eBook educator

Interactive learning takes root in Norwich - Norwich, CT - Norwich Bulletin

2010-12-19T05:46:00.000-08:00

Interactive learning takes root in Norwich - Norwich, CT - Norwich Bulletin: "The Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut presented a $10,000 grant to Kelly Middle School at the Board of Education meeting earlier this week. They money will be used to purchase three laptops and 12 iPads."

Interactive learning takes root in Norwich - Norwich, CT - Norwich Bulletin

2010-12-19T05:44:00.000-08:00

Interactive learning takes root in Norwich - Norwich, CT - Norwich Bulletin: "Sixth-graders in Jamie Bender’s science classes at Teachers’ Memorial started using iPads and laptops as enhancements to textbooks late last month, thanks to a $140,000, 21st Century Learning Grant for interactive technology."

Google eBooks Paves The Way For Ad-Supported Publishing | Forrester Blogs

2010-12-10T05:37:00.000-08:00

Google eBooks Paves The Way For Ad-Supported Publishing | Forrester Blogs: "But the ultimate effect of Google eBooks, if Google knows what's good for it, will be the creation of an ad-supported publishing model. This is where the anger starts. Because I'm putting words in Google's mouth -- words they may or may not be thinking but certainly words they don't want to say out loud -- but mostly because I'm proposing something that is so counter to the philosophy and mindset of the publishing industry that I may be shunned for even suggesting it."

Google eBooks: The good, the bad, and the ugly | ZDNet

2010-12-07T05:21:00.000-08:00

Google eBooks: The good, the bad, and the ugly | ZDNet: "My fingers, however, are doubly crossed (it’s making it hard to type, but it’s important) that Google eBooks will be integrated sooner than later with Google Apps, such that corporate or school libraries can make use of purchased works from within Apps. If anyone can sort out the DRM of shared book collections in a school and make them accessible from a collaboration platform, it’s Google."

Students' use of Kindles increases reading, brings fame to Chambersburg Area School District libraries - Chambersburg Public Opinion

2010-11-15T05:18:00.000-08:00

Students' use of Kindles increases reading, brings fame to Chambersburg Area School District libraries - Chambersburg Public Opinion: "Chambersburg Area School District library leaders Joanne Hammond and Susan Berrier discussed E-readers, in this case Kindles, during a presentation to the school board Wednesday. The electronic devices were purchased as a way to interest students in reading books and provide them technology to work with. The school has 30 Kindles and a cart to charge and store them in.

The devices have increased the number of minutes students have spent reading and also the number of books that have been read.

Now the library is receiving national recognition."

More News on E-Readers - Digital Education - Education Week

2010-10-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

More News on E-Readers - Digital Education - Education Week: "A report released by Scholastic today found that although a third of 9- to 17-year-olds said an e-reader would encourage them to read more books, only 16 percent of parents plan to purchase one in the next year."

Google Android showdown: Battle of the eReader Apps | ZDNet

2010-10-17T08:25:00.000-07:00

Google Android showdown: Battle of the eReader Apps | ZDNet: "there is no functionality to read public domain books or other titles you add manually."

New Study on Reading in the Digital Age: Parents Say Electronic, Digital Devices Negatively Affects Kids' Reading Time | Scholastic Media Room

2010-09-29T12:14:00.000-07:00

New Study on Reading in the Digital Age: Parents Say Electronic, Digital Devices Negatively Affects Kids' Reading Time | Scholastic Media Room: "The report found that the power of choice is a key factor in raising a reader. Nine out of ten children say that they are more likely to finish book they choose themselves. And parents don’t try to overly influence that choice toward award winners or classic literature. Nine out of 10 parents say 'As long as my child is reading, I just want my child to read books he/she likes.'"

Kindle | Clearwater High School Students Trade Textbooks For Kindles | Which Kindle

2010-09-20T04:20:00.000-07:00

Kindle | Clearwater High School Students Trade Textbooks For Kindles | Which Kindle: "“I can have them write reports without having to go to library and research. They can do it in my classroom,” says Mary Koning, English teacher at Clearwater High School. Mary says the Kindles offers a teacher the tool to speak a language students understand today. Mary says, “These kids have grown up with cell phones and computers. I’m a bit older than them and I didn’t grow up with all that. I think it will help them be more interested and engaged in what they are learning and want to read.”"

Will the Kindle Change Education? | Scholastic.com

2010-09-19T05:03:00.000-07:00

Will the Kindle Change Education? | Scholastic.com: "Kindles stocked with well-chosen e-books would also allow teachers to flex new teaching strategies, according to Cornelia Brunner, the deputy director at the Center for Children and Technology in New York City. “You could have a very nicely selected group of readings. . . . Kids could read, annotate, and actually clip and be asked to make connections among those clippings,” says Brunner."

Surplus to Requirement | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

2010-09-09T05:55:00.000-07:00

Surplus to Requirement | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home: "When it comes to teaching children then yes, we absolutely need to indoctrinate every last one of them into the specific skill of absorbing large swathes of written information, not because it’s essential or somehow noble, but because any one of them might go on to lead a life where they will need it. Early pedagogy is about providing the fullest range of likely options for valuable later use that we can muster."

MLive.com : West Michigan schools catch up to 'digital kids' with new technology

2010-09-08T04:03:00.000-07:00

MLive.com : West Michigan schools catch up to 'digital kids' with new technology: "Blended learning will grow rapidly in K-12, as it has at the college level. Two area districts, Coopersville and Grandville, just added staff to increase online offerings. Kentwood has two full-time and one part-time educational technologists consulting teachers how to integrate it, Superintendent Scott Palczewski said. Districts like Caledonia and Hopkins paid for new technologies through recent bond campaigns, and buy inexpensive netbooks for about $300 each. Other districts, including Grand Rapids Public Schools, used federal stimulus funds for new technologies. Some administrators also see blended instruction as a way to cut costs long term.

Even so, technology evolves so fast that it's continual challenge for resource-strapped Michigan school districts to stay current, said Dan Takens, superintendent at Byron Center. The district's student-to-computer ratio is almost 2-to-1, but most of the technology is six years old.

Rockford Public Schools will debut six new Smart classrooms this fall -- two at each level -- with state-of-the-art hardware, software and furnishings. These 'classrooms of the future' are sponsored by Steelcase, Microsoft and Custer Furniture, who will use them to gather data on how the new bells and whistles affects student achievement."

ACLS Humanities E-Book: White Paper No. 3

2010-09-01T06:39:00.000-07:00

ACLS Humanities E-Book: White Paper No. 3: "HEB's initial findings in this study indicate that titles formatted for existing handheld devices are not yet adequate for scholarly use in terms of replicating either the benefits of online collections—cross-searchability, archiving, multifarious interactive components—nor certain aspects of print editions that users reported missing, such as being able to mark up and rapidly skim text. A turnaround is underway once a common and more robust format optimized for handheld readers is determined and devices themselves evolve, adding improved display options and better and more intuitive web-access, searching and other interactive use of content."

ACLS Humanities E-Book: White Paper No. 3

2010-09-01T06:38:00.000-07:00

ACLS Humanities E-Book: White Paper No. 3: "About 88% of our 142 survey participants expressed overall satisfaction with the appearance and functionality of the three remaining handheld samples, although roughly half reported some level of frustration with the search function using either format, and only 26% felt they would have an easy time citing and referencing these editions. Satisfaction with other interactive features, such as adding notes, bookmarking and highlighting, was noticeably higher; however, the “n/a” option was also selected frequently for these categories, and it appears that a large number of participants were unable to perform the tasks in question due to confusing or insufficient instructions from the device manufacturer. As formats evolve, future satisfaction with these features may increase. Irrespective of specific limitations, 75% of participants were interested in potentially downloading additional similar titles for free or if priced below $10."

ACLS Humanities E-Book: White Paper No. 3

2010-09-01T06:37:00.000-07:00

ACLS Humanities E-Book: White Paper No. 3: "During its in-house assessment phase, HEB experienced some navigational difficulty with both formats and found that annotation and other interaction with the text was difficult using a number of popular e-readers. (Specifically, the sample titles were tested by HEB on the Sony Reader PRS-700, Amazon's Kindle 2 and the Stanza application on the Apple iPhone.)"

Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog: "iBookstore vs Kindle Bookstore" & "Which Device Wins?"

2010-08-30T10:39:00.000-07:00

Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog: "iBookstore vs Kindle Bookstore" & "Which Device Wins?": "So although the iBooks app is nice, I refuse to paint myself into a corner and be limited to a single platform. Gee, that sounds like what I used to say about the Kindle platform, which leads me to the second question... I'm lumping all dedicated e-readers (e.g., Kindle) as well as multi-purpose devices (e.g., iPad) into my thinking. Sure, eInk is great in the sun, but as I like to say, if it's a sunny day I'd rather be doing something other than sitting around reading! With that in mind, my answer to the 'which device wins' question is...Android."

The view from Down Under: why China’s knockoff devices will drive ebooks | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

2010-08-27T07:09:00.000-07:00

The view from Down Under: why China’s knockoff devices will drive ebooks | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home: "So is a flood of cheap devices of all creeds and colours good for ebooks? A resounding yes. Certainly in Australia, at this stage of ebooks adoption, I’d say that quantity trumps quality when it comes to both ebooks and ereaders. Those in the US and Europe (in patches) are still in the same boat, although their ebooks markets are more advanced, and I think are past their tipping point."

Pattern Recognition » Blog Archive » eBooks, filetype, and DRM

2010-08-26T07:15:00.000-07:00

Pattern Recognition » Blog Archive » eBooks, filetype, and DRM: "There are two different things going on when someone tries to open an eBook file on an eReader. One is filetype…how the file itself is organized internally, how the information contained within is encoded. This is analogous to the difference between a Word file saved as a .doc file, a Word file saved as a .docx file, and an Powerpoint file (.ppt). All are different filetypes…the program involved in the creation, editing, and display of those files describes the information contained inside. Right now, there are two main filetypes being used to describe eBook files: the Amazon eBook standard, or .amz file, and the ePub file (.epub) that is used by just about every other eBook vendor."

Politics K-12 - Education Week

2010-08-24T11:24:00.000-07:00

Politics K-12 - Education Week: "The results are in, and the list of Race to the Top winners in Round Two includes an eclectic mix of 10 states that had put together very different kinds of applications in their funding bids for the $3.4 billion in remaining federal funds. The winners in this second and final round announced by the U.S. Department of Education today: the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island. They join first-round winners Delaware and Tennessee."

Textbooks slip as learning tools | tennessean.com | The Tennessean

2010-08-22T16:48:00.000-07:00

Textbooks slip as learning tools | tennessean.com | The Tennessean: "But Gary Cowan, Metro's director of instruction for middle schools, said the culture of teaching is changing as educators learn to share ideas and open themselves to new techniques. 'At one time textbooks drove the curriculum. Students were very dependent on them and did most of their work from textbooks. That's no longer true,' he said. 'Now that we have state standards that is the curriculum, and the textbook becomes a resource.'"

Textbooks slip as learning tools | tennessean.com | The Tennessean

2010-08-22T16:47:00.000-07:00

Textbooks slip as learning tools | tennessean.com | The Tennessean: "The industry is big business. This year Metro schools alone will spend $5.7 million buying and repairing books for students. Publishing companies are making efforts to offer more materials electronically, but some teachers and experts say they're slow to evolve into a new platform." Nashville.

Dance Review: Irons, Santos create a Latin dance party | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

2010-08-22T04:41:00.000-07:00

Dance Review: Irons, Santos create a Latin dance party | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram: "Just watching Irons was a lesson in classical jazz technique, especially in her slow-motion sequences. In bends, she seemed to find extra vertebrae, progressing from one to another in incredibly smooth transitions. Her shoulder rolls and isolations were similarly impressive and expressive. In addition to Irons and Santos, dancers included Chloe Bergman-Ray, Sasha Campbell, Emily Delamater, Erin Hamlin, Kim Hamlin and Karianna Merrill, performing in an array of multicolored costumes, designed by Kim Hamlin."

Audiobooks on the Kindle

2010-08-20T06:29:00.000-07:00

Kathy Schrock's Kaffeeklatsch: Amazon Kindle 2 Thoughts: "I chose a title, Bill Bryson's 'In a Sunburned Country', to use for determining the answer to this question. Bryson's print book is 352 pages in length. Audible's format-2 of his book is 46mb in file size, format-3 is 86mb, and format 4 is 172mb. That seems to indicate that, on the Kindle's 2GB storage drive, you could have forty-five format-2 Audible recordings, twenty-four format-3 recordings, or twelve format-4 recordings. (And of course, various numbers of the combination of the formats.)"

Personal Technology: Digital books are changing our reading patterns | The Jakarta Post

2010-08-18T13:20:00.000-07:00

Personal Technology: Digital books are changing our reading patterns | The Jakarta Post: "A few weeks ago, I wrote about the emergence of the digital book, and how, basically, we should get over our love affair with its physical ancestor"

Blog U.: Digital Tweed - Inside Higher Ed

2010-08-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

Blog U.: Digital Tweed - Inside Higher Ed: "eBooks/eTexts will remain one of those wished for/ever-arriving technologies. Last fall, more than three-fourths (76.3 percent) of the CIOs and senior campus IT officers participating in the annual Campus Computing Survey agreed that “eBook content will be an important source for instructional resources in the next five years.” Two-thirds (66.0 percent) also agreed that “eBook readers (hardware) will be important platforms for instructional content in five years.”"

Doubts About Digital - Brainstorm - The Chronicle of Higher Education

2010-08-12T17:17:00.000-07:00

Doubts About Digital - Brainstorm - The Chronicle of Higher Education: "Here’s an important story in the New York Times about the academic benefits of digital tools, with the headline “Computers at Home: Educational Hope vs. Teenage Reality.” And here is a story in Science Daily with a similar theme under the title “College Undergrads Study Ineffectively on Computers, Study Finds: Students Transfer Bad Study Habits from Paper to Screen.”"

iPad on Academic Probation

2010-08-12T04:25:00.000-07:00

iPad on Academic Probation: "At the Illinois Institute of Technology, all incoming freshman will be provided an iPad pre-loaded with all the texts and software required for first year classes. 'We can ensure everyone has the same hardware an software, and it makes it easier to integrate into the curriculum,' Evan Venie the associate director of media relations at IIT told wired.com."

iPad on Academic Probation

2010-08-12T04:24:00.000-07:00

iPad on Academic Probation: "Oklahoma State University announced earlier in the year that this fall students in the School of Media and Strategic Communications and the Spears School of Business would receive iPads as part of the required material for those disciplines. Students will use the devices as personal study tools, as well as to research ways they may be more effectively implemented in the workforce. 'This limited pilot will be focused on the fields of study where we believe we can best determine the higher education value of the iPad,' explained Bill Handy of the School of Strategic Communications."

iPad on Academic Probation

2010-08-12T04:21:00.000-07:00

iPad on Academic Probation: "According to one high school administrator quoted in a recent Business Week article on the topic, to achieve an acceptable return on investment (ROI), half of the textbooks used in any school would have to be available in e-book format before the iPad or other such readers will make good economic sense for schools that already pinch pennies just to provide the basics to their students."

iPad on Academic Probation

2010-08-12T04:11:00.000-07:00

iPad on Academic Probation: "Ryan Lawson, the director of technology at Brother Rice High School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, purchased 700 iPads, one for every student at the all-boys Catholic school. While the boys were understandably excited by the new technology's place in the curriculum, Mr. Lawson fears that the lack of remote monitoring makes the iPad vulnerable to misuse by young people and thus more of a burden than a blessing in the quest for academic excellence."

Palo Alto Online : Stanford School of Medicine turns to iPads

2010-08-07T04:22:00.000-07:00

Palo Alto Online : Stanford School of Medicine turns to iPads: "Incoming medical students at the University of California, Irvine are set to receive fully loaded iPads at a ceremony Friday for new students. But iPads aren't just being embraced by medical school staff. A pilot program at Oklahoma State University will provide students in certain communications and business courses with the devices, and all 550 incoming freshmen at the Illinois Institute of Technology will receive iPads loaded with introductory course material this fall."

How four models of e-readers stack up - dailypress.com

2010-08-07T04:18:00.000-07:00

How four models of e-readers stack up - dailypress.com: "Many in the halls of higher learning are taking a wait-and-see approach to e-readers. As director of academic information services for the College of William and Mary, Gene Roche advises professors on how to integrate technology into their teaching and research. He said e-readers have great potential. But right now, it's just that, potential. 'Many of us on the faculty are kind of skeptical,' Roche said. 'Our students are reading long passages and keeping track of detailed arguments. That's not something the [e-book] format is really good for … But the iPad is likely to change that because the display is so nice.'"

Simba Information: Market Research for the Publishing & Media Industries Group News | LinkedIn

2010-07-16T06:29:00.000-07:00

Simba Information: Market Research for the Publishing & Media Industries Group News | LinkedIn: "Priced at just $149, the new Nook Wi-Fi includes the same features of the Nook 3G—including color touch screen for navigation, an E-Ink display and Wi-Fi connectivity—but lacks 3G connectivity. The price is also identical to that of Borders’ recently introduced Kobo eBook reading device, which, according to the company, saw its original batch sold out with new products set to ship on July 2."

Kindle Use at the University Level Takes a Step Backwards | Fordham RETC

2010-07-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

Kindle Use at the University Level Takes a Step Backwards | Fordham RETC: "College and University programs that promote using Kindles or like e-reading devices are being suspended by the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education."

Jakarta’s e-book policy misses target by a mile | The Jakarta Post

2010-07-14T06:31:00.000-07:00

Jakarta’s e-book policy misses target by a mile | The Jakarta Post: "The government, through the National Education Ministry, allocated Rp 20 billion for the program, The fund was to be used for, among other things, buying the copyrights of widely used school textbooks and uploading them in digital form to the Internet. It was expected that the students would be able to download the books for free and easily print them.
Initially, the program was launched with around 400 books on various subjects. Ninety-five of the books were for elementary schools, 72 for junior high schools, 24 for senior high schools and 216 for vocational schools."

Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog: The Rapidly Shifting Ebook Retailer Landscape

2010-07-12T15:41:00.000-07:00

Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog: The Rapidly Shifting Ebook Retailer Landscape: "I believe Amazon will completely abandon the Kindle hardware space by late 2012. The only adjustment I'd like to make to that prediction is that the iPad (and the upcoming flood of Android-based tablets) will cause it to happen even sooner."

Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog: The Rapidly Shifting Ebook Retailer Landscape

2010-07-12T13:46:00.000-07:00

Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog: The Rapidly Shifting Ebook Retailer Landscape: "Google Editions is said to be cloud-based and hardware agnostic. Great so far. After all, I often worried about being locked into Amazon's Kindle platform each time I bought another $9.99 book for it. To Amazon's credit though, they're heading away from their original locked-in hardware model where you had to own a Kindle to enjoy a Kindle ebook. Most of the books I read on my iPad now are from the Kindle store, so kudos to Amazon."

50% of US college students plan to buy an e-reader before autumn term - House & Home, Life & Style - The Independent

2010-07-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

50% of US college students plan to buy an e-reader before autumn term - House & Home, Life & Style - The Independent: "Although currently only 2% of students own an e-reader device, 50% of those surveyed plan to buy one within the next year. Other electronic purchases expected to be popular before the start of the new school year include smartphones and portable gaming consoles. The number of students who own a smartphone is expected to rise by 26%, and 73% of male students plan to buy a handheld games console, while 67% intend on buying a non-portable version."

Google’s Do-It-Yourself App Tool - NYTimes.com

2010-07-12T07:33:00.000-07:00

Google’s Do-It-Yourself App Tool - NYTimes.com: "“The goal is to enable people to become creators, not just consumers, in this mobile world,” said Harold Abelson, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is on sabbatical at Google and led the project."

Department of Ed Lays Down Law on Kindle E-Reader Usage -- THE Journal

2010-06-30T17:17:00.000-07:00

Department of Ed Lays Down Law on Kindle E-Reader Usage -- THE Journal: "The United States Department of Education and Department of Justice have just issued a reminder calling for colleges and universities--as well as K-12 school districts--to make sure devices such as e-readers that are required in the classroom comply with accessibility laws. The federal action came on the heels of a settlement agreement made by Justice with five institutions that were running Amazon Kindle e-book readers as pilot programs. According to the agencies, Kindle devices aren't accessible to students who are blind or have low vision. 'If we don't consider individuals with disabilities when we integrate new technologies into the educational environment, students with disabilities can and will be left behind as their non-disabled peers gain the benefits of learning that are enhanced by technological advances. This result would be inconsistent with our civil rights laws,' said Russlynn Ali, assistant secretary for civil rights for the Department of Education."

A review of Amazon’s enhanced audio/video Kindle books by Chris Walters | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

2010-06-29T15:56:00.000-07:00

A review of Amazon’s enhanced audio/video Kindle books by Chris Walters | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home: "the best designed apps for iDevices are fast, fluid, and a pleasure to use. I didn’t find the enhanced Kindle book sluggish, but I also didn’t see any reason to choose it over a regular app. For one thing, a dedicated app can cull all the video clips or audio files and put them in an easy-to-reach menu for quick access, whereas on the Kindle book I have to jump to the correct page. I’m not convinced yet that a book metaphor is the most efficient approach when it comes to multimedia consumption."

Reuters BreakingViews - Will the iPad Undercut Digital Readers? - NYTimes.com

2010-06-28T05:54:00.000-07:00

Reuters BreakingViews - Will the iPad Undercut Digital Readers? - NYTimes.com: "After all, iPad users have already downloaded more than five million e-books. It may be that many people prefer a more versatile device that allows them to browse the Web, watch videos, read e-mail and download games and other applications — and act as an e-reader as well. That’s a potential nightmare for Amazon and other purveyors of e-readers. Think how jack-of-all-trades mobile phones have pushed out initially successful dedicated personal digital organizers."

Reuters BreakingViews - Will the iPad Undercut Digital Readers? - NYTimes.com

2010-06-28T05:53:00.000-07:00

Reuters BreakingViews - Will the iPad Undercut Digital Readers? - NYTimes.com: "Pricing trends seem to support the thesis. E-reader sellers slashed their prices this week, some by a quarter. But even corporate clients with giant orders for iPads can’t expect to score any discount. Basic e-readers now go for well under $200 and will almost certainly be offered for less than $100 by Christmas, according to Gartner."

Education Week: Libraries Fading as School Budget Crisis Deepens

2010-06-27T08:16:00.000-07:00

Education Week: Libraries Fading as School Budget Crisis Deepens: "Unlike the overflowing bookshelves of wealthier families, 61 percent of low-income families own no age-appropriate books, according to a 2009 study commissioned by Jumpstart on 'America's Early Childhood Literacy Gap.' They depend on libraries to keep them from falling behind in school."

Education Week: Libraries Fading as School Budget Crisis Deepens

2010-06-27T08:15:00.000-07:00

Education Week: Libraries Fading as School Budget Crisis Deepens: "No one will know exactly how many jobs are lost until fall, but the American Association of School Administrators projects 19 percent of the nation's school districts will have fewer librarians next year, based on a survey this spring. Ten percent said they cut library staff for the 2009-2010 school year."

Textbooks ditched at Clearwater High as students log on to Kindles - St. Petersburg Times

2010-06-02T13:53:00.000-07:00

Textbooks ditched at Clearwater High as students log on to Kindles - St. Petersburg Times: "John Just, assistant superintendent for the district's management information systems, said Kindle officials told the district that no other high school had embarked on such an effort. Schools elsewhere have used e-readers, but mostly on a per class basis. A Massachusetts boarding school recently made waves by completely digitizing its library."

Deconstructing NAEP Reading Scores for Cities - Bridging Differences - Education Week

2010-06-02T13:09:00.000-07:00

Deconstructing NAEP Reading Scores for Cities - Bridging Differences - Education Week: "The districts in which 50 percent or more of 4th grade students are 'below basic' are Atlanta, D.C., Chicago, Baltimore, Fresno, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Detroit. In Detroit, a depressing 73 percent of students in 4th grade are 'below basic.' Nationally, 34 percent of students in this grade are 'below basic.'"

E-Textbooks: “An Interesting Ride” (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE

2010-05-31T12:16:00.000-07:00

E-Textbooks: “An Interesting Ride” (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE: "On the one hand, we want to create incredibly lush, rich, virtual environments in which students learn — environments that are all hyper connected. But when students get so engaged in where they can go and what they can do and how many things they can do, the notion that they're actually paying attention to anything that's in the content driven portion of the program is pretty much suspect. Will any of this allow for the deeply immersive humanistic reading that English professors like me really, really like? Bayne: In other words, how do you get them to settle down and really read?

Schulze: Yes. I think it's very important for academics all over the United States to start taking the hardware issues of reading and learning more seriously. We're ceding a lot of important developments to people who are really entertainment engineers. And if we want students to learn and to think in the ways that we, as academics, want them to learn and to think, this is a hardware issue."

Individual Knowledge in the Internet Age (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE

2010-05-31T12:02:00.000-07:00

Individual Knowledge in the Internet Age (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE: "Indeed, the single best method of getting a basic education is to read increasingly difficult and important books."

Individual Knowledge in the Internet Age (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE

2010-05-31T12:00:00.000-07:00

Individual Knowledge in the Internet Age (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE: "Perhaps the perennial nature of the classics, the fact that they have been loved and learned from for generations, does not matter, because in the new publishing and societal paradigm they will be replaced by an 'upstart literature' — literature that is more realistic about the capabilities of attention-challenged students."

Short reads versus long reads.

Individual Knowledge in the Internet Age (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE

2010-05-31T11:55:00.000-07:00

Individual Knowledge in the Internet Age (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE: "* Similarly, you may get tremendous help solving problems in your math and science classes by working in groups, online or off, but ultimately the knowledge and skills developed are your own. After you have engaged in a study session with others, you had better make sure you can do the problems by yourself. If you cannot, you probably do not understand the material. These four activities — reading, writing, critical thinking, and calculation — should make up the vast bulk of a liberal education. Social learning could not replace these individual, 'Cartesian' activities without jettisoning liberal education itself."

These posts from Larry Sanger's article in EduCause are pertinent to ebook education because so many pundits see the sine qua non of e-anything as collaboration and crowd-sourcing. If a device doesn't permit or encourage collaboration, then it doesn't pass muster with the average commentator. Sanger picks this argument apart in a very solid fashion.

Individual Knowledge in the Internet Age (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE

2010-05-31T11:51:00.000-07:00

Individual Knowledge in the Internet Age (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE: "You can find the Decameron online, you can even listen to another person reading it to you, but you must mentally process it yourself. No one else, certainly no group, can do your reading for you, no matter how helpful they may be in discussing it or summarizing it. Either you read/process it or you don't."

Individual Knowledge in the Internet Age (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE

2010-05-31T10:53:00.000-07:00

Individual Knowledge in the Internet Age (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE: "This is an old argument of many educationists: the ever-changing nature of science and technology in the information age makes it unnecessary to amass a lot of soon-to-be-out-of-date knowledge. Since an ever-expanding amount of information and research is frequently updating our understanding of disciplines, there is no reason to insist on memorizing facts and figures — and no reason to insist on a core of basic knowledge and books that should be mastered. But this argument seems fallacious. It implies that the new information has either replaced or made trivial the old information. And this is obviously not so in most subjects. Think of all the things typically taught in primary schools: reading, writing, mathematics, basic science. How much of this has changed in the last one hundred years?"

Ames Tribune > Archives > Ames Tribune > News > Ames educators may shrug off Texas textbook standards

2010-05-31T05:32:00.000-07:00

Ames Tribune > Archives > Ames Tribune > News > Ames educators may shrug off Texas textbook standards: "Whaley said most textbook publishers have modified textbook production with an “emphasis on customized textbooks that are specific to the curriculum of a particular district or area,” often used with multiple technologies, like iPods, Kindles and the Internet. “It’s important to realize that local educators should control the content of curriculum they teach,” Whaley said. “A board of elected non-educators should not be making those decisions without multiple reviews and checks and balances.”"

Darden Shares Results of Kindle Experiment

2010-05-14T06:56:00.000-07:00

Darden Shares Results of Kindle Experiment:

"The project was initiated as part of the School’s effort to give students the opportunity to test out a leading edge eBook Reader in the Darden environment, as an added convenience helping students prepare more easily for classes and to help the Darden School continue to track toward its aggressive environmental sustainability goals."

Sustainability, less printing, less paper--that is the real value proposition.

Darden Shares Results of Kindle Experiment

2010-05-14T06:54:00.000-07:00

Darden Shares Results of Kindle Experiment:

"Koenig learned of the dissatisfaction from a mid-term survey that concluded with two key questions: Would you recommend the Kindle DX to an incoming Darden MBA student? A total of 75 to 80 percent answered “no,” says Koenig. The other survey question asked Kindle-using students: Would you recommend the Kindle DX to an incoming MBA student as a personal reading device? A total of 90 to 95 percent said “yes,” says Koenig."

The device just isn't open enough to support academic use...?

Darden Shares Results of Kindle Experiment

2010-05-14T06:52:00.000-07:00

Darden Shares Results of Kindle Experiment:

"The concern with the electronic reading devices is that they are too rigid for use in the fast-paced classrooms of the Darden School where the Socratic method and case-based pedagogy means students have to be nimble. “You must be highly engaged in the classroom every day,’’ says Koenig, and the Kindle is “not flexible enough. … It could be clunky. You can’t move between pages, documents, charts and graphs simply or easily enough compared to the paper alternatives.’’"

The Kindle killer for education: poor navigation of documents.

eBook restrictions vex users | Policy | eSchoolNews.com

2010-05-13T08:12:00.000-07:00

eBook restrictions vex users | Policy | eSchoolNews.com:

"Corbett said the proprietary Kindle DRM has actually “worked very well for us in the short term; however, it may not work as well in the long term.” He explained: “The Kindle DRM allows all of our 68 devices to be grouped under one account, which isn’t true with the Adobe-based DRM devices. This means we can move content around the Kindles very easily and not worry about which titles are associated with which Kindles. … As long as we don’t have more than six ‘copies’ of a title out at any given time, we are OK. If we have more than six students reading the same title … then we purchase more copies. With the Adobe-based DRM devices, … this process completely falls apart and is quite unmanageable.”"

eBook restrictions vex users | Policy | eSchoolNews.com

2010-05-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

eBook restrictions vex users | Policy | eSchoolNews.com:

"Cushing Academy, a private boarding school in Ashburnham, Mass., made headlines last year when it replaced many of the books in its library with electronic versions. The school bought 68 Kindles, eight Sony Readers, and 101 iRiver Story eReaders for students to use. The latter two devices support the “ePub” open standard for eBooks delivered through Adobe Digital Editions; the Kindle, of course, does not."

Eide Neurolearning Blog: Visual Overload and Visual Crowding - When More Means Less

2010-04-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

Eide Neurolearning Blog: Visual Overload and Visual Crowding - When More Means Less:

"Take-home points:
- Critical print size is larger for dyslexics than controls
- Critical spacing between characters is larger for dyslexics than controls
- Reading rate improves with print size to a critical point
- Explains why many dyslexics with excellent verbal funds of knowledge still have trouble reading long words

Classroom and Test Accommodations

In the classroom, more attention should be paid to print size and spacing in daily classroom (worksheets, handouts) and testing materials (as many as 1 in 5 students are dyslexic), and print size and spacing should be considered when purchasing books for students."

Eide Neurolearning Blog: Visual Overload and Visual Crowding - When More Means Less

2010-04-25T08:04:00.000-07:00

Eide Neurolearning Blog: Visual Overload and Visual Crowding - When More Means Less: "For visual scientists, visual crowding is a specific term that refers to a greater difficulty in seeing when other visual objects are present. When we look at a complex scene, for instance the picture above, it is impossible to take in all the other visual details. It's what causes some people to overload when they go to large gatherings like music concerts, Disneyland in the summertime, or a crowded Home Depot, but also children in crowded classroom, all-school assembly, writing on a scantron, or completing Mad Math Minutes."

Mick West » Sharing Two Kindles, How does it work?

2010-04-23T04:16:00.000-07:00

Mick West » Sharing Two Kindles, How does it work?:

"Re the Nook swap vs Kindle. I read that you can only “loan” the Nook book once for a specific number of days and if the reader hasn’t finished the book, too bad, it comes back to you and you can’t resend it. It’s a feature that’s not quite as good as it sounds."

The sharing feature of the Nook seems more marketing ploy than substance. It does suggest, though, that the Nook firmware contains the code for a capability that could be very helpful in schools if its settings were not so restrictive...

Higher Education Reimagined With Online Courseware - Education Life - NYTimes.com

2010-04-20T07:55:00.000-07:00

Higher Education Reimagined With Online Courseware - Education Life - NYTimes.com: "P2PU’s mission isn’t to develop a model and stick with it. It is to “experiment and iterate,” says Ms. Paharia, the former executive director of Creative Commons. She likes to talk about signals, a concept borrowed from economics. “Having a degree is a signal,” she says. “It’s a signal to employers that you’ve passed a certain bar.” Here’s the radical part: Ms. Paharia doesn’t think degrees are necessary. P2PU is working to come up with alternative signals that indicate to potential employers that an individual is a good thinker and has the skills he or she claims to have — maybe a written report or an online portfolio."

The Long Form

2010-04-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

The Long Form: "Over the past year it really began to bother me that as I spent more and more time trying to stay up-to-date with RSS feeds, tweets, emails, and other bite-sized pieces of content, this came at the expense of reading long-form content — and books in particular. Sure I was still reading, but what I was reading was less substantive. Most of my reading was being done very quickly and in short bursts, and neither my life nor my reading habits were oriented to consume long-form content. I came to view this as a “reading gap”. Even though from one perspective I was reading more, I was really reading less."

My iPhone has revolutionised my reading | Education | The Guardian

2010-04-17T09:10:00.000-07:00

My iPhone has revolutionised my reading | Education | The Guardian:

"So why I had found it easier to read from my iPhone? First, an ordinary page of text is split into about four pages. The spacing seems generous and because of this I don't get lost on the page. Second, the handset's brightness makes it easier to take in words. 'Many dyslexics have problems with 'crowding', where they're distracted by the words surrounding the word they're trying to read,' says John Stein, Professor of Neuroscience at Oxford University and chair of the Dyslexia Research Trust. 'When reading text on a small phone, you're reducing the crowding effect.'"

So, when kids crank up the font size on a Kindle, maybe they are just creating less text and more white space on the page that they need...?

NYU Tries Digital Textbooks -- Campus Technology

2010-04-14T15:04:00.000-07:00

NYU Tries Digital Textbooks -- Campus Technology:

"'We expect digital textbook use to grow as fast as the title inventories can,' said Phil Christopher, director of the bookstores. 'The technology is in place, the books are highly interactive, and students own powerful portable devices. Moreover, traditional textbook costs are rising, and students are quite comfortable with searching, shopping, and learning online. Our students are excited to have the option of purchasing CafeScribe digital textbooks.'"

Is this reading?

2010-04-14T07:31:00.001-07:00

Really?

4oh4 - words not found: An Email Interview With Merlin Donald

2010-04-12T10:01:00.000-07:00

4oh4 - words not found: An Email Interview With Merlin Donald:

"The ebook may be best suited for fiction, or biography. But for anything that requires a lot of reflective thought, a printed book is so portable, handy, easy to notate, and flexible in its format, when compared with current electronic readers, that I would not see the latter as serious competitors yet. That may change as they improve. In particular, electronic readers are not friendly for page flipping, or for parallel processing, where you lay out many books and papers at once, some with pages held open, others annotated, and scan them collectively. What you are doing in that case is moving through several parallel information fields in three-dimensional space, something you cannot do in an ebook."

How the iPhone Could Reboot Education | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

2010-04-12T06:44:00.000-07:00

How the iPhone Could Reboot Education | Gadget Lab | Wired.com:

"The traditional classroom, where an instructor assigns a textbook, is heading toward obsolescence. Why listen to a single source talk about a printed textbook that will inevitably be outdated in a few years? That setting seems stale and hopelessly limited when pitted against the internet, which opens a portal to a live stream of information provided by billions of minds. “About five years ago my students stopped taking notes,” Rankin said. “I asked, ‘Why are you not taking notes?’ And they said, ‘Why would we take notes on that?…. I can go to Wikipedia or go to Google, and I can get all the information I need.”

Conversely, the problem with the internet is there’s too much information, and it’s difficult to determine which data is valuable.

These are the specific educational problems Abilene is targeting with the iPhone. Instead of standing in front of a classroom and talking for an hour, Rankin instructs his students to use their iPhones to look up relevant information on the fly. Then, the students can discuss the information they’ve found, and Rankin leads the dialogue by helping assess which sources are accurate and useful.

It’s like a mashup of a 1960s teach-in with smartphone technology from the 2000s."

Colleges Dream of Paperless, iPad-centric Education | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

2010-04-12T06:43:00.000-07:00

Colleges Dream of Paperless, iPad-centric Education | Gadget Lab | Wired.com:

"Bill Rankin, a professor of medieval studies at Abilene Christian, called the iPhone program the “TiVoing of education,” because the iPhone was giving students the information they need, when they want it and wherever they want it. After the success of the pilot program, the iPhone has now become a regular part of Abilene Christian’s course structure. Rankin views the iPad as the potential sequel to Abilene Christian’s iPhone program. The university has ordered 50 iPads to kick off an iPad pilot program, which Rankin believes will focus on the future of publishing.

“This is really about people re-imagining what books look like — re-imagining something that hasn’t really been re-imagined in about 550 years,” Rankin said."

ASEE PRISM - MARCH 2010 - TEACHING

2010-04-02T05:29:00.000-07:00

ASEE PRISM - MARCH 2010 - TEACHING:

"Amira Choueiki, a Georgia Tech junior, admits that while she still finds some print textbooks useful, “digital books are definitely better for me because I can read them wherever I am.” But books are portable devices, too, it’s pointed out to her. “Yeah,” she says, “but you can’t carry them all at one time, like a laptop.”"

The primary use of the iPad has yet to be determined, says PriceGrabber survey | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

2010-03-31T08:19:00.000-07:00

The primary use of the iPad has yet to be determined, says PriceGrabber survey | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home: "The eBook versus the paper book. Forty-one percent of consumers would miss aspects of reading paper books if they switched to reading eBooks. The top three aspects consumers mentioned are touch (36 percent), portability (13 percent) and making notes (13 percent)."

Um, can't you touch the portable Kindle and make notes in the books you are reading...?

The primary use of the iPad has yet to be determined, says PriceGrabber survey | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

2010-03-31T08:18:00.000-07:00

The primary use of the iPad has yet to be determined, says PriceGrabber survey | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home: "The primary use of an Apple iPad has yet to be determined. While more than 1 in 10 consumers say they would primarily use an Apple™ iPad for an eReader, the majority of consumers would use the Apple™ iPad as an additional mobile productivity device (20 percent), a replacement for a laptop or a netbook (19 percent), an entertainment device (10 percent) and an educational/entertainment device for a child (3 percent)."

I wonder if educators would be more in agreement about uses. It is really a big iPod Touch, and those are gaining traction in schools.

Pros and Cons of the iPad in Education

2010-03-30T14:03:00.000-07:00

Pros and Cons of the iPad in Education: "No citation/equation support: OS X Pages does a decent job at handling citations, albeit via third-party tools. Almost all of my papers require some sort of APA citations. While I expect I can get the bulk of a paper written on the iPad, handling citations looks like it could be problematic."

This is a problem for everyone!

Tools of Change – Networked, Mobile and Landlocked, Current Ereaders

2010-03-30T12:21:00.000-07:00

Tools of Change – Networked, Mobile and Landlocked, Current Ereaders: "The move toward the networked world really differentiates the print and digital book world."

Grant will help Kelso teacher purchase 'e-readers'

2010-03-30T04:59:00.000-07:00

Grant will help Kelso teacher purchase 'e-readers':

"A Kelso High School teacher has won a $10,000 grant to help bring struggling students up to grade in reading.
Jerri Patten will used the Qwest grant to buy 30 'e-readers,' electronic books that have built in dictionaries and other features to assist students.
The technology will be particularly useful at Kelso High School, where 'sometimes 25 percent of students are below grade level in reading,' Patten said Tuesday."

I wonder which ereaders they will be using?

Will $99 Moby tablet swim or sink? | eSchoolNews.com

2010-03-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

Will $99 Moby tablet swim or sink? | eSchoolNews.com:

"“The negative comments follow quickly when the software applications operate slowly, or not at all, on a device that was never designed to run those applications. That will happen to this device, as well as the iPad, unless user expectations are properly set by technology leaders whose job it is to provide that level of understanding,” he said.
As for replacing textbooks, Hirsch said that once educators can ensure that every student has access to a device that appropriately displays learning resources required by state or local education agencies, “then yes, it can replace textbooks. Until that time, students need to have access to required learning resources that often are print-based.”"

eReaders by price « Kindle Review – Kindle 3 Review, iPad Review

2010-03-28T14:04:00.000-07:00

eReaders by price « Kindle Review – Kindle 3 Review, iPad Review: "With the upcoming release of the $149 Kobo eReader and the $499 iPad it’s worth categorizing eReaders by price, looking at what they offer, and identifying patterns and trends."

Journalism students turn to Wikipedia to publish stories | eCampus News

2010-03-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

Journalism students turn to Wikipedia to publish stories | eCampus News: "College students know the online resource of which they dare not speak: Wikipedia, the voluminous internet encyclopedia demonized by many in higher education—and a resource that two University of Denver instructors use as a centerpiece of their curriculum.
Denver journalism students are writing Wikipedia entries as part of a curriculum that stresses online writing and content creation as readers move to the web en masse.
Journalism instructors Lynn Schofield Clark and Christof Demont-Heinrich said students are told to check their sourcing carefully, just as they would for an assignment at a local newspaper."

Ereaders, the iPad—Is That All There Is? - 3/25/2010 - School Library Journal

2010-03-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

Ereaders, the iPad—Is That All There Is? - 3/25/2010 - School Library Journal: "Why, for instance, do I have to finish writing a book? I could release it as I am writing it and continually add to, edit, and prune it. I could open it up for you to do the same. Is it still a book? Why wait for editions when I could use wiki-style edit histories? Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of reasons to finish the book and create editions (version control, for instance), but they are now choices, not rules dictated by the medium. This is the reinvention we need from ebooks, not pretty pages and a new store. You want to reinvent reading? You want the iPad to be a revolutionary product? Then see reading for what it truly is: a conversation in which authors, readers, and an entire community can use the book to build knowledge and exchange ideas."

MacDailyNews - Why Apple iPad users will read more, and faster

2010-03-25T14:06:00.000-07:00

MacDailyNews - Why Apple iPad users will read more, and faster: "Dannon writes, 'Reading hasn’t kept pace with the improvements of our other human pastimes: listening (to music), talking (by phone) and watching (movies and TV). Unlike with other other media, books have hardly changed. It’s as if they’re mired in roughly the same time period as the daguerrotype, the record, and the telegraph. Paper books aren’t searchable, can’t be easily excerpted, don’t have links to footnotes and can’t backup your notes. They can can show pictures, but not video; they can be released yearly, but can’t be updated every 24 hours. (This isn’t to say I dislike paper books — it’s simply that not every book needs to exist in print.)'"

As Schools Lose Relevancy, Students Take Charge of Their Own Learning - Featured News - EdNET News Alert

2010-03-23T07:02:00.000-07:00

As Schools Lose Relevancy, Students Take Charge of Their Own Learning - Featured News - EdNET News Alert: "In the absence of a more relevant learning process in schools, our nation’s students increasingly are taking their educational destiny into their own hands and adapting the various tools they use in their personal lives to meet their learning needs and prepare themselves for the future, according to the 2009 Speak Up survey of 300,000 students nationwide. The 2009 Speak Up national findings provide compelling evidence that our nation’s K–12 students increasingly are taking responsibility for their own learning, defining their own education path through alternative sources and feeling not just a right but a responsibility for creating personalized learning experiences."

Insideschools.org » High School Hustle: Overloaded backpacks and outdated textbooks; a better way?

2010-03-21T13:00:00.000-07:00

Insideschools.org » High School Hustle: Overloaded backpacks and outdated textbooks; a better way?:

"A recent Scholastic survey commissioned by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and released last week found few teachers believe traditional textbooks can engage today’s digital natives and prepare them for success. Teachers say they prefer digital and non-digital resources like magazines and books other than textbooks.

Only 12 percent of some 40,000 teachers surveyed said textbooks help students achieve, while only 6 percent said textbooks engage their students in learning. Eliminating textbooks (a $7 billion market in the U.S.) is also cost effective in these cash-strapped times; Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California proposed cutting the budget deficit by replacing “outdated” textbooks with electronic versions."

Publishers Short-Sighted in E-Book Price Fight - PCWorld

2010-03-21T06:39:00.000-07:00

Publishers Short-Sighted in E-Book Price Fight - PCWorld: "A physical book and an e-book are different. You can sell the former, not the latter."

Homework at North Texas schools is going high-tech | eSchoolNews.com

2010-03-17T11:31:00.000-07:00

Homework at North Texas schools is going high-tech | eSchoolNews.com: "Every netbook is a potential eBook reader and Wi-Fi portal, research tool, and classwork file. It’s a trend that education experts say is inevitable, as prices and durability of the equipment improve along with the educational opportunities accessible online. Last week, fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders at the Math, Science and Technology Magnet Elementary School, part of the Richardson Independent School District, carried school-owned netbooks home."

FT.com / Business education - No substitute for a paper read

2010-03-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

FT.com / Business education - No substitute for a paper read: "Of the 63 students randomly selected for the trial, 10 to 15 per cent remain “heavy users”, with a very small percentage using Kindles in the classroom. Almost three-quarters said they would not recommend the Kindle to an incoming MBA – even though the vast majority said it was a great personal reading device. In spite of the e-reader’s faults, many liked having their notes to read en route to interviews or to use its text-to-speech features to listen to cases while driving or at the gym.

“They have created a fantastic consumer device,” says Mr Koenig. “Those who have it, have a library that travels very easily.”"

FT.com / Business education - No substitute for a paper read

2010-03-17T11:22:00.000-07:00

FT.com / Business education - No substitute for a paper read: "In the US, Forrester Research forecasts sales of 6m e-readers in 2010, double the 3m of 2009. US e-book sales leapt 177 per cent last year compared with 2008 to $169.5m, according to the Association of American Publishers, but still make up just 3.3 per cent of the total book market."

eBooks now outnumber games on the App Store | Cult of Mac

2010-03-15T06:16:00.000-07:00

eBooks now outnumber games on the App Store | Cult of Mac:

"...according to Mobclix, a mobile device advertising agency, the number of eBooks available on the App Store has surpassed the number of games for the first time ever, with 27,000 eBook apps to 25,400 games. The reason here is pretty simple: there’s little barrier to entry in releasing an eBook app. All you do is grab a public domain title, wrap it in a remedial interface, slap a $0.99 price on it and hope for the best. Once you’ve programmed the wrapper, you can pump out eBook titles like this quickly and indefinitely, making it an easy moneymaker for more unscrupulous App Devs. Games, on the other hand, require you to have more advanced programming, artistic and design ideas."

Craig Mod thinks iPad could mean the end of ‘disposable books’ | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

2010-03-10T10:38:00.000-08:00

Craig Mod thinks iPad could mean the end of ‘disposable books’ | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home:

"Mod divides books into categories of Formless and Definite Content. Formless Content is your average fiction book, or non-fiction without many illustrations and tables. The text is the all, and it does not matter how it is paginated or reflowed—it still reads the same on any device. Definite Content is designed and formatted to be read in a particular way, with pictures and charts embedded in text at specific places. Textbooks are a good example. Devices such as the Kindle or iPhone, Mod says, have historically had trouble presenting works Definite Content due to the black-and-white nature of the Kindle, or the small screen size of the iPhone.

But the iPad presents new possibilities for e-book formatting, and not just in the tired old “add video to it” multimedia sense. Mod observes that the page-turning metaphor could be entirely abandoned. Books could scroll continuously horizontally or vertically, or scroll horizontally for new chapters and other divisions then vertically within that chapter or division."

I need opinions about the "Kindle" (the new wireless reading device)? | New To Wireless

2010-03-09T03:59:00.000-08:00

I need opinions about the "Kindle" (the new wireless reading device)? | New To Wireless:

"The Kindle is linear. It has no good way to handle content in margins, for example. And how many textbooks use a LOT of marginalia? And it certainly has no good way to handle the sidebar/wrap content in a Teacher’s Edition of a book (the part beside the page with the answer keys, etc). Also, it is harder to thumb through a Kindle or jump to another page you need without knowing where it is. Prose you read straight through, but in textbooks you often bounce around. Even the device homepage can become convoluted and hard to navigate as you junk it up with downloads."

Wide Web of diversions gets laptops evicted from lecture halls - washingtonpost.com

2010-03-09T03:52:00.000-08:00

Wide Web of diversions gets laptops evicted from lecture halls - washingtonpost.com:

"'The breaking point for me was when I asked a student to comment on an issue, and he said, 'Wait a minute, I want to open my computer,' ' said David Goldfrank, a Georgetown history professor. 'And I told him, 'I don't want to know what's in your computer. I want to know what's in your head.' '"

Wide Web of diversions gets laptops evicted from lecture halls - washingtonpost.com

2010-03-09T03:50:00.000-08:00

Wide Web of diversions gets laptops evicted from lecture halls - washingtonpost.com:

"'It's really serialized interruption,' Sieber said. 'You start something, you stop it, you do something else, you stop it, which is something you're doing if you're switching back and forth between World of Warcraft and my class.'"

University library sees demand for Kindles soar | eSchoolNews.com

2010-03-06T14:26:00.000-08:00

University library sees demand for Kindles soar | eSchoolNews.com:

"For students looking to temper sober textbook readings with a literary escape into the world of vampires and zombies, Oregon State University is loaning out Amazon Kindle electronic readers stocked with the latest in popular books.

The Corvallis, Ore.-based university has found it too expensive to fill its Valley Library shelves with fiction and nonfiction books that students would read for fun, not homework assignments or upcoming exams. So in November, the university began lending Kindle eReaders to students and faculty willing to part from traditional page flipping and embrace a technology being tested on campuses nationwide."

TOC Report: Book Meets Tablet: 10 ways to enhance your iPad books | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

2010-02-24T12:56:00.000-08:00

TOC Report: Book Meets Tablet: 10 ways to enhance your iPad books | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home:

"How to reconfigure books the way that modern brains have been reconfigured by the web and technology. All this can be done with current software. These are ideas that can be used to “enhance” a book in new and different ways.

The Colonel Fitzwilliam problem: keeping track of many characters in a book can be tough. Put into each book a “tap” that will take you to a quick summary of the character whose nome you tapped on. Enhancing doesn’t have to mean super multimedia.

Give me back my notes: for note takers, the current tools make highlighting and note taking easy, but it isn’t easy to find them later. No easy way to browse notes on current reader. Build into the book a simple browser for all notes and highlighting.

Shiny, happy poems: for poems create an interface that is fun to play with by shining light on interesting content- need to see the slides to understand this. Makes sense when you see it on the screen.

Table of contents: current state of the art is that toc is boring and limited. Can use it to improve a books browsability, and inspire the reader to jump to interesting parts of books. Use the toc to draw the reader into the book rather than just provide info. Use an “inspire me” button, for example in a cookbook, to take reader to something new.

Create bite-sized entertainment: create “javascript:void(0)books” that are full of short stuff that are like reading Twitter and Facebook."

Colleges test Amazon's Kindle e-book reader as study tool - USATODAY.com

2010-02-23T05:04:00.000-08:00

Colleges test Amazon's Kindle e-book reader as study tool - USATODAY.com:

"Now, as several major universities finish analyzing data from pilot programs involving the latest version of the Amazon Kindle, officials are learning more about what students want out of their e-reader tablets. Generally, the colleges found that students missed some of the old-fashioned note-taking tools they enjoyed before. But they also noted that the shift had some key environmental benefits. Further, a minority of students embraced the Kindle fairly quickly as highly desirable for curricular use."

Can ebooks save American education? | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

2010-02-22T11:31:00.000-08:00

Can ebooks save American education? | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home:

"In past years the problem was nearly insolvable. But now things have changed — or they should be changing — and ebook textbooks can be the answer. With today’s technology, there is no reason why publishers can’t create a pick-and-choose menu for school districts. Instead of printing millions of textbooks and locking knowledge in shackles for the next 10 years (the lifespan of the Texas review decisions), publishers could both reduce textbook costs and allow each state and/or school district to create custom books for local courses. If Texas and Kansas want to teach that the world is flat, while New York and California want to teach that the world is round, customized textbooks would let them do so. In the expansion of fact over fiction, ebooks can play a role in saving America from total educational collapse.

And think about how much money local school districts could save. It should be less expensive for schools to provide ebooks as course textbooks; in fact, it probably would be cost-effective for several school districts in a state to band together to build their own etextbooks than what is currently being spent on printed books that are not as focused on local needs."

Macmillan’s DynamicBooks Lets Professors Rewrite E-Textbooks - NYTimes.com

2010-02-22T05:04:00.000-08:00

Macmillan’s DynamicBooks Lets Professors Rewrite E-Textbooks - NYTimes.com:

"In a kind of Wikipedia of textbooks, Macmillan, one of the five largest publishers of trade books and textbooks, is introducing software called DynamicBooks, which will allow college instructojavascript:void(0)rs to edit digital editions of textbooks and customize them for their individual classes."

Sounds like Connexions or ck12 to me...

Why E-Books Look So Ugly | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

2010-02-19T09:49:00.000-08:00

Why E-Books Look So Ugly | Gadget Lab | Wired.com:

"“E-books today are where the web was in its early years,” says Andrew Savikas, vice-president of digital initiatives at O’Reilly Media, a major publisher of technical books. “And some of those e-books are as difficult to read and browse as the early web pages.”"

the connexions blog: How to control for quality in Connexions?

2010-02-18T09:10:00.000-08:00

the connexions blog: How to control for quality in Connexions?:

"Here at Connexions, all content is published under a CC-by license, which is as non-restrictive a license as possible while still recognizing and attributing work to the author. That means that it is legally possibly to re-use content. Of course, we go one step further in publishing all content with a standardized format to make 'frictionless remix'* even easier (it's hard to remix a .pdf with a Powerpoint presentation, for example)."

The iRex DR800SG eReader is now for sale at BestBuy.com | BestTabletReview.com

2010-02-18T08:59:00.000-08:00

The iRex DR800SG eReader is now for sale at BestBuy.com | BestTabletReview.com: "The iRex DR800SG is a quality large-scale eReader. It has an 8.1-inch 1024 x 768 resolution display, is equipped with 3G and has a Wacom screen for note taking via stylus. It will also connect to the Barnes & Noble eBook store for purchasing new material."