Virtual Paper

Shortly after I started this semester's course work, I realised that if I were to print or copy every article I was expected to read, a small forrest would be doomed, and I would quickly run out of storage space. Sooooo...

I have to read on screen, like many others this is not my natural state of affairs.  Over the past few years I have gotten much better at editing on screen, but too frequently my instinct is to press the print button.

So I pimped my school bag, invested in an iPad, downloaded iannotate and bought a stylus.  And it is brilliant. At least so far I think it is.

BUT, I am not actually doing that thing where you are supposed to make a note of the article you just read, so that you have a short record on everything.  I like to think I am warming up to that particular practice.

So far I think the advantages are:

  1. Always have a whole pile of reading with you (so that you can carry it around and not read it), but it weighs nearly nothing.
  2. Annotations in the margin which you can print and record seperately and also navigate the document with.
  3. Dropbox.
  4. Lots of people ask you how you find it, and you get to show off the nifty apps you found!
  5. Reading off the screen is surprisingly fine.
Disadvantages:
  1. Sometimes, though not always, the page does not fit perfectly on the screen and you have to scroll around a bit.
  2. Iannotate has some very minor glitches, hopefully they will resolve these in time.
  3. My shiny new iPad broke, and I had to get a replacement.
  4. Kids like iPads, and generally they have sticky fingers.
  5. Bit awkward to read with direct sunlight on the screen, but in Ireland this is not a major problem.
  6. oh ok... even though I got an 'old' reduced price ipad, it still cost 400euro, mind you don't think it would take very long to spend that on copying and ink cartridges.
I think I am getting better at reading and thinking in this way.  Still wondering if I am absorbing as much though, but I do think that's training more than anything else.  Overall I would overwhelmingly recommend hoping on 'the cloud'.

Mind you so far I have only written relatively short assignments with a few references, wonder how I will find it, when I can't lie bundles of printed articles all over the living room floor...