The project recognizes that the learning environment, its capacity, tools and content representation, is undergoing a major change. This change will call for "new literacy" skills and capabilities and it has already begun. It is important to identify those characteristics of this “new literacy” that give each of the written word, the visual image and sound representation their appropriate place, and to develop environments and tools that will assist in transmitting knowledge among and between learners and teachers. The TELTEXT project aims at developing the ultimate diverse and interactive environment for adaptive teaching and learning of texts.

The internet has brought about a revolution in everything connected with textual content. The possibilities for retrieving, searching, linking, writing, displaying and distributing texts have opened new horizons, and redefined the boundaries of the concept “text.” This revolution is a further link in a continuous chain of revolutions: the transition from writing on parchment and papyrus to writing on paper, the move from scrolls to bound volumes, the introduction of movable type printing, and so on.
One of the fascinating features of the internet revolution is the fact that the book – both as a physical format that can be displayed and browsed, and as a means of defining a unit of content – has not disappeared from the world of the internet. Indeed, many developments have attempted to copy the format of the book into digital media, without losing its fundamental characteristics. Two significant developments in this area are the electronic books being produced by Sony, Amazon and others, and the massive scanning projects that have made complete works, in scanned format, available on the internet.
It seems that this phenomenon, of adhering closely to the book as a unit of content, stems not only from conservatism and habit, but also from a sense that there is something “right” about this format, both from a content and from a functional point of view, which makes it worthy of preservation, even within the new literacy tools. Over the past four years there has been significant progress in the area of books on the internet; millions of volumes have been, and are being, digitized, by some of the major players in the internet arena. Although this enormous volume of material is now available on the web, it still seems like a foreign implant. Why? Because these enormous scanning projects are uploading the books to the web in the same format in which they appear in the real world. These “books” don’t speak the language of the internet, or exploit the abilities of this medium. The real challenge that we face, in light of this phenomenon, is to turn digital books into a rich, interactive environment that would encourage technology enhanced learning.

The present project proposal is based on the knowledge and experience that CET (the Center for Educational Technology) has accrued in this field: the development of working environments that can assimilate complete books, and offer a range of technological and social tools that will help users obtain the maximum from those books, while making optimal use of what the internet medium can offer.
It is vital to understand how learners and teachers will behave in such an environment; how will they chose to design and present their content and learning materials? how will they interact with the materials or with other learners or teachers? How is this behavior going to be affected by texts of different genres, by various groups of learners or teachers who differ in age, culture, gender, language etc'.
The challenge, in a project of this nature, is not only technological – it is no less educational, cultural and sociological. As such, it seems appropriate that it be implemented by organizations from disparate cultural worlds, who share a vision of together creating the next link in the long chain of developments in the world of text, from prehistoric man’s scratchings on the walls of his cave, to the instant messaging systems of today.

The expected impact of this project are:

1. Figuring out how the next generation future digital interactive rich-media text book environment should be designed
2. Understanding end-users' needs and behavior and characterizing them 
3. Designing, developing and/or optimizing tools for this teaching and learning environment
4. Developing pedagogical methodologies for characterized groups of learners

Experts from the academia who are studying similar environments

Experts in OCR technologies, development of technology enhanced learning tools

Characterization and design of TELTEXT environment

Development of TELTEXT environment and tools

Using and working/learing with the environment

Research usability by the various users

Dissemination of project results

Research Institutions and Universities to carry out the research part

Academia end users as a test-bed to use the TELTEXT environment for higher education learning needs

Industrial end users as a test bed to use the TELTEXT envrionment for on the job training

Industrial hi-tech companiels specializing in OCR etc'