Over the last year, The New York Times has run a series entitled The Future of Reading. The following articles concern the impact that technology has had on the way that we take in information and communicate with others.
The first article, "Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?" follows the differing reactions that adults and children have to reading online.
The second article, "Using Video Games to Hook Readers," considers the ways that educators are trying to encourage reading among kids who are used to engaging in virtual environments. For a related treatment of this issue at my institution, Western Michigan University, check out our Literary Worlds project, headed up by Dr. Allen Webb in the English Department.
The third article, "In Web Age, Library Gets Job Update," focuses on the way librarians have adapted technology to serve their ongoing mission of matching up users with information. One of the graduates of our MFA program in creative writing, Victoria Rakowski, is finishing up her last semester on the way to becoming a librarian. Check out her blog, The Vicki Lists, for great commentary on what it means to be a librarian in today's web environment.
The most recent article, "A New Assignment: Pick Books You Like," traces the results of a year-long experiment conducted in a language arts classroom, in which students were allowed to choose the majority of their academic reading. The debate over whether students benefit from reading a shared literary canon shaped by adults vs. whether they benefit from reading what they like is sure to create a complex conversation.
