Innovations in Reading and Writing: What Should Learning Technologists Know?

[email protected] | @techczech

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Slide 2: This is a quick top level overview!

This is a quick top level overview!

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Slide 3: More on bit.ly/oxfordreadinglab

More on bit.ly/oxfordreadinglab

Screenshot of an embedded slide deck titled “Reading and Writing Innovation Lab Showcase”: “What is available for hands on trial at the Centre for Teaching and Learning”, with a Next button, at slide 1 of 17.

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Slide 4: Is this what it is about?

Is this what it is about?

Photograph of a round wooden table with a tablet, a laptop and an e-reader, each showing a highlighted and annotated document, and styluses lying beside them.

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Slide 5: Or is this what it’s all about?

Or is this what it’s all about?

Photograph of many study-skills books spread over a table, among them Reading at University, Planning Your Essay, Reading & Making Notes, Studying with Dyslexia, Writing for University and Where’s Your Argument?

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Slide 6: Strategies come before technologies.

Strategies come before technologies.

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Slide 7: Technologies can help but also get in the way.

Technologies can help but also get in the way.

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Slide 8: Just came out bit.ly/ readingaffordances 2021

Just came out bit.ly/ readingaffordances 2021

First page of a journal paper, “Towards a digital reading lab: Discovering and learning new affordances”, with its abstract and the start of the introduction, beside a dark panel with title, author, keywords and DOI.

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Slide 9: Articulation of Reading

Articulation of Reading

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Slide 10: Reading is an articulated activity

Reading is an articulated activity

Decoding
Understanding
Planning
Strategic attention

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Slide 11: Reading modalities

Reading modalities

Text
Audio and text
Audio
Video

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Slide 12: What makes reading easier

What makes reading easier

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Slide 13: Five principle of readable content

Five principle of readable content

Enlarge
Listen
Navigate
Strategize

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Slide 14: Enlarge: Reduce barriers to decoding

Enlarge: Reduce barriers to decoding

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Slide 15: Enlarge: Reduce barriers to decoding

The sentence “An employer can choose to offer more leave than the legal minimum. They don’t have to apply all the rules that apply to statutory leave to the extra leave. For example, a worker might need to be employed for a certain amount of time before they become entitled to it.” set with letters squeezed tightly together.

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Slide 16: Enlarge: Reduce barriers to decoding

Two white text boxes on a grey slide showing the same paragraph. The upper box has the letters set so tightly that they overlap and are hard to read; the lower, larger box has normal letter spacing.

An employer can choose to offer more leave than the legal minimum. They don’t have to apply all the rules that apply to statutory leave to the extra leave. For example, a worker might need to be employed for a certain amount of time before they become entitled to it.

The slide shows this paragraph twice: squeezed in the small upper box (“I hey” appears for “They” because of the overlap) and with normal spacing in the large lower box.

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Slide 17: Enlarge: Reduce barriers to decoding

Photograph of cars on a road, blurred by their speed, with grass and trees beyond.

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Slide 18: Enlarge: Reduce barriers to decoding

Screenshot of a blog post, “Book Review: Evolutionary Psychopathology” on Slate Star Codex, shown in a browser with a long line of small text and side columns of links.

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Slide 19: Instapaper view of the review

Instapaper view of the review

The same book review in the Instapaper reading view: one narrow column of text with a plain heading.

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Slide 20: My instapaper

My instapaper

Two phone screenshots from Instapaper. Left: a list of saved articles, “Classroom Teaching Then and …”, “Introducing: Asabiyah”, “Learning From Old China”, “tianming 天命 (www.chinakn…”, and “Meta-rationality: An in…” with a “4 Notes” tag. Right: the article “Classroom Teaching Then and Now” with its first passage highlighted in blue.

Left screen, the Instapaper article list: Classroom Teaching Then and… (larrycuban.wordpress.com); Introducing: Asabiyah (scholars-stage.blogspot.com); Learning From Old China (scholars-stage.blogspot.com); tianming 天命 (www.chinakn…) (chinaknowledge.de); Meta-rationality: An in… (metarationality.com), marked “4 Notes”.

Right screen, the open article with the highlighted passage: “Most policymakers, researchers, and parents believe that good teachers and teaching are the keys to school improvement yet these very same folks know little about how teachers teach daily.” The text continues “And that is the rub. Good teachers and teaching are the agreed-upon policy solutions to both high- and low-performing students”.

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Slide 21: New Edge has Immersive Reader built in

New Edge has Immersive Reader built in

Screenshot of the University of Oxford news page “Oxford leads first trial investigating dosing with alternating vaccines”, with a photograph of vaccine vials, in Microsoft Edge.

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Slide 22: Advanced text display options

Advanced text display options

Original slide 22 as rendered: the Oxford vaccine news article shown in Edge Immersive Reader with a cream background and larger text, and the Read aloud, Text preferences and Grammar tools buttons at the top. The original is an animation, not included here.

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Slide 23: Additionally also supports line focus

Additionally also supports line focus

Edge Immersive Reader with the Reading preferences panel open and Line focus switched on; the text is dimmed except for a few lines.

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Slide 24: Additional language support features

Additional language support features

Original slide 24 as rendered: the same Immersive Reader view with the pointer over the Grammar tools button. The original is an animation, not included here.

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Slide 25: Can even help with some languages

Can even help with some languages

Immersive Reader’s Grammar tools panel (Syllables, Parts of speech with Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives and Adverbs, Show labels) is open on both screenshots. In the Czech screenshot the panel warns: “Can’t highlight parts of speech for some languages”.

Visible Czech text, split into syllables: “Zná·mé znač·ky mi·zí z cen… Pra·hy. Ko·ro·navi·rus vy·h… fir·my z lu·kra·tiv·ních ad·r… opuš·tě·ných pro·de·jen při·bý·vá”. The right-hand ends of the lines are hidden behind the panel.

The Russian screenshot begins “На·валь·ному за·ме·ни·л…” and its right-hand ends are hidden behind the panel in the same way.

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Slide 26: Reading with your ears

Reading with your ears

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Slide 27: Natural voices

Natural voices

Original slide 27 as rendered: the poster frame of a screen recording of Edge Read aloud on the page “Oxford leads first trial investigating dosing with alternating vaccines”. The video itself is not part of this package.

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Slide 28: Reading with your ears

Screenshot of an iPad showing Winnie-the-Pooh with the sentence being read aloud highlighted in yellow and playback controls at the bottom.

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Slide 29: Reading with your ears

Screenshot of the iOS Accessibility settings for Speech: Speak Selection is on, Speak Screen is off, followed by Voices and a Speaking Rate slider.

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Slide 30: Voicedream reasder

Voicedream reasder

Screenshot of the Voice Dream website with its Reader app: the words “reader, Reading Reinvented” and “Read anything. Read anywhere. Read your way.” beside a head silhouette filled with books.

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Slide 31: VoiceAloud reader

VoiceAloud reader

Screenshot of the Google Play page for @Voice Aloud Reader (TTS Reader), with a loudspeaker icon and two app screenshots.

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Slide 32: Reading with your ears

Screenshot of the @Voice PDF Crop Plugin: a PDF page shown cropped in a dark overlay.

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Slide 33: Listening tips

Listening tips

2x: Listen at higher speed
Crop: Remove footers
Skip: Find shortcuts to navigate

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Slide 34: Navigation

Navigation

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Slide 35: Texts have structures

Texts have structures

Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
References
Appendices/Data

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Slide 36: Navigation Pane in Word is an essential tool for reading and writing

Navigation Pane in Word is an essential tool for reading and writing

Screenshot of Word with the Navigation pane showing the headings of a document about six tasks of effective instructional videos, beside the document text.

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Slide 37: Chrome PDF viewer

Chrome PDF viewer

Screenshot of Chrome’s PDF viewer showing the paper “Business Models, Business Strategy and Innovation” by David J. Teece, with a Bookmarks outline open on the right.

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Slide 38: Microsoft Edge PDF viewer

Microsoft Edge PDF viewer

Screenshot of the Microsoft Edge PDF viewer showing the same paper with a Table of Contents pane on the left.

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Slide 39: Read strategically

Read strategically

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Slide 40: Read strategically

“The vast quantities of information that are available mean that it is important that you read as intelligently as possible. For most social science literature, this means ‘skim reading’ a document or book before reading line-by-line.” (Steve New)

Cover of the Academic Writing Skills Guide 2018-2019 with a large orange quotation mark.

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Slide 41: Three Modes of Reading

Three Modes of Reading

Linear

Read from start to finish
As in fiction
Most texts formatted for this

Skiming

Read for gist to get a sense of overall meaning quickly
Strategy to decide is more is needed

Scannning

Read for specific information
Use on second pass or in research

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Slide 42: Most digital reading interfaces assume the linear mode!

Most digital reading interfaces assume the linear mode!

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Slide 43: This is why digital textbooks are so slow to take off!

This is why digital textbooks are so slow to take off!

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Slide 44: Where does technology come in?

Where does technology come in?

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Slide 45: Affordances of Reading

Affordances of Reading

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Slide 46: Definition of affordance

Definition of affordance

Affordance is the property of an object that allows the user to interact with it in order to achieve a particular goal without conscious deliberation.

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Slide 47: Affordances of a printed schedule

Affordances of a printed schedule

Photograph of an open printed conference programme with handwritten circles and notes beside session entries.

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Slide 48: Affordance of a digital schedule

Affordance of a digital schedule

Screenshot of the online schedule of ALT’s Summer Summit 2020 with a search box containing “user ex”, matching sessions highlighted, and a sponsor logo, Brickfield Education Labs.

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Slide 49: Affordances of books

Affordances of books

Screenshot of a YouTube video titled “Paperback VS Kindle E-books ! Who Wins??”: a woman holding up an e-reader and a paperback Harry Potter book in front of bookshelves.

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Slide 50: Affordances

Affordances

Physicality (Weight / 3D)
Touch
Ink absorption
Visibility – Comparison
Movability

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Slide 51: Most e-reading tools do not take into account key affordances of reading. We must evaluate them from this perspective.

Most e-reading tools do not take into account key affordances of reading. We must evaluate them from this perspective.

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Slide 52: It took Amazon 13 years to figure out people read books non-linearly

It took Amazon 13 years to figure out people read books non-linearly

Original slide 52 as rendered: a hand holding a Kindle e-reader in front of a web page headed “The Kindle ha… System”.

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Slide 53: Affordance of the body

Affordance of the body

Photograph of hands holding a thick printed book open, with a diagram in the text and a thumb marking a page.

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Slide 54: Publishers seem to be remarkably ignorant of the affordances of reading.

Publishers seem to be remarkably ignorant of the affordances of reading.

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Slide 55: Not thinking about the ereader as content consumer but as paper replicator

Not thinking about the ereader as content consumer but as paper replicator

Screenshot of ProQuest Ebook Central showing a book on reading and making notes, with a table of contents on the left and the heading “Now you are at university” beside a table comparing school and university.

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Slide 56: Reading hardware and software

Reading hardware and software

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Slide 57: What can you read with

What can you read with

Computer
Smart phone
Tablet
E-reader
Scanner

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Slide 58: Comparing hardware solutions

Comparing hardware solutions

Computer

👍 Always there
👍 Many tools
👎 Bad posture
👎 Screen glare

Smart phone

👍 Portable
👍 Flexible
👎 Small screen
👎 Battery
👎 Screen glare

Tablet

👍 Portable
👍 Large screen
👍 Side by side
👍 Pen option
👎 Screen glare

E-reader

👍 No screen glare
👍 Long battery
👍 Touch/pen
👎 Single function
👎 Slow refresh

Scanner

👍 Stand alone
👍 Printed text
👎 Single purpose
👎 Expensive

Original slide 58 as rendered: five tall rounded columns, one per device, each with an icon, a name and its short list, above a wide grey double arrow.

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Slide 59: E-readers

E-readers

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Slide 60: Remarkable

Remarkable

Photograph of a Remarkable tablet showing an annotated PDF, with a stylus resting on it.

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Slide 61: Kobo

Kobo

Photograph of a Kobo e-reader standing upright on a stand, showing handwritten notes on a page.

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Slide 62: Boox Max Lumi

Boox Max Lumi

Photograph of a Boox Max Lumi e-ink tablet lying on a wooden table with a stylus.

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Slide 63: Onyx Boox

Onyx Boox

Photograph of an Onyx Boox tablet showing a page with handwritten notes, with its pen on the table.

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Slide 64: Scanners

Scanners

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Slide 65: Cpen

Cpen

Photograph of a white pen scanner resting on a printed page.

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Slide 66: ORCam Reader

ORCam Reader

Photograph of a woman holding a pen-shaped reader above an open book.

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Slide 67: Tablets

Tablets

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Slide 68: iPad

iPad

Photograph of an iPad with a keyboard case, showing a document with passages highlighted in several colours.

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Slide 69: Touch interfaces

Touch interfaces

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Slide 70: Active styluses

Active styluses

Photograph of an Apple Pencil box with an Apple Pencil and two other active styluses.

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Slide 71: Passive styluses

Passive styluses

Photograph of boxed passive styluses with soft and fine tips.

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Slide 72: Drawing tablets

Drawing tablets

Photograph of a small drawing tablet with a pen resting on it.

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Slide 73: Apps

Apps

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Slide 74: MarginNote – reason to get an iPad

MarginNote – reason to get an iPad

An iPad showing MarginNote: a mind map on the left, with orange chapter nodes such as “Chapter 12 Skorohod Embedding and Invariance Principles” and “Chapter 15 Stochastic Integrals and Quadratic Variation”, and a mathematics PDF on the right with coloured highlights and excerpts. The blue MarginNote logo is overlaid across the middle of the screen.

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Slide 75: Margin note features

Margin note features

Screenshot of the MarginNote website’s Features page, with six thumbnails: reading mode, display notes on margin, editing a note as a card, auto-create mind map, drag to mind map and emphasize.

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Slide 76: LiquidText finding new affordances

LiquidText finding new affordances

An iPad showing LiquidText with documents, highlights and collected excerpts, with the LiquidText logo and a play button over it.

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Slide 77: Touch affordance demo

Touch affordance demo

Original slide 77 as rendered: a frame of a video of a finger touching a tablet screen. The video is not part of this package.

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Slide 78: DRM – Elephant in the room

DRM – Elephant in the room

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Slide 79: What does download mean?

What does download mean?

Screenshot of a Bodleian Libraries catalogue record for “How to use your reading in your essays” by Jeanne Godfrey, with buttons Read Online, Download and Add to Bookshelf, and print and copy allowances of 10 per cent.

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Slide 80: Reading experience with DRM is bad

Reading experience with DRM is bad

Screenshot of Adobe Digital Editions showing a protected ebook with a table of contents and two columns of small text.

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Slide 81: No tool that is designed to support DRM has kept up with reading innovation! Publishers, shame on you!!!

No tool that is designed to support DRM has kept up with reading innovation! Publishers, shame on you!!!

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Slide 82: Workflows

Workflows

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Slide 83: Workflows are just as important as the tools.

Workflows are just as important as the tools.

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Slide 84: Amazon pioneered workflows with the Kindle.

Amazon pioneered workflows with the Kindle.

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Slide 85: Types of workflow

Types of workflow

Books to e-reader
Books to app
Annotations from app
Annotations into notes
Notes into memory

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Slide 86: Readwise.io

Readwise.io

Screenshot of the Readwise home page: “Get the most out of what you read. Readwise makes it easy to revisit and learn from your ebook & article highlights”, with a Get started for free button and a laptop and phone showing a daily review.

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Slide 87: Readwise Import Options

Readwise Import Options

Screenshot of Readwise’s Import Highlights page, suggesting Kindle, Apple Books and Goodreads, with Instapaper, Supplemental Books, Pocket, Twitter, Medium and Hypothesis already connected.

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Slide 88: Review what you imported

Review what you imported

Readwise’s Browse Highlights menu: Books, Supplemental Books, Articles, Tweets, Highlight Tags, Favorites, Discards and Mastery.

A Readwise daily review card with a highlight from “Vanished Kingdoms” by Norman Davies, with Discard, Master, Feedback and Keep buttons.

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Slide 89: Readwise export options

Readwise export options

Screenshot of Readwise’s Export Highlights page, with Notion connected and Evernote and Roam available to connect and sync.

Innovations in Reading and Writing: What Should Learning Technologists Know?

Slide 1: Innovations in Reading and Writing: What Should Learning Technologists Know?