Edu-tech guru Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach offers a fascinatingly personal post on how technology and cultural factors have affected reading styles. The upshot, in her view, is that we need to get over books as they are traditionally conceived:
We need to understand that in a changing world, education can no longer stand still. If we want to remain relevant in the lives of our learners then we will need to use strategies and materials that fit their learning styles, not our own. Techno-constructivist methodology is the educational language today's learners understand and respond to best. Help provide opportunities for them to read challenging, rich, descriptive language and the classic authors we all love in venues that allow for active engagement and full involvement. I predict that when classrooms change to engage students in the reading process we will see that same sense of wonderment toward reading in kids today that we saw in students of classes gone by, the love of reading and learning is still there, it just needs to be captured through more modern techniques. We need to reinvent the book.