The Future of the Book: Sixth Graders

Towards the end of the year — as part of my digital book project — I had my sixth grade students take a final survey and one of my questions: What do you think books will look like in the future?

Here are some of their answers:

  • I think books in the future will have people popping out of the pages and talking like a mini-play. In the future, you will not even have to read the books, just listen to them.
  • I think they will be little squares that will be digital and project visual images
  • Books will be holographic.
  • Books will be high-tech and cool, and a printed out copy will have special effects.
  • I think books will still be on paper but they will have videos and sounds in them. They will be more high-tech. They will have clear, beautiful pictures and videos of what is actually happening at that moment. And they will have the feelings that people have (example: If the book says, she felt the cold wind on her face, then a chilly wind would come out of the book).
  • In the future, you will read books from the computer. I think this because it would save paper and would add cool effects to the stories to make you want to read them.
  • I think that in the future, there will still be paper but many books will be digital. I think that the digital book will be very interactive and voice-activated, with movie clips, sound effects, movement and even hyperlinks to different endings.
  • In the future, I think books will become automatic. They will have a special speaker inside that will tell you the story.

What strikes me is that so many of these comments suggest a passive reader, and I would hope that a push towards technology integration would allow the reader a larger role into the storytelling (for example: rearrange the story, or add a character, or find a way to alter the shape of the story arc).

Peace (in pages of the book),
Kevin

3 Comments
  1. I enjoyed reading the ideas form your class about what books will look like. Last year I visited HIT Lab at the University of Canterbury where one of the research projects includes the creation of 3D books including animation and audio effects. Have a look at this link

    http://www.hitlabnz.org/route.php?r=movie-list

    and view the black magic book. This will give you an idea about some of the things currently being worked on. Truly astounding. They haven’t managed to have the cold wind on your face yet but hey! If you can dream it!!!

  2. Hi
    If you go under the My Classroom category, there are some posts about the digital book project;including this onehttp://dogtrax.edublogs.org/2007/05/28/science-picture-books/. There are links to some samples, etc.
    And thanks, Paul, for the link — I will definitely check it out.
    Kevin

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