Emerging media and the evolving conceptions of text based electronic readers for teaching and learning

Researcher: Jon Clausen, Educational Technology
Story by: Chanel Richards, undergraduate student in Public Relations and Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology; and Senior Writer, University Marketing and Communications

[vid url="http://emergingmediainitiative.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/clausen.flv&rel=0" class="alignleft"]From classics on their nightstand to textbooks in the classroom, the Amazon Kindle has become an integral teaching tool this semester for a group of Ball State University education majors.

Twelve students in Jon Clausen’s “Studies in Educational Technology” Class are using the Kindle DX as part of a course focused on learning and teaching with emerging technologies. An assistant professor of secondary education/educational technology, Clausen said the course is one of the first of its kind to incorporate this type of emerging media into a curriculum for education majors.

“We’re having discussions about the future and whether technology that’s so new today, like the Kindle, will be a fixture in classrooms to come,” Clausen said. “You already see people using these technologies on their own, to support their own learning, but we want to discover how best to incorporate them into a more formal setting.”

Funding for the Kindles was provided by a grant from Ball State’s Emerging Media Initiative, a planned $17.7 million investment to accelerate benefits to the state of Indiana with media savvy human capital.