Misinformation about picturebook apps in The New York Times

It is amazing how bad journalism and to some extent bad science works to disinform and create social panic.

Last Saturday, Oct 11th, 2014, an article called "Is E-Reading to Your Toddler Story Time, or Simply Screen Time?" by  Douglas Quenqua was published in The New York Times science section. I suggest reading the article before continuing, as I do not focus here on summarizing it.

As a researcher in digital children's literature, I'd like to state that there is no sufficient evidence yet that book apps are any better or any worst for children than print books. Yet, the general tone of the article is negative towards the use of this technology, and although the text admits the lack of sufficient evidence, it cites studies as if they had some kind evidence against iPad apps, which is not true.

First, I'd just like to make a brief comment about one passage of the article:

"'There’s a lot of interaction when you’re reading a book with your child,' Dr. High said. 'You’re turning pages, pointing at pictures, talking about the story. Those things are lost somewhat when you’re using an e-book.'"

Really?? I don't necessarily see why parents who are experienced in co-reading with their children, accustomed to discussing the narrative, pointing at pictures, etc. wouldn't do exactly the same with a picturebook app. In fact, most of the good apps you need an action to turn the page as in a book and just as in good picturebooks some explore the so called "drama" of turning the page.

But what strikes me the most about the inaccuracy of this article is that, although the article is centered on discussing iPad screen time, each of the studies cited refer to a different kind of e-book – comparison which in itself is problematic – and it is likely (there is uncertainty in one case) that NONE of these are in fact iPad e-books. The 2013 study was conducted with Fisher Price Electronic Console Books. Fisher Price is a toy company, and although I haven't checked these specific "e-books", seeing the image presented in the article it is clear that they are significantly different from iPad picturebook apps. The 2012 study does not specify what exactly they are calling 'basic' and 'enhanced e-books'. It COULD be that the enhanced e-book is an iPad app, but then they do not specify that or mention which books/ebooks/apps they used. Although the Joan Ganz Cooney Center has a strong reputation for research in children's media, other people and I have agreed that the design and interpretation of data in this "quick" study is problematic. Finally, the third study is from 2002, when the iPad did not even exist, and refers to CD-ROM storybooks. It is clear that the experience of reading a storybook on a desktop computer, controlling it with a mouse is a completely different experience from reading a print picturebook or a picturebook app.

Another aspect to take into consideration is that none of the studies compares the same print and digital picturebooks, or same narrative present in print and digital version. Thus, the quality of the multimodal text of one book and the other may also have influenced the results. I believe we don't even need support from research-based studies to know that children have different interest and engagement when reading different narratives. The fact that a print and a digital picturebook talks about the same topic in a 'similar' fashion is not enough to assert that they have the same literary quality.

I keep wondering why so many people want to paint a bad image of picturebook apps when in fact there is no proof that they are any detrimental to children. I love print books and think children should have ample access to them. Print books should be the primary form of of reading for children, especially for the very young, but there is no need to misrepresent information to make people avoid digital picturebooks.

Journalists, please, do your job and do not spread misinformation in the science section of The New York Times.

Livro ruim pode ser bom

O blog está com cara nova! 

No cabeçalho, ilustração de John Tenniel para a edição original de Alice, publicada em 1865. Sim, no ano que vem um dos livros que marca o surgimento da literatura infantil como tal completa 150 anos! Obviamente muitas comemorações devem acontecer, como a Conferência Alice Through the Ages: The 150th Anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, que vai acontecer aqui na Universidade de Cambridge em setembro. O call for paper fica até 31 de janeiro, então há bastante tempo pra planejar alguma pesquisa nessa área.

...

Enquanto alguns livros gozam de quase unanimidade entre a crítica especializada (ainda que já tenha ouvido muitos depoimentos de pessoas que tinham medo na infância de Alice no País das Maravilhas ou de Onde Vivem os Monstros), outros, ainda que com alta popularidade, parecem aberrações aos olhos mais críticos.

No fundo todos temos um, ou alguns, ou muitos livros pra criança que odiamos e que não queremos ver os filhos/primos/sobrinhos nem chegarem perto. Sobre esse assunto saiu recentemente o artigo Children's Books We Secretly Wish Were Banned, disponível em http://damemagazine.com/2014/09/24/childrens-books-we-secretly-wish-were-banned.

Entre as coisas que compartilho com a autora Kate Tuttle está meu horror às princesas da Disney. Mas o fato é que, sim, as crianças vão ter acesso a esses livros na escola, na biblioteca, ou por meio dos amiguinhos. Pior, elas podem até se apaixonar por um livro desses e pedir pra você ler toda noite.

Apesar desse ser um dos maiores pesadelos de quem trabalha com literatura infantil, acho que nenhum livro deve ser banido. Os livros ruins são uma ótima oportunidade pra desenvolver o senso crítico das crianças, pra se discutir em casa os valores que estão por trás daquelas histórias aparentemente inofensivas mas que sabemos cheias de sexismo, de homofobia, de racismo, etc. Ensinar as crianças a filtrar e a fazer uma leitura crítica do que está disponível na mídia é fundamental, afinal filme de princesas tem um novo a cada ano.

Livros que eu odeio? Sim! Que eu quero banidos? Nunca.

The end is the beginning is the end

Ok, fracassei em manter o blog ativo. Dois anos do meu mestrado no Canadá se passaram, e eu postei pouquíssima vezes.

Esse post é o fechamento de um ciclo e o começo de um outro, maior. Em primeiro lugar, terminei o mestrado na UBC, em Vancouver, Canadá. Foi uma experiência riquíssima e de muita leitura e escritura, acadêmica e até criativa. Acho que a síntese desse aprendizado está na minha dissertação, e vou me alongar sobre isso mais abaixo.

Agora a fantástica boa nova é que vou continuar fazendo uma das coisas que eu mais gosto: pesquisar álbuns ilustrados. Dessa vez a responsabilidade é maior, mas seguramente também vai ser o resultado. Pelos próximos três anos, estarei realizando minha pesquisa de doutorado no lugar mais mágico que há para se estudar literatura infantil hoje em dia: o The Cambridge/Homerton Research and Teaching Centre for Children’s Literature, na Universidade de Cambridge, Inglaterra.

Homerton College, minha morada pelos próximos anos e parceiro da Faculdade de Educação da Universidade de Cambridge no The Cambridge/Homerton Research and Teaching Centre for Children’s Literature.

Fui aconselhada a fechar esse blog e a começar um novo, uma sugestão muito contundente, afinal o processo de começar novo algo já gera um ânimo extra e serve como uma espécie de ritual. Acontece que eu sou uma pessoa apegada... Além disso, o título do blog, que começou com a associação boba entre meu nome e o de Alice, ganhou muito mais sentido ainda agora que estou por essas bandas. Como no final das contas o objetivo desse blog segue o mesmo – falar sobre literatura infantil e divulgar o que tenho aprendido durante esses anos de pesquisa – decidi manter o Aline no País das Maravilhas.

Vou me conter nas apresentações de Cambridge e de todos os recursos que há por aqui; isso fica para os próximos posts. Para fechar com chave de outro a primeira fase do blog, quero falar um pouquinho da minha dissertação de mestrado:

Playfulness in e-picturebooks: how the element of play manifests in transmediated and born-digital picturebook apps

A tese em inglês pode ser baixada diretamente do repositório digital da UBC: http://goo.gl/SDpTI4.

Os slides da defesa podem ser vistos no Prezzi: http://goo.gl/oqhKEc

Nesse trabalho, analisei os aspectos lúdicos de oito picturebook apps, quatro deles criados exclusivamente como livros-aplicativos para o iPad (chamados de "born-digital", ou nativos-digitais) e os outros 4 adaptados para o iPad a partir de um livro já publicado na versão tradicional impressa (categoria dos livros transmediados, do inglês transmediated).

O termo picturebook app ainda não tem tradução em português, mas eu gosto de chamar de álbuns digitais interativos – apesar dessa terminologia ir além dos livro-aplicativos e incluir também livros digitais para computador, por exemplo.

Os livros analisados foram:

Transmediados

What Does My Teddy Bear Do All Day? (2010)

The Monster at The End of This Book (2010)

The Heart and the Bottle (2010)

The Trip: Little Critter’s Reading Adventure (2013)

Nativos digitais

Lil’ Red (2012)

Don’t Let the Pigeon Run This App! (2011)

The Three Little Pigs (2010)

Little Red Riding Hood (2013)

Na minha pesquisa eu considerei três categorias por que o lúdico pode se manifestar nessas narrativas:

1. O lúdico na relação entre os diversos modos de texto (verbal, visual, sonoro, kinético, interação, etc.). Por exemplo, quando a imagem e o texto são contraditórios, gerando humor.

2. A metaficção como lúdica, ou seja, nos jogos metaficcionais existentes nessas narrativas, que promovem o questionamento de ou chamam a atenção para a própria noção de ficção. Por exemplo, quando um personagem se dirige diretamente ao leitor, questionando a barreira entre fição e realidade.

3. O lúdico manifestado pela performance, ou pelo engajamento corporal como parte do processo de leitura. Essa performance pode ser explícita, quando o leitor teatraliza uma situação da narrativa. Por exemplo, quando tem que soprar o ipad ou gravar sua própria voz como parte da história, ou implícita, quando seus gestos apenas controlam uma performance realizada efetivamente pelo personagem na tela, sendo o exemplo mais comum quando o leitor toca em um personagem e ele realiza uma ação.

Vou entrar em maiores detalhes sobre esses aplicativos e seus aspectos lúdicos nos próximos posts, já que nos próximos meses pretendo retomar essa pesquisa para escrever um artigo com os resultados.

Prometo ser bem mais ativa nos próximos meses. Assunto é que não vai faltar.

Um 2013 mergulhado na pesquisa!

O fim do semestre me afundou no trabalho e esse foi o começo de ano mais agitado da minha vida, mas os resultados não poderiam ser melhores.

Estarei apresentando o paper A Construção de Sentido em Três Enhanced E-books de Contos de Fadas na Conferência The Child and The Book - Children’s Literature, Technology and Imagination, em Padova, na Itália, em março, aproveitando para dar uma rapidíssima passada na Feira de Bolonha que nesse ano completa 50 anos! Que honra!

Muito animada para a minha primeira conferência internacional. Com certeza será uma oportunidade incrível de conhecer outros pesquisadores da área e ver os resultados de cabeças brilhantes pensando a literatura infantil e suas intersecções com a tecnologia.

Logo postarei mais detalhes sobre esse paper, mas fica um brevíssimo resumo (em inglês), e uma das imagens presentes no trabalho, sintetizando os elementos que constituem cada um dos e-books analizados:

Informed by David Lewis’ ecological approach to picturebooks, this study conducted close readings of three enhanced e-book versions of the fairy tale The Three Little Pigs, analyzing how the different forms of text that constitute these narratives interanimate each other and participate in the meaning-making process. 

Outra grande novidade é que agora sou assistente de pesquisa do Professor Eric Meyers, participando do projeto O Futuro dos Textos para Crianças. O blog em que divulgaremos mais detalhes já está em construção e mais informações posto aqui em breve.

Um feliz 2013 para todos!

David Wiesner

Finalmente estou passado a fase inicial de adaptação ao mestrado num país estrangeiro e começando a me divertir mais do que me descabelar com leituras e papers.

Nessa semana minha muita sábia amiga Yao, uma estudante chinesa de doutorado em educação, me falou uma frase que veio do seu orientador na China e que me fez olhar com outro olhos a minha experiência aqui: fazer pesquisa é um processo de conhecimento de si mesmo, é buscar saber quem você é (mais ou menos com essa palavras :) ).

Essa reflexão me fez correr pra biblioteca e buscar mais a fundo artistas que me chamaram atenção nas aulas e que eu precisava conhecer melhor. Isso me fez relembrar porquê resolvi me meter nessa barca e dar de cara com a minhas verdadeiras paixões. E, finalmente, me motivou a largar minha lista imensa de pendências e escrever esse post (e vocês não imaginam quantas horas para escrever esse  post de 400 e tantas palavras...).

Hoje gostaria então de compartilhar o trabalho de um artista incrível que descobri recentemente: David Wiesner. Nascido em New Jersey, EUA, em 1965, desde pequeno Wiesner se destacou por suas habilidades como desenhista. Se formou em Artes Plásticas na Rhode Island School of Design e, apesar de já trabalhar como ilustrador desde o início dos anos 1980, seu primeiro livro como autor e ilustrador, Loathsome Dragon, é de 1987.

Ainda pouco conhecido no Brasil, David Wiesner foi um poucos artistas a ganhar 3 vezes a medalha Caldecott, o mais prestigioso prêmio para álbuns ilustrados dos EUA. Recebeu ainda menção honrosa outras duas vezes.

Seu livros são narrativas visuais sem palavras ou com muito pouco texto e suas imagens fantásticas e por vezes surrealistas encantam e exploram com grande criatividade o universo infantil. Alguns de seus livros brincam e questionam a própria linguagem do álbum ilustrado e da graphic novel.

Bibliografia:

1987 Loathsome Dragon (co-authored with Kim Kahng)



1988 Free Fall (Caldecott Medal - menção honrosa)



1990 Hurricane
Depois de um furacão, uma árvore cai no quintal e se transforma no palco das mais incríveis aventuras desses dois irmãos e o seu inseparável gatinho.



1991 Tuesday (Caldecott Medal - livro do ano)
Numa noite de terça-feira os sapos resolvem fazer uma visitinha à cidade.







1992 June 29, 1999
Um experimento da aula de biologia termina com resultados surpreendentes.





1999 Sector 7 (Caldecott Medal - menção honrosa)
O que começou com uma frustrada visita ao Empire State num dia nublado, termina com o céu de Nova York tomado por belos seres marinhos.







2001 The Three Pigs (Caldecott Medal - livro do ano)
Divertida releitura de Os Três Porquinhos, em que, ao soprar a casa dos porquinhos, o lobo acaba jogando-os pra fora da história.
Um vídeo do autor explicando seu processo criativo com rascunhos dessa obra podem ser vistos aqui.







2006 Flotsam (Caldecott Medal - livro do ano)
Num dia de verão, uma antiga câmera fotográfica submarina é trazida pelas ondas. A quem ela pertenceu? Que imagens registrou? Só revelando o filme pra descobrir.









2010 Art & Max
Um dinossaurinho atrapalhado quer aprender a pintar mas termina gerando uma grande confusão. O resultado é uma linda explosão de cores.
Esse é o único dos seus livros publicado no Brasil, em 2011, pela Paz e Terra.

Book apps

Está difícil alimentar o blog, mas pra não passar em branco publico minha primeira reflexão sobre book apps pra criança e o que eles representam em termos educacionais. Espero que gostem.

Enhanced e-books: new reading experience or just another
way of keeping children in front of screen?

Aline Frederico

The University of British Columbia

School of Library and Information Studies

LIBR 559B – 001 New Media for Children and Young Adults

Professor Eric Meyers

25^th September 2012.

Abstract:

This paper aims to discuss the main issues that concern enhanced e-books for children, starting for its very definition and main characteristics. What differentiates it from a paper book and from other digital media as games and animation?  How is it being used and what are the possible advantages and disadvantages of those uses? Do enhanced e-books for children help in the literacy process or it causes more harm than good? Finally, some opportunities for further research are presented.

Key-words: enhanced e-books; book app; children; literacy;

Introduction

Enhanced e-books are not necessarily a new idea, during the 90s and 2000s, they were present in the format of CD-ROMs or DVDs. Since Apple’s iPad release in April 2010, however, these books seem to have found their ideal platform, on a light portable device with the possibility of interaction with a high resolution touch screen.

The versatility of the digital environment created a new world of possibilities for an e-book and many enhanced e-books started popping out as books apps. According to Henry Volans, head of Faber Digital, the digital branch of the British publishing house, “one of the great things about an iPad app is there are almost no constraints about what you can put in, what types of media you can use” (Lea, R et al., 2011).

An enhanced e-book, then, can be defined as an electronic book equipped with “tools that can support highly interactive, multimedia experiences”(Chiong et al., 2012). There are many different possible tools, but the most common are audio (narration, sound effects), video, animation, interactivity, games, additional texts and images. Some even have the possibility of content creation, where the user can create audio recordings, take photographs or create his/her own story.

It is estimated that by the end of 2012 more than 100 million iPads will have been sold all over the world, most of them in North America (Graham, 2012). But who is using these tablets? Stuart Dredge, a media journalist at The Observer, reminds us that, at its release, “the idea of handing over a touchscreen gadget costing at least £429 to a sticky-fingered child seemed ridiculous”. Only two years later, a Nielsen’s report shows that children under 12 years old use tablets in 70% of the households where the device is present, and 57% of them use it for educational purposes (Nielsen, 2012).

If book apps were an interesting enhancement for adult books, for children’s books they seemed even more natural, transporting to the digital format some characteristics that some children books already had, for example, the interactivity of pop-up books, and taking it to another level. The high resolution of the screens also made picture books look bright and beautiful.

Soon, app producers started to realize that apps for children could be an important segment of the market. In 2011, 80% of the top selling paid apps in the Education category of the iTunes Store are aimed for children from toddlers to teenagers and almost half of it is aimed for preschool and elementary children. (Shuler, 2012). Most enhanced e-book apps, as an extension of the concept of picture book, are aimed for those age groups.

As the popularity of enhanced e-books rises and especially when they start to get to the hands of children at a very early age, scholars and different parts of the society start to ponder about their advantages, disadvantages and possible “damage” they can cause to their users.

Is it a book?

The first issue that comes to enhanced e-books is very basic and questions their very nature: is it still a book?

In the case of adult enhanced e-books, many people question that it looks like a DVD, which has the film — in this case, the text — and its “extras” and many of those extras can actually be videos. When considering children’s enhanced e-books, it is the boundaries between those books and a game or an animated film that are put into question. In both cases, the answer actually depends on the app.

As with any new area, it is still a time for experimentation and in some cases creators exceed in the idea of exploring the possibilities the media can offer. The result can be apps where the features end up being more prioritized than the narrative. Even being described as book apps, it really depends on the reader to evaluate if it keeps its essence as a book or if should actually fit in another category. To be considered an enhanced e-book, and a good one, some authors like Katie Bircher (2012) and Elizabeth Bird (2011) present some criteria:

·      An enhanced book must not exaggerate in the interactivity, or it can overwhelm or distract the reader;

·      It also must have a balance between the features: “the deepest understanding and appreciation of the story comes from interplay among all the parts”(Bircher, 2012);

·      Keeping the action of turning the page seems to be one of the aspects that most characterizes an app as being a book instead of an animated film. It is also a moment of pause in the process of interaction with the screen and a reflection on what your are doing/reading that is not available in most other digital contents;

·      Having the possibility to turn off the features is also important and it gives the reader the possibility of coming back to the traditional book and mean that the narrative — and its original text and images — is still the core of the app. Turning the narration off is also important in parent-child co-reading;

·      It must have simple navigation and/or clues on how to do it without interrupting or interfering in the narrative, it is also important that you be allowed to jump from one part to another of the story at any time you want;

·      The features must be part of the narrative in a way that they create surprise and joy;

·      Finally, as the designation “enhanced e-book” suggests, it “adds or extends the original book”. “A successful picture book app fulfills the requirements of a traditional picture book, but with an extra oomph unique to the digital format. Adaptations of print books present faithful representations with all interactive elements enhancing—not undermining—the original narratives” (Bircher, 2012).

Some people, though, do not believe that the features can really enhance reading, on the contrary, they consider it “too much information” that interferes in the uniqueness of the readers experience. Abigail R. Esman (2012), writing for Forbes magazine, says: “I fear what they will rob from readers, the experience of make-believe, the chance to stretch the boundaries of what we think we know. I fear for children whose imaginations will grow as flaccid and flabby as their bodies are in this era of childhood obesity”. Ideas like that are what Nancy K. Baym (2010) would consider technological determinism, as if those books, by extending the information the reader has from the story, would actually freeze their imaginations.

Old and new contexts of use and its consequences

Some features present in enhanced e-books, apart from expanding the reader experience, have some benefits that go beyond the story itself.

Most enhanced e-books for preschoolers come with an audio narration feature. Though some of then do not come with a turn off option, there is always the possibility of turning the audio off your device if you want to read yourself the story to a child. One of the main advantages of book apps in comparison to other apps for young children – like games and videos – is that, although it is electronic, by co-reading, parents and children are still in an intergenerational exchange that enables relationship building and permits interactions outside the screen. It can, by the use of an electronic device, make the bound between parents and children stronger instead of isolating the child in their own world.

On the other hand, the possibility of having “someone” read the story to your still illiterate child when you are busy is a great advantage. More than 60% of parents reported to always use this feature when the child is left alone with the tablet (Vaala, 2012). It also can be a benefit in households where storytelling is not a habit or where children are not sufficiently exposed to books as they should for their literacy development. However, it is important to analyse that this possibility tends to create a new “Sesame Street effect”, where illiterate children that did not have access to books before start to have access to enhanced e-books and improve their reading skills over time, but children who access those books with the contribution of an adult may have even higher improvement, increasing the gap instead of reducing it.

The aspect of having many titles available while traveling or commuting is considered one the best advantages of tablets and e-readers (Rainie, L. et al, 2012) and many parents are using their readiness with children as a manner of distracting them in those situations. Enhanced e-books seem then great to engage the child, and it may be considered “better” or “more educational” than playing a game or watching videos. Qualitatively, there are different kinds of screen time, some more passive and some more intellectually stimulating, but some specialists alert that, specially for young children, replacing traditional “real” playtime with digital playtime may be detrimental to children’s development and creativity: “What children see or interact with on the screen is only a representation of things in the real world. The screen symbols aren’t able to provide as full an experience for kids as the interactions they can have with real world people and things. And while playing games with apps and computers could be considered more active than TV viewing, it is still limited to what happens between the child and a device — it doesn’t involve the whole child’s body, brain, and senses. (Strauss, 2012).

Using electronic devices to distract a child that starts crying in a public situation or even at home is also an existing practice that Strauss alarm to be potentially harmful: “I’ve become concerned that many children today are learning to cope with their feelings and relationships by distraction, and that screens of all kinds have become easy substitutes for the inner life experiences and personal interactions children need to have” (Strauss, 2012).

Many parents seem aware of those potential problems and 81% consider that the printed book is better for reading with a child (Rainie, L. et al, 2012). Other studies confirm the last information, and though the presence of tablets in households is increasing significantly, parents are still hesitant about how they should use e-books with their preschool children, most of them still preferring co-reading printed books (see graph below) (Vaala, 2012). They also mentioned in the survey that one of their main concerns about e-books is that they increase children’s screen time.

Source: (Vaala, 2012).

Enhanced e-books and literacy

Another key issue in regards to enhanced e-books for children — present in how Katie Bircher and Elizabeth Bird evaluate book apps — is if they contribute to children’s literacy or if they more distract than instruct.

As seen in the graph above, more than 50% of parents that co-read e-books with their children somewhat agree or completely agree that “Features in e-books enable/encourage children to read alonechild”. The features they believe to be helpful in the process are: clicking a word sounds it out; word highlights during narration; and audio narration. Some features, though, they believe cause more distraction than help, like hotspots/animations embedded in illustration and games and videos provided in the e-book. (Vaala et al., 2012)

A study comparing printed books and e-books (basic and enhanced) (Chiong, 2012) showed that though enhanced e-books are more engaging to preschool children than printed and basic e-books, they cause more distraction, showed by the dramatic increase in the number of non-content related actions made by the child and decrease of the content related ones. As a result, children’s story recall was affected in a negative way with enhanced e-books.

Christopher Harris (2012) questioned the results of this study due to its small sample (32 child-parent pairs), its “questionable variety in its demographics” and the criteria used to consider an action non-content related. For non-content related, where considered “Parent [or Child] talks about book features” and “Parent [or Child] talks about hotspots”. He questioned that these types of actions could not happen in the printed book or in the basic e-books, simply because there are no features or hotspots to be mentioned, but that it does not necessarily mean distraction.

Research possibilities

Due to the novelty of the subject, more and broader research definitely needs to be done, specially concerning young children, as the contact with these kinds of book may influence their development. Some opportunities are on studying the learning and literacy potential of enhanced e-books in many different groups of readers: children who are not interested in traditional reading; children with disabilities; children with no previous access to technology in comparison to children with broad access. Do they engage more and have better understanding of the story? Is there any change in their cognitive development? How do children who have access to this technology at an early age will develop as readers? What are the differences in literacy development between children who co-read an enhanced e-book with an adult and children who “co-read” it by listening to the audio narration feature?

The context of use is another interesting subject for research. Who is responsible for the introduction of this technology in households? Where does usage take place? How much time do children spend reading enhanced e-books per day? How many books do they read? Does it influence the amount of time they spend with printed books and with other media? Which titles are chosen and why? Do they have an equivalent print version?

Finally, there is the possibility of analyzing enhanced e-books in the educational context. How can the teacher/ librarian mediate the contact with these books? What changes can be seen in children’s engagement with texts at school with the insertion of these devices?

References

Baym, N. K. (2010). "Making new media make sense." Ch 2 (pp. 22-49) in Personal connections in the digital age. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Bircher, K. (2012). What makes a good picture book app?(what makes a good ...?). The Horn Book Magazine, 88(2), 72.

Bird, E. (2011). Planet app: Kids' book apps are everywhere. but are they any good? School Library Journal, 57(1), 26-31.

Chiong, C., Ree, J., Takeuchi, L. & Erickson, I. (2012) Print books vs. e-books: Comparing parent-child co-reading on print, basic, and enhanced e-book platforms. New York: The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. Available at: http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/Reports-35.html

Dredge, S. (2012, August 4). The 50 best children's apps for smartphones and tablets. Retrieved from The Guardian website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/aug/04/50-best-apps-chidren-smartphones-tablets

Esman, A. R., (2012, March 9). Are Enhanced E-Book Apps Worth It? Retrieved from Forbes website: http://www.forbes.com/sites/abigailesman/2012/04/09/are-enhanced-e-book-apps-worth-it/

Graham, J. (2012, March 3) Apple expected to sell 100 millionth iPad this year. Retreived from the USA Today website: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-03-03/apple-ipad-sales/53344970/1

Gutnick, A. L., Robb, M., Takeuchi, L., & Kotler, J. (2010). Always connected: The newdigital media habits of young children. New York: The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, 3. Available at: http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/Reports-28.html

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