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This link has been bookmarked by 56 people . It was first bookmarked on 17 Sep 2008, by rongy stamer.

  • 01 May 09
  • 21 Mar 09
    • vision moves and rests. In this study, he found that
    • Some educators spot the momentum and shrug their shoulders, elevating screen scanning to equal status with slow reading.
  • 08 Mar 09
    • Screen reading is a mind-set, and we should accept its variance from academic
      thinking. Nielsen concisely outlines the difference: "I continue to believe in
      the linear, author-driven narrative for educational purposes. I just don't
      believe the Web is optimal for delivering this experience. Instead, let's praise
      old narrative forms like books and sitting around a flickering campfire —
      or its modern-day counterpart, the PowerPoint projector," he says. "We should
      accept that the Web is too fast-paced for big-picture learning. No problem; we
      have other media, and each has its strengths. At the same time, the Web is
      perfect for narrow, just-in-time learning of information nuggets — so long
      as the learner already has the conceptual framework in place to make sense of
      the facts."
  • 06 Mar 09
  • 15 Feb 09
    nele_noppe
    Nele Noppe

    Don't agree with a lot of points here, like the title itself, but some interesting observations. Author asserts that "the shape and tempo of online texts differ so much from academic texts that e-learning initiatives in college classrooms can't bridge them". To the problem of students being unable to process long, in-depth 'traditional' texts, author offers the following solution: "let's restrain the digitizing of all liberal-arts classrooms. More than that, given the tidal wave of technology in young people's lives, let's frame a number of classrooms and courses as slow-reading (and slow-writing) spaces." I doubt it's even possible to create slow-reading 'islands' when the whole of students' lives takes place in a fast-reading environment, as the author confirms. Would it not be more effective/doable to adapt academic materials and the way we handle them, so that they can be better processed in 'fast-reading' manner?

    internet education readers academia plwo presentation_cwwc done

    • So let's restrain the digitizing of all liberal-arts classrooms. More than that, given the tidal wave of technology in young people's lives, let's frame a number of classrooms and courses as slow-reading (and slow-writing) spaces.
    • The shape and tempo of online texts differ so much from academic texts that e-learning initiatives in college classrooms can't bridge them.
    • 1 more annotations...
  • 09 Feb 09
  • 04 Feb 09
    • I required students in a literature survey course to obtain obituaries of famous writers without using the Internet, they stared in confusion. Checking a reference book, asking a librarian, and finding a microfiche didn't occur to them. So many free deliveries through the screen had sapped that initiative.
  • 03 Feb 09
    • "F for fast," Nielsen wrote in a column. "That's how users read your precious content."
    • In the eye-tracking test, only one in six subjects read Web pages linearly, sentence by sentence. The rest jumped around chasing keywords, bullet points, visuals, and color and typeface variations.
    • 10 more annotations...
  • 04 Jan 09
    • In this study, he found that people took in hundreds of pages "in a pattern that's very different from what you learned in school."
    • A decade ago, he issued an "alert" entitled "How Users Read on the Web." It opened bluntly: "They don't."
    • 23 more annotations...
  • 08 Dec 08
    helaine
    Helaine .

    Slow reading counterbalances Web skimming

    By MARK BAUERLEIN

    When Jakob Nielsen, a Web researcher, tested 232 people for how they read pages on screens, a curious disposition emerged. Dubbed by The New York Times "the guru of Web page 'usability,'" Nielsen has gauged user habits and screen experiences for years, charting people's online navigations and aims, using eye-tracking tools to map how vision moves and rests. In this study, he found that people took in hundreds of pages "in a pattern that's very different from what you learned in school." It looks like a capital letter F. At the top, users read all the way across, but as they proceed their descent quickens and horizontal sight contracts, with a slowdown around the middle of the page. Near the bottom, eyes move almost vertically, the lower-right corner of the page largely ignored. It happens quickly, too. "F for fast," Nielsen wrote in a column. "That's how users read your precious content."

    The F-pattern isn't the only odd feature of online reading that Nielsen has uncovered in studies conducted through the consulting business Nielsen Norman Group (Donald A. Norman is a cognitive scientist who came from Apple; Nielsen was at Sun Microsystems). A decade ago, he issued an "alert" entitled "How Users Read on the Web." It opened bluntly: "They don't."

    In the eye-tracking test, only one in six subjects read Web pages linearly, sentence by sentence. The rest jumped around chasing keywords, bullet points, visuals, and color and typeface variations. In another experiment on how people read e-newsletters, informational e-mail messages, and news feeds, Nielsen exclaimed, "'Reading' is not even the right word." The subjects usually read only the first two words in headlines, and they ignored the introductory sections. They wanted the "nut" and nothing else. A 2003 Nielsen warning asserted that a PDF file strikes users as a "content blob," and they won't read it unless they print it out. A "booklike" page on screen, it seems, turns them off and sends them away. An

    education reading online onscreen comprehension learning research

  • 09 Nov 08
  • 22 Oct 08
  • 20 Oct 08
    abbypurdy
    Abby Purdy

    Slow reading counterbalances web skimming.

    Internet literacy reading computers

  • 11 Oct 08
    rubyrubyruby
    Ruben Van Havermaet

    The author is trying to point out that reading the quick paced information on the internet is pushing away our (youth's) ability to perform "slow reading". Some interesting points but i don't agree with his automatic assumption (for which no arguments are provided) that reading dense texts is superior to reading newer forms of representing information (hypertext).

    reading education usability literacy hci newmedia hypertext

    • "After seven years, there was literally no evidence it had any impact on student achievement — none."
      • Ruben Van Havermaet

        Ruben Van Havermaet on 2008-10-11

        maybe this also depends on how you measure student achievement. changing the tools with which you conceptualize the world is bound to change the meaning of what we regard as achievements.

    • That's the drift of screen reading. Yes, it's a kind of literacy, but it breaks down in the face of a dense argument, a Modernist poem, a long political tract, and other texts that require steady focus and linear attention — in a word, slow reading. Fast scanning doesn't foster flexible minds that can adapt to all kinds of texts, and it doesn't translate into academic reading.
      • Ruben Van Havermaet

        Ruben Van Havermaet on 2008-10-11

        Although i would also regret the decline of slow reading, i think this picture is not complete without making a distinction here between the different tools/media that generate "texts".

        Maybe these new tools (computers, internet, ...) are not the best media for the dense texts generated by the "older" media. There are ways of representing information that more easily allow for "fast-scanning" (mind-mapping sofware like compendium and freemind), in fact pushing the hypertext idea to the extreme.

        Because the internet today is imho still not using the original hypertext idea to its full potential (see Engelbart's "Augmenting Human Intellect). Basically, it's just old media (webPAGEs) linked together. See Lev Manovich for an interesting discussion on what we today call "new media" (The Language of New Media).

  • 07 Oct 08
  • 06 Oct 08
    msquareg
    Michael M Grant

    Article discusses how students read on the Web and how to combat the skimming.

    reading usability pattern Jakob Nielsen web pages jumptags

  • 02 Oct 08
    ryanbretag
    Ryan Bretag

    This is a great read with valid points often passed over in ed tech circles.

    literacy netgeneration articles

  • 30 Sep 08
  • suhail13
    suhail mirza

    YOUTH & TECHNOLOGY
    Online Literacy Is a Lesser Kind

    Slow reading counterbalances Web skimming

    reading literacy usability

  • kbowles
    Kate Bowles

    A strongly worded caution against the use of elearning in the liberal arts, based on research that examines the technical practice of reading on screen--is this a subset of reading/literacy, or a form of non-reading?

    web2.0 studentengagement

  • 29 Sep 08
    • I just don't believe the Web is optimal for delivering this experience.
      Instead, let's praise old narrative forms like books and sitting around a
      flickering campfire — or its modern-day counterpart, the PowerPoint
      projector," he says. "We should accept that the Web is too fast-paced for
      big-picture learning. No problem; we have other media, and each has its
      strengths. At the same time, the Web is perfect for narrow, just-in-time
      learning of information nuggets — so long as the learner already has the
      conceptual framework in place to make sense of the facts."
  • 28 Sep 08
    • Online Literacy Is a Lesser Kind



      Slow reading counterbalances Web skimming

    • At the top, users read all the way across, but as they proceed their descent quickens and horizontal sight contracts, with a slowdown around the middle of the page. Near the bottom, eyes move almost vertically, the lower-right corner of the page largely ignored.
    • In the eye-tracking test, only one in six subjects read Web pages linearly, sentence by sentence. The rest jumped around chasing keywords, bullet points, visuals, and color and typeface variations. In another experiment on how people read e-newsletters, informational e-mail messages, and news feeds, Nielsen exclaimed, "'Reading' is not even the right word." The subjects usually read only the first two words in headlines, and they ignored the introductory sections. They wanted the "nut" and nothing else.
  • 25 Sep 08
  • 23 Sep 08
  • mcmorgan
    M C Morgan

    Hard not to say ho hum once again. Over-generalizing, and assigning to e-reading the typical fare of too much skimming, etc. Agreed: Close reading of print is a good thing and absolutely necessary in lib ed. Now, can we move on? \\

    So let's restrain t

    literacy academic libed print

  • 22 Sep 08
    • National School Boards Association measures social networking at nine hours per week, much of it spent on homework help
    • I continue to believe in the linear, author-driven narrative for educational purposes. I just don't believe the Web is optimal for delivering this experience. Instead, let's praise old narrative forms like books and sitting around a flickering campfire
    • 1 more annotations...
  • 21 Sep 08
    willrich
    Will Richardson

    That's the drift of screen reading. Yes, it's a kind of literacy, but it breaks down in the face of a dense argument, a Modernist poem, a long political tract, and other texts that require steady focus and linear attention — in a word, slow reading. Fast

    connective_reading network_literacy

  • 20 Sep 08
  • adolf25
    adolfo arrieta

    On line literacy

    Literacy

  • jimbeau
    Jim Kleinhenz

    Reading on the Internet: do we do it? Prof. Bauerlein says no, but I did. One interesting idea: fast eyes. Are we training our eyes to do a certain type of looking/ reading? This may be the case--but if we can train our eyes for fast looking, surely we can train them for slower more contemplative reading. Certainly no case is made here one way or the other, and I go away unconvinced.

    reading

    • It looks like a capital letter F. At the top, users read all the way across, but as they proceed their descent quickens and horizontal sight contracts, with a slowdown around the middle of the page. Near the bottom, eyes move almost vertically, the lower-right corner of the page largely ignored. It happens quickly, too. "F for fast," Nielsen wrote in a column. "That's how users read your precious content."
    • In the eye-tracking test, only one in six subjects read Web pages linearly, sentence by sentence
    • 15 more annotations...
  • 18 Sep 08
    • Those and other trials by Nielsen amount to an important research project that helps explain one of the great disappointments of education in our time. I mean the huge investment schools have made in technology, and the meager returns such funds have earned. Ever since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, money has poured into public-school classrooms. At the same time, colleges have raced to out-technologize one another. But while enthusiasm swells, e-bills are passed, smart classrooms multiply, and students cheer — the results keep coming back negative.
  • 17 Sep 08