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postprintproject

The post print project is thinking about how mobile devices and networked media "could redefine how we do a couple of very basic things: how we tell stories and how we learn."
(postprintproject.com)

I'm fascinated with this.

I believe story telling is bound to the way our brains evolved and isn't really going to change much no matter what technology does. The networked and mobile space we inhabit could change how we learn and use information. I think it already has. I've been reading Jane Austen's novels as Gutenberg etexts on the iphone. The iphone is passable as a reader. I've not got eyestrain yet. I find it hasn't done anything new, but it has restored reading as a regular activity for me. I hate reading at the computer. I'm too lazy to go to the library (I'd have to drive across town to the central library where all the really good books are). Its just too easy to pick up the iphone, download a new book and start reading. That is different. I am unwilling to do this on the desktop computer.

I think the uniqueness will come from how mobile network devices let us assemble small bits of information together, get timely information, communicate with friends easily, or keep to ourselves in a private moments of reading or listening to music. It might influence learning by enabling people to draw together different sources right in the palm of their hand while they are experiencing something, which is often important for learning.

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