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Blackstone Audio’s presentation on audio books wasn’t of much personal interest to me, particularly since I’m hearing-impaired and only retain 60% or so of what I hear without captions or the ability to read a speaker’s lips.  I was initially intrigued by the idea of Blackstone Audio’s HD Reader (although I would never use it myself, because I’m a fast reader and would be bored by the reader’s slower talking speed), but it quickly lost its charm.  It brings to mind all the times in middle school we were forced to take turns reading out loud from textbooks as a class.  Those were some of the most excruciating hours of my life!  I don’t see the benefit of this sort of reader, other than for educational purposes, and as Samantha pointed out in an earlier blog post, that sort of technology would not be available to everyone–and especially not the people or schools that might need it most.

I remember my little sister having a toy called a Leap Pad, I think.  It was an interactive toy that would “read” books out loud when you clicked on parts of it.  Isn’t the HD Reader just imitating a learning device that already exists, albeit for an older audience?  The Leap Pad is limited to the books they provide for their product, but so too the HD Reader is limited to the books that have been recorded, although admittedly there are a lot more of them.

I apologize if my thoughts seem disorganized or obvious, but I was unimpressed by Blackstone’s reader, and I’m writing this to figure out why.  Where will the technology go?  Who will actually use it?  It seems a tad redundant to listen to the same thing you’re already reading.  The information is all there, why add extra?  For a super-duper all-inclusive learning bonanza?  I imagine the device would be useful for children struggling with reading, but here we are, back to whether those children will ever actually see this technology.  I find it difficult to believe people will use the reader, say, on the bus, when they could be simply reading instead.  There’s a purpose for an audio book–getting to “read” in a situation where you can’t actually read, but the audio/reader hybrid doesn’t exactly fill a need.  Let’s be honest.  How many of my fellow college students would actually sit down and slowly read your textbook with this thing?  Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m guessing not a whole lot.  On the other hand, it would be awesome to listen to your textbook while you’re driving to school, as a classmate pointed out during the presentation.  Audio books fill a need.  Book books fill a need.  Where does the HD reader fill in the gaps?

Eschewing the negativity, Blackstone Audio gave a great presentation, and I appreciate their innovation.  I hope their reader goes somewhere, and maybe someday even I will find a use for it.

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Woe to the sad commuter with so much to do and so little time.  Whether your commute is 20 minutes or over an hour, the time spent behind the wheel of a car can add up over the course of a week or two.  When deadlines haunt your dreams they can definitely haunt your commute.  For the student who has mass amounts of reading, Blackstone Audio has come up with the perfect solution.  

My only hang up about audio textbooks stemed from the obvious.  Textbooks are often, if not most of the time complete with graphs, charts, pictures, and the like and audio books are well, audio.  But Blackstone has come up with the perfect solution to this particular student’s commuting troubles, the audio textbook with accompanying ebook. 

Sit at home and study on a computer, nook, kindle, ipad, ipod, iphone, or android powered device and when it’s time to leave, plug in said device to your car sound system and let the book continue to read to you while on your way.  All of the illustrations will be there for you to examine when you aren’t keeping your eyes carefully on the road. 

The future is big for this kind of program.  The audio track can be sped up or slowed down and the words highlighted as it’s being read so you can follow along.  Retention is higher, and slow readers may find themselves being able to get through the text faster than before.  Elementary school teachers who have students with reading difficulties may find this program helpful.  

There are concerns.  I’m not entirely sure how many students have parents who are willing to purchase some sort of portable reading device or set their children up on a computer in the evening, so they can be read to.  Children may find it easier, while their parents aren’t looking, to simply be read to rather than following along.  And what about bedtime stories?  Will this beautiful bedtime ritual disappear?  I’m also not sure how many responsible commuters there are out there who will keep their eyes off their portable device and on the road, but for this commuter Blackstone Audio’s anticipated release of the program in July or August of this year cannot come soon enough.

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I’m rereading Chapter 5 of Elizabeth Eisenstein’s The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, the abridged (and illustrated) version of her classic two-volume study of the printing press. I’ve always been struck by the way in which printing–mass distribution—helped to foment revolutionary thought during the Reformation. Eisenstein calls it a “movement that was shaped at the very outset (and in large part ushered in) by the new powers of the press (page 148).” And she points out that between 1517 and 1520, Luther’s 30 publications sold more than 300,000 copies. More generally, making new ideas accessible pretty clearly promoted individual learning and individual critical thought.

But Eisenstein argues that the ability to create fixed and uniform copies of books was counter-revolutionary as well. Printing identical copies makes for authorized texts and authorized ideas, religious and otherwise. These authorized texts get preserved, canonized and studied. So making ideas fixed subverted individuality.

What’s striking about the tension that Eisenstein documents is the likelihood that it has been repeated by other media technologies (newspapers, radio, movies, television) and is being repeated now by the internet and social media tools. Big new ideas spread quickly. But do they soon settle down to conventional wisdom? Are search and social media both creating revolution (think North Africa and Wikileaks) and conformity (think groupthink, repurposed content, and unsearchable ideas)?

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Blackstone Audio’s business philosophy raises a major concern with me, not just about their company but about similar businesses. There is a large range of people in the United States from those who have the most modern technologies and those who not only have little or no computer based technology but are also barely educated and barely literate. Most people in the publishing market struggle to understand that those who are in the front seat of e-publishing and digital technologies are a minority in the United States. E-publishing is in an anachronistic space where we’re attempting to perfect digital literature (i.e. hdread.com) when only a small portion of Americans have the capability to access and own those technologies.

Class rooms are the perfect example, every child should have a tablet PC, which is in the $300-$800 range, and be taught how to use it, but it isn’t a realistic demand in any sense. Some publishing companies, like Blackstone, must be assuming that changing the market to all digital will force parents and consumers to make the investment to have the right technology, but it will take many generations to isolate the distribution of the written word to the cloud. I don’t disagree with companies for wanting to be at the peak of digital publishing capabilities, I’m disappointed as an educator that there is so little support of most companies in taking action to bridge the gap between the barely literature population, a good portion who do not even own desktop PC’s, and the technology that is threatening to make literature and published works even less accessible.