(paper) comic books for super readers
“Teachers are finding it easier to teach writing, grammar and punctuation with material that students are fully invested in. And it turns out that comic books have other built-in advantages. The pairing of visual and written plotlines that they rely on appear to be especially helpful to struggling readers. No one is suggesting that comic books should substitute for traditional books or for standard reading and composition lessons. Teachers who would once have dismissed comics out of hand are learning to exploit a genre that clearly has a powerful hold on young minds. They are using what works.”
the great unbundling
The Big Switch by Nicholas Carr describes the advent of the World Wide Computer as the coalescence of electronic data processing into centralized information utilities. The history of electrical power utilities provides the precursor to this evolution. All the direct influences are magnificently interpreted and many of the side issues are explored.
We already realize the direct influences on the print book. The on-line resources pointing to print books act as powerful bibliographic utilities yet do not supercede qualities of legibility and re-access, qualities of haptic efficiency and capacity for persistence that remain exclusive attributes of the print book. Carr also describes the on-line unbundling of print content. He recognizes the dissolve of bibliographic entity in the churn of on-line searching and parsing and in the filtering and embedded selection and de-selection routines.
The wonderful quality of this book is its balance and grace in attempting to appreciate all the interactions to come. Carr consciously compares the wish that the Internet will prove a liberating influence with the contrary role of the computer, in past and future, to control society and manage behaviors. Will bionic intelligence act as a willing accessory in computer imposed command of society? Is Google really imaging books, not for bionic readers, but for an engine that can extract meaning? Is the fact that we have a book to consider such topics worth mentioning?
“Kindle NowNow – You pose a question and hit submit. Within a few minutes, you get several responses – for free sent to your Kindle. This was extremely helpful when I was away from a computer and just needed a quick answer. This was actually easier than googling because I got three very good answers for every question that I asked.” Kindle user