Should technology change the way we read?

By • Jan 27th, 2009 • Category: 26th Story, Big Ideas, Technology

danteworlds_harperstudioA good example of how technology can interact with books is this amazing site about Dante’s Divine Comedy, developed by Guy P. Raffa, a classics professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Raffa realized that images, commentaries and sounds could help his students to better understand the classic.

In this case, the site was conceived as a complement to, not a replacement for Dante’s work. In other cases, however, technology is used as part of the reading experience, like this book made by the German author Christoph Benda with Google Earth illustrations. It is considered a “geo novel”, with pages accompanied by a satellite view of the current location of the story.

Should technology be part of the reading experience, as Christoph Benda’s suggests, or should it just be a complement for books, like Danteworlds?

- Martha

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  • Vanessa

    How about both? In fact, I think that the advantage, should the book world decide to embrace it, of digital media is that a book does not simply have to be a book (ie the way we think of them). Books, whether the traditional kind, or e-Books or any other kind of thing can be expanded in ways we’ve never before thought of. How about a combination of audio and written words? We don’t have to confine those things to our kids’ Leapsters, after all. Or having a soundtrack to a book included?

    Can we score a book? How about adding not just static pictures, but video content combined with those words? And yes, I see that just as possibly in “traditional” book format as I do online or on our iPhones and Kindles.

    Books have the potential to become so much more, and rather than fighting technology, or decrying the death of the book, maybe we can embrace it and use it to our advantage?

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