the word is used through the different contexts, just by clicking on each of the search results. The word will appear highlighted, with the selected search result in one color and the other uses of the word also highlighted on the page.

Searching for a term to find it contextual usage.

Ebook Dictionary Activities

Can be done as pre or post reading activity

List the vocabulary words on the board.
Use the search feature to find a word. Read the passage that contains the vocabulary word. Tap on the word and use the interactive dictionary to look up the definitions of the word, and decide which definition is most appropriate.
Applying the definition: Create a text box linked from the vocabulary word; this box will have three parts:

1. Write the vocabulary word, then;
2. Leave the text box, select and copy the sentence and paste it into the text box;
3. Then have student use the interactive dictionary; and then write a short definition in their own words of the word in the text box. 

Concept Mapping: If you are creating the etextbooks it is also possible to add concept maps for vocabulary understanding by embedding the map as part of the textbook. A Concept of Definition Map allow students to show common element of a definition including the category, characteristics and examples and non-examples of the word.   For example if you were to adapt your etextbook an instructor could add a definition concept map in the text, then the student could add text in the appropriate parts by clicking or highlighting the question and then using the note taking feature of the ebook to write in their responses. If it isn't possible to add such concept maps to the etextbook, students can be instructed in the elements of the map and use the note taking feature to write them in them selves: Word; Category; Characteristics; Examples & Non-examples.

What is it? (category)

|
|

Examples  word/phrase-----VOCABULARY WORD-----  Non-examples  
|

|

What is it like? (characteristics)

References

Allen, Thomas J. (1984). Managing the Flow of Technology: Technology Transfer and the Dissemination of Technological Information Within the R&D Organization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1988), "The flow experience and its significance for human psychology", in Csikszentmihalyi, M., Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 15–35.
Elleman, A.M., Lindo, E.J., Morphy, P., & Compton, D.L. (2009). The impact of vocabulary instruction on passage-level comprehension of school-age children: A meta-analysis. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 2(1), 1–44.
Groves, F. H. (1995). Science vocabulary load of selected secondary science textbooks. School Science and Mathematics. 95(5), May 1995. Retrieved January, 2013 from http://www.project2061.org/publications/designs/online/pdfs/reprints/7_groves.pdf 
Hayes, D. P., & Ward, M. (1992). Learning from texts: Effects of similar and dissimilar features of anthologies in study guides. Paper presented at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the National Reading Conference  San Antonio, TX.
Kinght, S. (1994). Dictionary use while reading: The effects on comprehension and vocabulary acquisition for students of different verbal abilities. The Modern Language Journal, 78(3), p 285-299.
TRI/TEA (Texas Reading Initiative/Texas Education Agency). (2000) Promoting Vocabulary Development. Austin TX: Texas Reading Initiative/Texas Education Agency.
Yeager, R. E. (1983). The Importance of terminology in teaching K-12 science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 20(6), p 577-588. 

Ebooks as Textbooks - Part 4 - Finding and Searching Inside for Text Content

Usually with reading textbooks people think about things like reading comprehension, where students are able to remember (recall) or understand the portions of the chapter being read. But textbooks also involve a different type of reading or literacy that of finding information within a passage - Searching. When searching, instead reading and understanding the entire text, the goal is to find a specific word, sentence, or information within a passage or chapter, or even an entire book.

One of the big differences about reading ebooks is how it is possible to search within your text. In a print book when you are looking for something you have to skim and hope that you find the word that you were looking for. This can be a difficult process for some, as you may be trying to remember the location where you read it before (even harder if you haven't read that text yet) or if you have any kind of print disability then it can get even harder. You scan or skim to locate a single fact or a specific bit of information without reading everything in the whole text material.  Skimming and scanning are a kind of speed reading where the reader is either searching the text on a page for clues to meaning or is where the reader is skipping over text that is less interesting or not thought of as important or relevant. Usually readers who are skimming will spend more time reading text at the beginning of paragraph and page. Studies have shown that skimming can help with recall for important ideas from text, but don't help with recalling other details or of inferences from the text. Studies that were looking at brain differences found that the brain shows no differences between reading from printed paper versus eink devices, although there are differences when reading from led screens - so skimming should work pretty much the same between the different formats.   One difference with ebooks though is that they can be adapted for improved skimming and scanning. For example one study found that students were significantly faster in finding specific words in new text paragraphs when the text was displayed in a larger font, and adapting the font size is something that ebooks can do while printed books are limited to their printed font.
Other than skimming or scanning your textbooks when searching in a printed textbook readers have other features to assist in finding including tables of contents, indexes, headings, adapted words (bold, italics, highlights, etc) to use to exclude or include portions of text for consideration to help find the desired content. One unfortunate thing that I've noticed is that some etextbooks lack some things like an index, which can still be very useful for a student to use to find information, even when searching, as an index can act like a word wall to remind students of the words that they should be using or the correct spelling of words to find. 
An index or a table of contents is a great thing for books (or ebooks) as the TOC and index provides a method for readers to use allowing them to compare, contrast, and correlate information without having to first read the content, they can act as a tool for recalling previous information and help with directed re-reading. Ideally the electronic textbooks that students use will still have an index, so that they can use those terms as keywords in their search for the specific portion of text that they need. 
The fact that the information that the student needs is in the book doesn't mean anything unless the student can find it. For years we have taught students that when using a textbook (printed) they should used elements such as the table of contents and the index to help them find what they want within the book. Most electronic versions of textbooks do have a table of contents, although it may be an extra link to access (and too often I've found that the only words in the table of contents are things like Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 without the other context information).
So how is finding information different when using the search tool in an ebook or etextbook? Most ebook readers and programs do have a search tool. The reader can type some text and the device or program will search the entire text and produce a list of locations for that searched term. Often it can find even more than the reader thought as searching for the term "read" will also find other words like reader, reading, readablity, preread, unread, bread, bedspread, thread, and more. Of course there are also limitations for this kind of search. Consider what if the reader spells the search term incorrectly, then the desired information may not be found at all. Or what if they don't know what (specifically) they are searching for, they have an idea, but the book may not use the same terms. Another downside for this kind of search is that people often just use the first words that come to mind and don't really do the metacognative processing to come up with good search terms. Researchers looking at searching have found that about a third of people start with a search tool when look for things, but that they are often unsuccessful as they don't understand the abilities and limitations of search or had problems understanding the results - they often only search once or twice before giving up. Here is where as educators we need to help educate students about searching and finding information. 
Sometimes you are searching for new vocabulary, you want to see the definition or the word or to see the term in context. But, you don't want to have to read an entire chapter again (or maybe even for the first time), instead you want to go right to that information (this is also known as just in time learning). So lets consider that I'm searching for the definition of the word "mole" in my chemistry book. I click on the search tool and type in "mole" in the search box and over 100 matches for the word are found in moments. Now a quick look at the results shows I'm getting more than just moles as I've also got molecules and molecular that are hiding that definition that I'm looking for. One thing to note though is that the results do give me the word in some context, perhaps not full sentences, but I do get to see surrounding words. 
We need to make sure that students understand the possibilities and limitations of their searching. Just paging through text is not an efficient way to find information and is often unsuccessful. Using an index, a table of contents, or even a search tool doesn't ensure success, but if students understand the possibilities and structure they can be more successful. Researcher have found that most readers actually prefer using a search tool (possibly an effect of the Google world that they have grown up in), and are usually satisfied with the results of their searches, but we can help them search and find even better by helping them better structure and understand how the searching works. 

So we should help the student understand about how words are put together  To find what you need may just mean adding a space. Depending on the reader or program it may then understand that the word is needed in isolation, or it may still give extra words (this might not be bad as it would then show mole and moles). But if we help them understand that when a word is usually defined that it occurs in a sentence like "a mole is" then we can try for "a mole" or "moles are". A quick search for "a mole" only show three occurrences in this science etextbook, and the first instance is indeed the definition. 

We need to make sure that students understand the possibilities and limitations of their searching. Just paging through text is not an efficient way to find information and is often unsuccessful. Using an index, a table of contents, or even a search tool doesn't ensure success, but if students understand the possibilities and structure they can be more successful. Researcher have found that most readers actually prefer using a search tool (possibly an effect of the Google world that they have grown up in), and are usually satisfied with the results of their searches, but we can help them search and find even better by helping them better structure and understand how the searching works. 

Switching to digital textbooks infographic

This is based on the FCC's Digital Textbook Playbook and was created by OnlineCollege.org

Ebooks as Textbooks - Part 3 - Comfort and Text

Today's posting is about Fonts - their color, size and shape. I am always surprised that people don't change their display to what works best for them in the situation that they are in. Many times dealing with people I've seen situations where they want the text to look in a way that makes it harder for them to read. For example a recent situation with a person who was having trouble reading from the screen. I did a basic change to the display size to 120%. She thought it looked great and was much easier to read, but when I explained what I had done, she changed it back to 100% - making it harder for her to read again. I've seen this too with ebooks. Some people want it to have the same page appearance as their paperback books with the font using Times and the size being between 10 and 12 points. One of the great thing about ebooks is that you are not limited to the display being preset, instead you can adjust it for your preferences and situation. 

There are in essence three aspects to look at in using your ebook device or program to read your etextbook: (1) what is the best font size for you when reading your ebook or etextbook, (2) which font type is best for your reading, although you may only be able to change between serif or san serif, and (3)  which background is the best for your reading situation - the background question doesn't apply to eInk devices like the Kindle, but ebook programs on computers or tablets may give you options.

First lets consider how people actually read. When you look at text you start the reading process, in this there are a series of saccades and fixations. The sccades are the movements and the fixatations are when your eye stops and focuses on a discrete chunk of text -  a process that is repeated over and over again on every line. A fixation is a brief moment, around a quarter of a second, when the eye is stopped on a word or collection of letters. The saccade is the forward in the text jumping about 8-12 characters, to the next position (fixatations). Other movements include regressions, where you move backwards in the text, and reread (usually indicative of confusion) and then there are return sweeps, where the eye moves to the beginning of the next line. So what does this have to do with your etextbook? It should also be about reading in confort and understanding that you can adjust the size and shape to be the best fit for you when reading - although as a side note: it has been found that you will remember more when having a hard time reading (decoding text that is difficult to read). 

Consider how long it will take to read a portion of your etextbook. You might think that you should make the font as small as possible to be able to read faster (fewer return sweeps). But, this will not always be true, as when researchers studying font size and font type found that when they changed the font from 10 points to 6 points, reading speed actually went down (6 pt font was slower due to increased fixation duration, probably 

caused by reduced character visibility). When they increase the font size to 14 pt, reading also slowed down (more fixations as fewer letters fit in the chunk viewing size) - although this has been challenged by other studies that find that that saccade size is dependent on the character spacing, and should scale up for larger fonts, so not impact reading speeds. So for  font sizes, having a font that is too small makes the text illegible, and one that is too large can waste a lot of space. 

So what is the best font size? That will depend on you your personal abilities, limitations, and situations. Many people find that a small increase in font size (+2pts) makes text much easier to read. People may think of large print books for the elderly, but that doesn't mean that it has to only be for older readers. Studies have found that large print books being used by students with no visual problems increased their speed and comprehension. A Kindle study of middle schoolers reported that when reading with an increased font size that students were able to read easier and faster. Another study with elementary students found that using large print books found an improvement of between 41 and 70 percent of student's SRA Reading scores after a year.  Then too there have been studies that have shown that showed a decrease in reading errors with an increase in font size (24-point versus 9- and 12-point) for reading disabled children (Cornelissen, Bradley, Fowler, and Stein 1991). Additionally increasing the line spacing to at least 1.5 can assist by separating out the text. Personally I have found that an increased font size helps a great deal when reading in less than idea environments, such as poorer lighting or while moving as the stop and start movement, background noise and vibrations could all have an effect on reading (such as in a car or bus, although I have been known to walk and read). Usually students develop the ability to decode text that is smaller as they become older and more experienced with the process of reading. So along a reading ability (no eye issues) then larger text in books for early readers reflects a developmental stage. So this suggests that you should increase the font size for younger students who may need a larger print to increase reading performance. This also means that as this is a developmental stage in reading that struggling readers or those new to the language should also be assisted in their reading with an increased font size.   

The research doesn't provide much concerning any real differences between serif or san serif fonts. But some do state that the extra bits and thicknesses with serif fonts makes the letters and words more distinctive and therefor easier on the eye for reading. Often the font type effects are more associated with experience, as when young the letters are usually san serif fonts, using a much cleaner and simpler letter structure, but as we get older we are more exposed to serifed fonts, like times, and so become used to those. Older students then usually prefer a serifed font, in other words the one that they are more used to. Making the font the one that you are used to make it easier for your brain to process the information - less effort is put into decoding. One issue to also think about for font type can be how well it can be when displayed on an ebook screen, as screens have a resolution - it may be that when reading on a screen (eink or lcd) that a sarifed font may blur a bit because of resolution causing readers to slow down, so it would be better then to use a different font such as one designed for screen reading.

When considering color, most people actually prefer dark text on a light background, but this isn't for everyone. For example if you are reading in a dark room using a lcd display it may be more comfortable to have light text on a dark background - the reduction in brightness of the background can reduce eye strain. Students with dyslexia may prefer a screen display that isn't white as the white can appear too dazzling. 

Here are some findings from research studies concerning text display-

• Size of characters is important for legibility. After characters are legible, their size has less of an impact reading speed.
• Children below 7 prefer font size 24 and those aged 7 or 8 prefer font size 18 - font size preference decreases though elementary and middle school and increases through latter adulthood.
• Dyslexic students need a critical font size to be able to reach their highest reading speed and this is higher than that for non-dyslexic students.
• Black characters on a white background produce the best readability in standard conditions.
• Increasing the spacing between lines improves clarity.
• Harder to read fonts can improve memory of the text at the cost of effort.

The end result should be that you or your students should find which font size, color and shape works best for them, along with the appropriate spacing and color. Everybody isn't the same, and now all our books don't have to look exactly alike. Ebook devices and programs have differentiated instructional elements built in to their display if we just start using them. Readers should take the time with their ebooks and etextbooks to find what works best for them in a variety of situations and remember to adjust their etextbooks for those situations. 

Cornelissen, P., Bradley, L., Fowler, S. & Stein, J.  (1991). What children see affects how they read. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology 33 (1991), pp. 755762.

Read an E-Book - Research an Ebook

It's just a few short weeks till the annual Read an eBook week (March 3-9). This will be the 11th year of the ebook celebration and I encourage everyone to participate (in Canada it is Ebook Month).  During that week there will be lots of free books from a variety of great resources- Visit http://www.ebookweek.com/index.html for more information.

As a side note, but one that leads well to the ebook week concept is that this year again I was judging at my regional science fair and noticed some developing trends. Over the last few year the reading science projects  included projects such as the can you read with jumbled letters, a wonder study on virus on book covers, and a neat programming project that analyzed text to figure out the author, but this year (2013) there were two studies on ebook devices and reading. One study focused on a single device, with the other used an online textbook, and both were looking at the reading results through assessment. While neither of the studies found significant gains from using the device, it was great to see that they had become part of the K12 student research community.

Ebooks as Textbooks - Part 2 - Highlighting

Highlighting can be a very effective tool in reading and learning nor matter the kind of text being read: from novels to textbooks.

Most textbooks or other forms of information text will usually used text features along with graphics to help organize information presented in the text.  These elements are done to help focus attention on important or key concepts and provide additional information. The text organization itself can include structural elements such as heading, subheading, index, glossary, paragraph spacing, bulleted or numbered lists, sidebars or side boxes, italics, underlines or boldings for words or even sections. Graphic content can include the use of symbols, colors, illustrations, pictures, diagrams, charts, and graphs.

Poor highlighting design - too much text has been highlighed. 

The act of highlighting is less time consuming and much easier than note-taking (to be discussed in an upcoming posting). To be effective in highlighting it should be a kind of metacognative approach of sifting or filtering to identify the important content, but usually the problem that I see when looking over what students are highlighting is that their highlights don't focus on just the important. Ideally with highlighting you should be identifying the important elements, but too many students have problems identifying the important parts and will highlight way too much - I've even seen whole pages highlighted. So while highlighting is easy to do, it is also easy to do poorly  – students usually highlight 70-80% of the text but experts say that you should only highlight 10-15% in a printed edition. So one approach for effective highlighting is to read the content first and then highlight, so you don't get lost in the "this all seems important" fallacy.  If you are the student, and you make the mistake of highlighting too much from your book,  this results in a an over-highlighted text situation and your highlights won't show you the important parts. Think about it, if you highlight 80% of the text from a book, when you go to study or review your reading, you pretty much end up having to reread almost the whole text again - an inefficient study strategy. Your purpose in highlighting is to make something in the text stand out and to reduce the amount of material to be remembered.

So when you are reading a textbook, it is usually better not to highlight the text as you read it. Instead, as you read or have just finished with a paragraph or section, you should use the highlighting tool of your ebook device or program to go back to mark specific things. Read the paragraph first, then think about what information you have just read and what is important to take from that section or what do you need assistance in remembering - but think a few words or a sentence - not the whole paragraph or page, then highlight those phrases.  The idea is for you to read and act like a filter the important parts come though and those are the ones that you mark with your highlighting tool. Then as you get better at it, you might start marking text that you have identified as important before finishing the section. The only exception to this rule that would encourage students to break from the beginning is the chapter summary. Go ahead and read and then highlight the whole summary (unless it is pages long all by itself). Actually research has shown that even just reading a textbook's chapter summary can be an effective learning strategy - makes sense you are just looking at what the author thought was the important parts of that chapter - it can even help to read the summary first before reading the chapter - as it will help you identify important parts before read the whole chapter.


So to review - your highlighting steps should be:

• First read the section or paragraph first.
• Next, go back through the portion of the text (not too much just a section or few pages) highlighting the key  phrases - you might also focus on the introductory and concluding sentences of the paragraph, as they often summarize the important points.
• But be selective about your highlighting, not too much or too little - figure it should be somewhere between 10 to 15% for a printed textbook and about 25 and 30% for an etextbook (the reason why more for ebooks coming up next) - that should be sufficient to identify the important points from a textbook.

But how is highlighting in an ebook different from highlighting a regular printed book? Of course, first is that you don't need to buy a highlighter, in the ebook device or program it is usually already built in and with that is you don't actually "hurt" the book by digital highlighting as compared to how your teacher may feel about your physical textbook if you have highlighted in it and have to return it or you try to sell it later. The downside for an ebook about highlighting is that you can't highlight images or portions of images. An important learning element that is different about highlighting in an ebook is the option of context - so for that reason, I've often found it better when highlighting in my ebook to have more than just a word or words highlighted -  even if it is the important word - this is the opposite of what you do with a physical textbook where the general rule is not to highlight whole sentences. You should do this because you can access the ebook highlights in different ways than you could with a highlighted print book. In the print book the only ways you can see your highlights in context -- you turn the pages and you can see the other words around the highlighted word. With a print book, a single highlighted word may be sufficient to attract your attention to it as you scan a chapter for review. This strategy would also apply to ebooks as you move from page to page, but with the ebook, you have two options for reviewing your highlights. An ebook can display the word in context as you move though the text or you can pull up (and export) your annotations list and see the highlights out of context - where you create a page just the words that you have highlighted with no surrounding text.

Good highlighting for multiple etextbook applications
would involve highlighting more than just a word - go for the
whole sentence or phrase. 

To highlight to get context for the content in an etextbook you will usually have to highlight entire sentences or phrases. Usually introductory or concluding sentences in paragraphs are good summaries of content, but there can be more. Look back at a paragraph and see what is key, for example it could be a new important vocabulary word, in which case you should get the word with the contextual definition.  A few possible highlighting strategies to consider include highlighting key vocabulary,  main ideas and supporting details; first and last summary sentences SQRHR, and chapter structure.  The chapter structure highlighting strategy is where you also highlight all section titles: chapter name, section name, heading name, etc -this creates an outline based on the book and you would also use the one of the content strategies with it to get main idea sentences such as SQRHR. SQRHR stands for Scan - Question - Read - Highlight - Review: Scan the content before reading, develop a question, read the paragraph, highlight the answer or main idea, and then review the highlight to see if it is correct. 

At first this collection of highlights out of context may not seem very effective - but if you are using good highlighting it can be extremely effective. Consider if you had highlighted the 10% of the text that was important - lets actually figure it to be more like 20-30% to collect the surrounding text instead of just the word. Then, when you go to review the chapter, you could start by just re-reading those highlights as a separate document - just a few pages of focused content, instead of whole chapters.

One thing to do with your etextbook and your highlights that you can't do with a print book is to review the annotation highlights after you have finished a chapter or section. Do this review, not by going though each page to see what you have highlighted, instead by looking at the annotations or annotation file (my clippings) for the chapter or portion you have just read. Looking at just the annotations, does it make sense to you? Are there repeated highlighted content or content that says the same thing? Do you understand and remember what the chapter was about? Do your highlights add up to a good summary of the chapter or section?  If you have a question about any of your highlights and are using the computer application, just click on the highlight in the sidebar and the text display will shift to that section.

So now your highlighting steps for an etextbook should be:

• First read the section or paragraph first.
• Next, go back through the portion of the text  highlighting the key phrases and sentences- such as introductory and concluding sentences of the paragraph, as they often summarize the important points that are discussed.
• But be selective about your highlighting, not too much or too little - it should be somewhere between 1 25 and 30% for an etextbook to identify the important points.
• Review annotation highlights for content and delete highlights that are repeated or are unnecessary. 

Syncing Highlights between devices

There are some other highlighting differences that should also be noted. First with your Kindle reader it is possible to share your highlights with others and theirs with you - this kinds of social sharing of highlights with the Kindle is under the view menu as Popular Highlights. One thing to remember though is that just because someone else marked it, doesn't mean that they were right, think back to how most people highlight about 80% of a textbook. So, at least at first, you might want to turn off the show Popular Highlights option. To turn it off, go to your device or program Preferences menu and under the Annotations options, uncheck the Enable Popular Highlights, While you are here you should also make sure that the Annotations Backup is checked.  By backing up your etextbook annotations you will have access to all your highlights across multiple devices or applications. Kindles can sync the highlight annotations between multiple Kindle applications (Kindle devices, Kindle for Android, and Kindle for iPad/iPhone), but will not sync annotation information to the free Kindle programs on the Mac, PC, or Kindle Cloud.

To enable the Kindle to sync between devices the document would need to be uploaded to a user's Kindle Library. A limitation of using the Kindle to highlight etextbooks as a study or review tool is that while all the annotations are synced between devices, the annotations done on a different device will not show up in a stand alone Kindle’s My Clippings file - the highlights will show up in the text, but not in the My Clippings file. To have all highlights also show up in the My Clippings text file, you must go to each highlight on the device, then re-highlight text - actually not a bad way to review the text anyway. If you are highlighting using the iBooks application, then it will run on iOS devices, such as the iPad and iPhone, but there currently is no desktop, laptop, or cloud version of iBooks.

Extracting the Highlights

While most ebook devices and programs are able to do the annotations, such as highlighting, there are some device/program issues that make some device applications better than others (right now as programs can change all the time). For example, while the Nook has the ability to highlight text, it currently lacks a way to export those highlights, and cannot transfer annotation information from personal documents (ebook files not purchased from Barnes and Noble), so the highlights will not synced between devices/software. This inability to transfer annotations between devices, along with an inability to access or export the annotation file creates limitations for using current Nook devices as etextbook interactive review and note-taking tools. The iBooks application will not sync annotation highlights between devices, nor is there a way to extract the highlighted text. Using etextbook files as personal document ebooks with the Kindle is currently much more effective. The Kindle has an annotation file that can exported, so the annotation file could be used in multiple applications or as a stand alone review tool, or as a reading comprehension tool where a teacher is asking for specific information to be highlighted (main characters, plot, setting elements, new vocabulary, supporting evidence, etc) . The A student using their Kindle device could extract the My Clippings file, which is a text (TXT) file of all annotations, such as the highlighted text on that Kindle. The separate highlights in the My Clippings file could then be opened in a word processor for additional notation or outlining, or the text could used in concept mapping software to create content maps for the content material.

Here the extracted highlights from CK12 Chemistry etextbook section on the scientific method have been put into outline form using a word processor.

As schools begin the process to switch from printed textbooks to electronic textbooks, we as educators will need to start teaching students the new ways to use their new textbook devices and programs to be an effective tool. There is still some clunkyness to entering highlights, such as large fingers trying to get just the right text, and there were some problems sharing the highlights between devices. On the positive side, the highlights that you create have new abilities far beyond just marks on paper, and some of the ebook devices were able to easily export or share the highlights. Ebook device and software programers should also take note of the needs of students to make sure that all future etextbook programs have the abilities to allow students to be able to effectively annotate and access those annotations in multiple ways across multiple applications.