Yesterday I started an evaluation of my Electronic Story Boards. Its been over a year and a half that I first put them together and since then I’ve looked at them occasionally; referred to them when I needed some specific information; and even forgotten that some information I knew I had was actually on one of them. However, I haven’t yet made a methodical assessment of how interesting, useful or effective they are. I’m going to try and do that by looking at a different story board every day starting with No 1 and working my way through to the final one – No 35.

No 1 is the Levinson book on Pragmatics, and it’s story board effectively summarises my involvement in the Cosmos project. After looking at it, two words immediately came to mind – Rich, and Personal. That one single page is rich in content – every element bringing back powerful memories; and Personal – because all the content is to do with me.

Later on yesterday, I took a look at the electronic version on the iPad. It was simple to find – all 35 story boards are represented as thumbnails on a single Sidebooks screen on the iPad. Selecting the Pragmatics Story Board brought up a full screen image that looked exactly like the laminated version I’d been looking at on the side of my bookcase. It was just as rich and personal, and it also enabled me to click the arrows and bring up further pages of related material. But, interestingly, those further pages didn’t add a great deal to the experience. The sense of wonder and powerful feelings that I felt, were generated by the material on the main story board: the additional material didn’t really augment them. However, I thought, those supporting pages would certainly be useful if you were specifically looking for detailed information.

That was my initial experience in this 35 day evaluation. I’ll make notes as I go, and summarise my conclusions in 5 or 6 week’s time.