Sometimes, folks just naturally pick up new material quickly after being exposed to only one mode of presentation of a given topic.
Some can read an essay on constitutional law, comprehend it, internalize understanding, and apply their knowledge to deal with new experiences.
But when it comes to developing ‘new’ ways of thinking – thinking that involves a process of problem solving, sometimes one mode of presentation isn’t enough.
Book-like content, even excellent content developed by skilled authors and publishers, often isn’t enough in terms of helping a student break through to new thinking patterns demanded by complex material, especially material related to science and engineering.
If a student is ‘stuck’ on something, the repeated reading of the same text over and over often results in the person only digging more deeply into a sense of frustration.
That is probably why we have schools in the first place. When combined with well designed content, lectures provide a human voice to the new processes that are to be mastered by students. Sometimes, a teacher’s words that emphasize terms a bit differently, a narrative paced in a way that encourages reflection, or verbal expressions that highlight a successful approach are enough to open that new pathway of understanding for the listener.
But not all students have access to the best professors or lecturers as they try to master (or refresh) skills in math or science.
That is why, at Electric Book, we have started experimenting with merging the best in published content (text, images) with the ability to search for video within the context of a book title in one, mobile-friendly interface.
A consumer of one of the company’s electric booklets can now search through the title using keywords, or search for videos using the same keywords, in the same application, with the option to limit the search to content most relevant to a title. The result is a single, mobile web-page, that allows a reader to quickly flip between the text narrative of a problem solution, and a video that discusses a similar topic.
(One can see this early approach be opening one of the titles at the electric booklet site and Search → Video.)
The combination of video and ‘book’ adds the value of human phraseology to the quality and detail of text and graphics – all in an effort to bring multiple modes of presentation in an effort to better serve students in distance learning environments.
This addition of a new mode of search is the first step towards the development of the company’s ‘study-suites’, spaces of curated content where colleges, universities, and companies, can combine focused videos.
At Electric Book, this is just the first step in refining the integration of high quality content published under the Creative Commons license with new ways to search for, and use different forms of media to master understanding of STEM topics.
Stay tuned for more to come!