e-Readers Have Their Work Cut Out for Them

Edward Tenner (who you should be following on general principle) at The Atlantic gathers some findings that suggest e-readers are less effective than regular books from an efficiency perspective – something that matters to readers concerned with educational texts.  Both in terms of reading speed and the distraction of hypertext links, e-Readers are not the best means to focus on whatever text you’re trying to read.

Tenner also makes a strong point that educational technology (whether software or hardware) doesn’t get much dedicated attention from manufacturers.  They just tweak their business products and offer them at a slight cost savings.

“Education’s real problem with readers is the dismaying fact that mass information technology out of the box was not developed for education. Microsoft Office is great value at academic discounts. But Word has become a mini-desktop publishing and collaboration program for corporate users, Excel’s statistical analysis and graphing are limited, while its mainstream financial power is more impressive. And the bulleted style of PowerPoint, while widely used, has inspired a classic of academic backlash. The big customers remain the suits.”

Let’s hope that the pending release of the Kno next to its closest competitor in the education space, the eDGe, can prove an exception to this trend.  They are both targeted at the education market and their price points are close to similar products developed for the mass market.  They may still run into problems with reading speed and distracting hyperlinks, but at least it will be specialized tech at nearly commodity prices.