Platform Changes the Way we Read, Write, and Work

One of reading’s major innovations was the inclusion of footnotes, authors’ notes, and the like. E-readers have further innovated reading far beyond that, and some even allow you to highlight words, phrases, or passages and more, but a startup called Pagedip goes far beyond to innovate the reading experience more than ever before. In fact, its creators claim that it will fundamentally change the way people read, and it is not difficult to see why. Its software lets e-book authors, who can easily create and develop works from a simple user interface, add corresponding content into their books using links called Binks to dramatically enhance the reading experience. Essentially, Pagedip allows you to view anything for which you might desire to search the web while reading a book directly into the story itself, which can include historical bios, photos, maps, or anything else that might pique one’s interest while reading. Read more »

YouTube revolutionized the web when it popularized the idea of user-generated content powering a large social media site.  However, YouTube just supports one medium of user-generated content—video.  Wattpad is a cool product in technology that wants to do what YouTube did for user-created video, but for creative written works instead.  With Wattpad, people upload their stories for popular consumption on the website and mobile app.  Just as YouTube videos are free for the public, so are all works posted by Wattpad members.  Wattpad contains works from many different genres, ranging from crime drama to science fiction to creative nonfiction.  Users can read and react to any story on the site by leaving comments, ratings or marking stories as favorites.  Readers can read stories via the cloud or download the text for offline viewing on the Wattpad mobile application for tablets and smartphones.  Any users who have issues getting their chosen stories to download to their Wattpad library may need mobile tech support for their devices.  Wattpad also keeps track of how many people view a text and download it so writers can see the reach their work has on the service. Read more »

The standard phonetic method of teaching children to read, where kids learn the associated sounds with each letter individually before applying that knowledge to “sound out” the words they read on the page, can be a tedious and slow process for many children.  The makers of cool product WriteReader believe there is a better way to help children who are struggling with the phonetic method to learn to read.  WriteReader is an iPad app that engages kids in reading by teaching them to write simultaneously, intertwining the two learning processes more fluidly.  The developers based the app on research specifically done to find ways to decrease the time it takes for children to learn to read.  Researchers found great benefit in students learning to read and write concurrently.  This led the developers of WriteReader to take advantage of mobile and touch technology and create a tablet application that would give kids access to an alternative learning method.  If you have kids and want to download the application but struggle using your tablet, you should know that iPad support is always available.  Read more »