I was researching the future of publishing in one of my other classes, and of course I came across e-books. What I was surprised to see was books that had an audio track, which is being perfected by an eye tracking system so that the music plays at the same speed that you read with sound effects. Other apps have interactive stories, either with pictures and commentaries like DVD extras, while others required the reader to interact for the story to move forward.
As a kid, I had a computer game called "Eagle Eye Mysteries," which was eerily similar to the concept of interactive books. You would follow a character, looking for clues that are written out on the screen in a story format and move around town trying to find the culprit. This game is really old, before they moved from just text on the screen to more visual stories like when I upgraded to Nancy Drew Mysteries computer game that had no text and was all audio/visual.
Eagle Eye Mysteries and Nancy Drew sound eerily like the type of interactive reading that is now being developed. This brings up the question, when will video games and reading intersect? Have they already? I wonder how long it will take people to realize they are just creating an interactive game, which is nothing new. I think the reason it seems so revolutionary is because we are approaching from another perspective, from reading to interactivity rather than from TV and video games to interactive video games where you are part of the story.
This worries me. Will literacy be in danger if people think interactive stories with movies and videos are synonymous with reading? One day will I ask my child "How was your book?" and they will look up from their tablet where they were just playing a game and they say "I'm reading it right now."
As a kid, I had a computer game called "Eagle Eye Mysteries," which was eerily similar to the concept of interactive books. You would follow a character, looking for clues that are written out on the screen in a story format and move around town trying to find the culprit. This game is really old, before they moved from just text on the screen to more visual stories like when I upgraded to Nancy Drew Mysteries computer game that had no text and was all audio/visual.
Eagle Eye Mysteries and Nancy Drew sound eerily like the type of interactive reading that is now being developed. This brings up the question, when will video games and reading intersect? Have they already? I wonder how long it will take people to realize they are just creating an interactive game, which is nothing new. I think the reason it seems so revolutionary is because we are approaching from another perspective, from reading to interactivity rather than from TV and video games to interactive video games where you are part of the story.
This worries me. Will literacy be in danger if people think interactive stories with movies and videos are synonymous with reading? One day will I ask my child "How was your book?" and they will look up from their tablet where they were just playing a game and they say "I'm reading it right now."
I agree. Things like books aren't meant to be "interactive" in the way people are trying to make them. If they are too interactive, they cease to be books and it ceases to be reading that the person is doing. While I don't have a problem with the existence of something like this, I do have a problem with the fact that it's being called "reading"--for one, because it's not, and two, because that might make people think it's okay to replace reading with it.
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