Technology developments

Some developments in digital technology...

I received an interesting email a while back from a friend who is living in Shanghai. He is a real foodie and eats out a lot. He emailed me about a menu that was displayed on an i pad. You selected your food items and then could use the i pad to play games while you waited for your food to arrive. He thought this was really great. I then googled to find more about this and found the following utube clip
ipad use 

It brings me back to our discussions on using digital technologies and literacy . I can see advantages for customers and staff on using the ipad in cafes etc but there are also disadvantages. One disadvantage is that the ipad reduces the need for one on one communication with a person- rather like online learning!!  You can see this reflected in the photo below. 

 Which leads on to this quote.....

However the advantages are also numerous. One advantage comes from  listening to National radio last week where there was an interesting discussion around the e-reader and how  they are helping adult readers increase their literacy because of the inbuilt dictionaries, more adult type material (compared to hard cover books at beginner level) and the ability to increase the font size.  The new dyslexia free font is also a breakthrough for helping literacy for this group of people. 

Someone in the paper might find it interesting to study either ipads or e-readers in their Assessment 3 indepth study of a form of social media.