Nintendo DS in Education: Harper Collins 100 Classic Book Collection

Over the holidays I’ve be reading The Three Musketeers. I’ve seen various adaptations of the text into TV and Film (including the famous Dogtanian!) but I have never read the book. In fact, I never may actually read the book in its traditional sense.

You see, I’ve been reading the ebook of the text on my Nintendo DS. I got a copy of the 100 Classic Book Collection when it was released on Boxing Day and I have to say that I have been very impressed.

You hold the DS like a book, pick your title from the library of 100 books and touch the screen to turn the pages. If you have not heard of the book before you can read a brief description or find out about the author. The software also allows you to search for books depending on what mood you are in and will give you recommendations on what to read. It has a nice bookmark function so you don’t loose your place. You can select small or large size print to aid accessibility and despite the screen size being small I found the DS a pretty good eBook reader.

The software currently costs around £15 (current Amazon price) and contains exactly what it says on the packet, ‘100 Classic Books’. The complete list of books is here.

Now if you think about it, I think, this is a bit of a bargain. Let’s take the 22 Shakespeare titles included on the 100 Classic Book Collection cartridge. They are:

1. Well That Ends Well
2. Antony and Cleopatra
3. As You Like It
4. The Comedy of Errors
5. Hamlet
6. Julius Caesar
7. King Henry the Fifth
8. King Lear
9. King Richard the Third
10. Love's Labour's Lost
11. Macbeth
12. The Merchant of Venice
13. A Midsummer-Night's Dream
14. Much Ado About Nothing
15. Othello, the Moor of Venice
16. Romeo and Juliet
17. The Taming of the Shrew
18. The Tempest
19. Timon of Athens
    
20. Titus Andronicus
21. Twelfth Night
22. The Winter's Tale

Individually, as paperbacks the cheapest versions of these books would probably cost you between £3-5. So at the cheapest price (£3) the 100 Classic Book Collection gives you £66 worth of Shakespere for £15 and you also have another 78 classic titles to read. So, I guess what I’m saying is as soon as you start to look at the cost of software like the 100 Classic Book Collection and a class set of Nintendo DS’s, the idea starts to become quite affordable.

I think where the idea becomes really affordable is when schools start to consider putting some of the 100 Classic Book Collection Software into school libraries.

Students could book out the software in the same way that they lone a library books. Imagine, if you told your school librarian that they could have 100 books for only £15 of their budget? This idea becomes particularly powerful when you consider that the DS is now the biggest selling consol of all time in the UK and that there are over 7 million of these little devices drifting around in the UK and mainly in the hands of children.

But will the Classic Book Collection sell and be popular? I think it will at the time of writing it’s temporally out of stock on Amazon and it’s also (at the time of writing) Play.com’s most popular DS Title. I wonder how long it will be before we start to see more software like this available in a similar format for devices like the PSP and Smartphones. Both the PSP and Smartphone already have a number of eBook titles available for them – but nothing quite like this.

How could the Classic Book collection be improved and be developed? I think there are a few improvements and optional changes that could improve the product – although it would probably increase the price?

Quick improvements could include:

• The ability to change the colour of the text.
• A touch screen glossary for difficult words
• Increased titles to download

Longer term development could include:

• More pictures or the option to read the book with or without pictures (particularly if there is a children’s book version or if the product wants to start challenging reluctant readers)
• Links with audio (audio ebook)

Anyway, time to get back to the Three Musketeers!

Comments

[Drew Buddie]

Great post but my experience has shown that certainly the librarians that I know are LOATHED to think of reading books by ANY electronic means. The librarians I know covet the holding of a paper tome in one's hands as one reads it. Therefore much as I will try to follow your advice in the use of DS's in this way I know I'll get short shrift when I try to do so.

[Alan Parkinson]

I prefer Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds myself... ;)

[Ollie Bray]

That is the exact culture we have to try and change Drew. I had a similar response when I tried to introduce Graphic Novels into the school early last year. Six months later and they are now an accepted source of literature. Why?... because as soon as they were in the library the children started useing them!

I really think we need to re-think what a modern day school library should look, feel and be like. Resources should no longer just be books and encouraging children to read should no longer be achieved by just getting them to read books.

Keep persevering Drew!

[Barney]

Great post matey, really interesting idea. How are you finding reading for a decent length of time on screen?

I like the idea of the Amazon Kindle in theory but not sure I'd take to it. Being infront of a screen most of the day and then sitting down in the evening to stare at another screen puts me off a bit.

[Iain T]

Although not in quite such a convenient format, there are thousands of such works (including what I think is all of Shakespeare's output) available for free from Project Gutenburg - http://www.gutenberg.org - they basically host ebooks of copyright-expired works.

[Literacyadviser]

Interesting post Ollie. Quite agree with your point about the need to look at how limited resources in schools are distributed and I'm sure the use of the Nintendo DS has the potential to engage some young people who would otherwise reject books and reading as something which is not for them. A concern I would have is not about the technology but about what constitutes a "classic" text and who decides.

[HarBar]

Hey, I really am interested in this game, but for some reason Nintendo is not selling it in the US. You should sell some of these on eBay; I would buy one and would be willing to pay about $40 plus shipping.