No description available.

This study is an evaluation of online annotated readers developed for first grade students enrolled in Chinese immersion. The electronic readers were created to provide additional input to immersion students, who had little time in class for Chinese character reinforcement. The students accessed online readers from their homes and took assessments before and after each reader to test for improved character comprehension. In addition, students were divided into treatment and control groups. The treatment group had annotated electronic readers with audio and games. Conversely, the control group did not have annotations but audio was included. Results demonstrate a significant difference between preliminary and post-assessments, suggesting that students comprehended more characters after reading. No significant differences were detected between the control (non-annotated) and treatment (annotated) groups. Additional data collected from parent surveys provide useful demographics about subjects' socio-cultural and language variables as well as highlight parental desires for more support and help-aides. Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) in relationship to young immersion students learning Chinese is also discussed. Results suggest that online annotated readers can be an important resource for students who have limited instructional time in the classroom and little opportunity to receive help at home.

This master dissertation "Czech Electronic Book Market -- Obstacles and Opportunities" analyzes Czech market with e-books. The aim is to provide a comprehensive overview of the current situation on the market in terms of technologies, distribution models and legal issues. It describes commercial, free and illegal sources in the market, including a description of digitisation projects in Czech libraries. The thesis also includes a theoretical introduction to e-books and their development in the past. Details are discussed, focusing on technology, modern electronic readers with electronic ink. For comparison, the thesis also analyzes the U.S. market with e-books. In analytical part the individual portals with e-books on the market, their supply and user interfaces are compared. The real example analyzes the costs of an e-book and its comparison to costs of a printed book. At the end of the thesis, alternative models of distribution requirements for establishment of a new portal with e-books are characterised, the Creative Commons licenses are described and the current trend of e-journals is mentioned. Finally, I suggest recommendations especially for sellers on the Czech market describe the advantages and disadvantages of e-books in terms of individual roles in the distribution model and estimate the future market development. More detailed information related to the comparison of different types of electronic ink, a list of electronic readers that are available on the Czech e-book market at this time and specific examples of various users' interfaces that are being used on Czech e-books portals can be found in Appendix.