Students at Florida’s Clearwater High School are using Kindle e-readers instead of textbooks this year as part of a new initiative. The students will have access to all of their texts on the district-owned Kindles, as well as additional features that allow them to take notes and highlight text as well as access word definitions and text-to-speech technology. The school opted for e-readers over laptops because of the lower cost, which is roughly equal to the price of two textbooks, the principal said.
Read the full story, T.H.E. Journal (9/2)
Open Culture, has just published a collection of more than 100 free textbooks available online. The textbook collection can be found under the “textbooks” tab at the top of the Open Culture homepage. All of the books in the collection can be viewed for free and most can be downloaded for free. The titles in the collection are appropriate for high school and undergraduate use. The collection contains more mathematics and science texts than it does texts for the humanities.
Related
The whole discussion of reading digitally or on paper in a “real” books certainly a hot topic these days. A week or so ago Small Dog Electronic did a survey asking the question–”Do you prefer to read digital or paper books? The results are below. Kind of interesting. The nice part is all the apps are available for the iPad. So I guess it makes everybody happy!! For my vote, #1 is iBooks- or at least for novels and such. My other #1 for other kinds of reading, I love Flipboard- it is just amazing. Both are FREE which even makes it better. Don’t you just love FREE!
10. Nook
Barnes & Noble’s reader features the largest library of digital publication available on any platform. Similar to the Kindle app, the Nook app allows syncing between all Apple iOS devices including Macs. Though the library of over 1 million titles is impressive, the Nook experience just doesn’t quite compare to iBooks and Kindle. Free
9. Classics
Classics was one of the first e-readers to land in the App store and has been claimed by many to be the inspiration behind iBooks. As its name implies, Classics is a collection of literary masterpieces ranging from Pride & Prejudice to Treasure Island. In total the app features about 25 books several of which include illustrations. $2.99
8. STARSS
Depending on how you feel about Star Trek, STARSS may be the coolest or dorkiest RSS reader ever. Featuring an excellent recreation of the LCARS graphical user interface this app make the news of today feel like the news of tomorrow. $2.99
7. Goodreader
If you’ve got momentous PDF files to view on the go, GoodReader is your app. With users reporting fine performance with file sizes up to 1GB, this app can tackle nearly any file you toss at it. Featuring additional support for MS Office and iWork documents, web archives, TXT, and media files, this app is a must have for referencing documents on the go. Plus, it’s a steal! $0.99
6. Instapaper
The folks behind Instapaper realize that when you’re at work you should be working. This app is incredibly useful if you’ve ever stumbled upon (get it?) something you’d like to read but just don’t have the time to. The app allows you to effortlessly save long news articles or blog posts (like this one) for reading later on when you’re off the clock. $4.99
5. Flipboard
Less e-reader, and more social magazine, Flipboard is a simple and free way to navigate news, photos, and social media updates. Its elegant layout is both appealing and intuitive, and its ability to bring a range of content together into one app is awesome! Free
4. Alice for the iPad
Though a standalone app as opposed to an e-reader, Alice for iPad is nonetheless a ground breaking re-interpretation of the digital reading experience. Featuring animated scenes that take full advantage of the iPad’s multitouch and accelerometer technology, this reinterpretation of the Lewis Carroll classic is truly a trip! $8.99
3. Stanza
Stanza is a free and easy way to catalog existing ebooks you may have. Perhaps its greatest strength is its diversity in terms of compatible formats. Stanza supports ePub, eReader, PDF, Comic Book Archive, and DjVu format books. Though it lacks the large library of downloadable titles in Apple and Amazon’s apps, it still maintains over 50,000 titles for purchase and over 50,000 free classic works through Project Gutenberg. Free
2. iBooks
Apple’s 1st party reader is among the newest to the e-reader scene, and comes in at a close second place. Though it features a slightly more elegant interface, and supports the more open ePub book format, it does have a few faults. The built in iBookstore has a noticeably smaller selection than Amazon’s app, and although the ePub format is less proprietary than Amazon’s, iBooks is an Apple exclusive. While Kindle for iPad plays nicely across a range of devices, iBooks aren’t even Mac compatible meaning you must own an “iDevice” to read them. Free
1. Kindle for iPad/iPhone
The Kindle app combines the elegant interface and usability of Apple’s iBooks and adds Amazon’s mammoth library of over 630,000 titles. Kindle books can sync between Apple’s mobile devices, Kindle devices, Macs, PCs, and mobile phones including the Blackberry and Android. Free
While e-books are exploding in a host of genres, e-textbooks are falling behind. Inkling, a startup begun by a former Apple employee, is one of several new companies that are adapting textbooks for the iPad. The key, these companies say, is creating interactive texts that eschew big blocks of black-and-white text in favor of color pages and video that make the most of touch-screen technology.
Reach the full story at The Wall Street Journal (8/19)
Speakaboos
http://www.speakaboos.com/
Speakaboos is a site that brings classic children’s stories to life! Stories with characters like Chicken Little and Goldilocks come to life through celebrity performances. Famous performers like Kevin Bacon and Nick Cannon are just some of the few celebrities that lend their voices. With beautiful illustrations and original music, children can develop literacy skills while learning about technology in a safe and fun environment.
Literactive
http://www.literactive.com
This site is the leading provider of reading material for pre-school, kindergarten and 1st grade students. Not only are there stories, but there are activities and supplemental reading material, as well. An ESL version allows users to translate stories into another language. There is even a section of interactive poetry which includes some of the most famous poems ever written! All you have to do is sign up for free and you can download these stories and more!
Between the Lions
http://pbskids.org/lions/
This site, from PBS Kids, is aimed at getting kids “wild” about reading. With stories, games, video clips and more, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be excited to explore! The stories vary in format. Some are read by a narrator, some are interactive and some are prerecorded readings from a children’s book. Whatever you choose to do with this site, there is sure to be something educational and entertaining for your little ones.
StoryPlace
http://www.storyplace.org
Storyplace is the ultimate digital library for students. This interactive site offers preschool and elementary stories and activities. The site aims to give children the experience of going to a library, without actually leaving the computer! With themes like “Dinos Rock” and “The Three Country Critters,” kids will be reading and having fun in no time!
Big Universe
http://www.biguniverse.com
BigUniverse.com is an award-winning web 2.0 learning platform where PK-8 students read, create, research, and collaborate using online books and interactive tools. This web community uses vividly illustrated books, a fun writing tool and a safe book sharing network to instill the love of reading, writing and learning, while providing an anywhere-anytime, standards-based, education resource for students, educators, and parents.
- Big Universe Reader™ – Read hundreds of fiction and nonfiction children’s books from today’s best publishers and take optional quizzes to assess comprehension.
- Big Universe Author™ – Create, print & publish animated e-books using an easy-to-use writing tool and 7000+ images.
- Big Universe Community™ – Safely share your bookshelf, recommendations and published books with your peers only or thousands of other members.
StoryNory
http://storynory.com/
Storynory is an online treasure trove of audio stories. Here you will find a mixture of new stories, fairy tales, and specially adapted myths and histories. We also have a sprinkling of verse. We have published an audio story every week since November 2005. Storynory has grown and grown in popularity, and now around a quarter of a million mp3 files are downloaded every month from our servers.
Our stories are read by Natasha Gostwick and her clear story-telling voice has won a place in the hearts of children and adults all over the world. The founders of Storynory are Matthew Lynn and Hugh Fraser – the co-owners of a Blog Relations , an online consultancy that can help you build your reputation via online media. Storynory is a prime example of how its done. Matthew is a ghost writer for a number one best selling series of books by a well known personality. Hugh is a former BBC radio journalist.
Education Nation: Six Leading Edges of Innovation in our Schools (Jossey-Bass) by Dr. Milton Chen, senior fellow and executive director emeritus at the George Lucas Educational Foundation. In it, he poses this challenge: “Imagine an Education Nation, a learning society where the education of children and adults is the highest national priority, on par with a strong economy, high employment, and national security.”
In Education Nation, Dr. Chen has curated and organized the Edutopia.org collection of films and articles according to what he sees as the six “edges” of innovations redefining K-12 schools, teaching, and learning. They are:The Thinking Edge
- The Edge of Curriculum
- The Technology Edge
- The Edge of Time and Place
- The Co-Teaching Edge
- The Youth Edge
Education Nation is the book for information about the most innovative learning environments, addressing Edutopia’s core strategies of project-based learning, cooperative learning, technology integration, social and emotional learning, comprehensive assessment, and teacher development for implementing these practices.
Education Nation embraces a new age of 24/7 learning, with students at the center, supported by teachers, parents and community members.
Read more and order your copy of Education Nation today!
Register for an upcoming webinar (8/26) with Milton Chen on Education Nation. Read more about this webinar.
Follow Milton’s blog on education innovation on Edutopia.org.
E-Books Directory is a free web resource which contains links to free downloadable e-books, technical papers, documents, as well as user contributed content, articles, reviews and comments. E-Books Directory is a service to students, researchers and e-book lovers.
E-Books Directory does not support copyright infringement, nor will it link to web sites that trade copyrighted material. If you find a questionable link on this web site, please contact the webmaster.
The site is launched in 2008, it is a database-driven web site using PHP scripting language and MySQL relational database. There are currently 3866 e-books listed in 414 categories.
Wesley Fryer has a very interesting post today about his six year old, iPods and books. It is worth your time to read.
Over the years our family has purchased various iPod models, and we tend to pass them down by age. Currently, this means my six year old daughter is the proud owner of a 2 GB second generation iPod Nano purchased in 2006. That was payment for her sister’s work (who was then about to enter kindergarten) in helping me lead a multi-day workshop about podcasting with Garageband for teachers in College Station, Texas. Although Rachel is VERY cognizant of her iPod’s limitations (it won’t play videos) she is also VERY proud of it and loves to use it. Being in a family of readers who not only read paper books and eBooks, but also listen to AudioBooks, Rachel has naturally decided she wants to listen to AudioBooks as well – and she recently realized should COULD do that on her iPod Nano. Last night she announced her desire to buy some AudioBooks in advance of an upcoming car trip to visit family in Kansas, so we explored the iTunes Store together and discovered two suitable titles which caught her interest.
To read the full story, CLICK HERE
I teach a technology class to future teachers (5 sections of about 30 students each + 1 small honors class) at Kansas State University in the College of Education. In fact, every education major has me for this class, I am the only one that teaches it. Good or bad, it does make for consistency.
Anyway, in the fall, I will now teach an Honors section and I just learned (yesterday) that my request to have an iPad for each of the students in my Honors class has likely been granted. Yippy Skippy! I am so excited. These students will have the iPad checked out to them for the entire semester. How cool is that!
Of course, there is a catch, first, I have to include information about how they will be utilized in my syllabus (by tomorrow) as well as, the fact that my students and I will be doing lots & lots of digging, playing and experimenting on how they can be used productively in the classroom by teachers, students, and administrators as well as personally. Ultimately I hope my students can write an publish an article about he experiment and even present at a conference.
So far, this is what I am thinking for my syllabus, I have begged and borrowed from many sources. It is too long, so looking for help in condensing it into something very concise. If you have suggestions, ideas, thought, please comment below.
Very, Very–ROUGH DRAFT
As we move education toward the future, there needs to be a balance between past, present and future, it is essential. Each student in the honors section of DED 318, fall 2010 will receive an iPad to use during the fall semester. Clearly, the iPad is poised to revolutionize the classroom in an abundance of ways. The iPad is likely change textbooks, note taking, turn classrooms paperless classroom, studying and reviewing, student interest level, and may help to individualized curriculum. The iPad will provide the chance to move into becoming 21st century as learners and teachers. The iPad will be in your (my students) hands 24/7 and you will experience “living” with the tech.
There’s an app for every student, every learner, any minute of the day. Ken Robinson and his book “The Element” comes to mind when I think of having students discover their gifts and specialties…..finding…”their element.” And, the iPad is a tool that can do just that…help students/teachers find their element.
The iPad is so new that we have more questions than answers at this point. Our research during the fall semester will try to answer the many, many questions about iPads in the Classroom.
- Where does the iPad fit in education? i.e. K12 and higher education
- Where does the iPad fit in each grade level and content are of K-12 classrooms?
- What is the iPads potential to change education?
- What are the stumbling blocks for school, students and teachers?
- What can the iPad be used for in the classroom? Is it a better method or not?
- What apps are available for use in the classroom?
- How will iPads have an impact on reading or the way we teach reading? Or any content area?
- Can the iPad move us forward to a paperless environment?
- Can the ipad move us forward in meeting 21st century skills?
- How about Project Based Learning, Differentiated Instruction?
- Is it cost effective and could it help save money in a school?
- Is the iPad constructed to hold up to the rigors of use by elementary students?
Resources for additional information
apptivities: Its applications of apps for learning: This website is the response to our challenge at the ADE Summer Institute 2010 at Full Sail University, Orlando, Florida. Our Challenge: Support teachers in using mobile applications effectively to improve student learning. Our Solution: The apptivities website at http://www.apptivities.org/ We ask our ADE (Apple Distinguished Educators) colleagues to contribute your apptivities, a specific learning activity using apps on mobile devices. A key part of our vision for apptivities is to provide media resources that give a “view” into best practices in the classroom. apptivities: Models for successful instructional practices with mobile devices
It’s the application of apps for learning.
This blog is from a teacher who began using ipad in their classroom last April when they first shipped. There are links to the previous post about the experience. 7 Reasons Why the iPad is Going to Change Education
iPads in Education 1:1 with first through 5th graders
Measuring the Potential for iPads in Education
Where does the iPad fit in education? from Ed Galaxy Blog
iPad in the Classroom, a running discussion on Classroom 2.0 site
The Potential of the iPad to Change Education
Wired Educator: An iPad in Every Classroom: First Impressions of Apple’s Tablet in Education
iPad in the Classroom All things related to the iPad™ in schools
Good read for incorporating into new writing policy at school.
Another great publication by Jeff Utech: Blogs-as-Web-Based-Portfolios
The purpose of this PDF is to help schools looking at adopting Web Based Portfolios (WBP) as a form of assessment with students over a period of time. By adopting a web-based platform as a container in which to house portfolio content, schools give students a web-based vehicle with endless possibilities to create, collaborate and communicate their learning to the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsOEfMiPndA&feature=player_embedded
K-2: Your Buzz & Woody: What toy is your absolute favorite? Write down 3 words (or sentences) that describe why you like it.
3-5: If You Were a Toy: Pretend that you get to be the voice for a Toy Story 3 toy. What toy would you be? Why would that toy be the perfect fit for your voice?
6-8: Toys Trashed?: When you outgrow your toys, what do you do with them? Do you think its best to keep them, give them to a younger family member or to charity, or to throw them away? Why?
9-12: The Gender of Play: Ken gets teased for being a girls’ toy. Do you think that children gravitating toward traditional toys for their gender is a natural tendency of children or a result of how little boys and girls are treated differently?
YouTube Block? Try this site
Thanks to TeacherHUb for this resource.
Stories and Books
Every week Storynory publishes a new audio story read by Natasha whose lovely voice will charm and beguile you. You can read her tips here.
We draw on fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson.
We seek out unusual stories from around the world.
We have the entire audio book of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
And Storynory brings you original children’s stories including Prince Bertie the Frog, The Ordinary Witch, and Theo the Monkey
10 Tips For Getting The Most Out Of Your Summer
It’s time for you! Time for you to take some time to relax, reflect, and unwind. Whether your summer plans call for heading off on an adventure or reading a good book, you’ll find resource-packed ideas in Edutopia’s Summer Rejuvenation Guide: 10 Tips to Help You Relax, Reflect, and Recharge for the Coming School Year.
Take the time you deserve to learn about digital storytelling or join a site for bookworms and, most importantly, enjoy your summer!
Enter now to download your free Summer Rejuvenation Guide.
Project Gutenberg is the place where you can download over 32,000 free ebooks to read on your PC, iPad, Kindle, Sony Reader, iPhone, Android or other portable device.
We carry high quality items: Our books were previously published on paper by bona fide publishers and digitized by us with the help of thousands of volunteers.
All our ebooks can be easily downloaded: Choose between ePub, Mobipocket, HTML and simple text formats.
No fee or registration is required, but if you find Project Gutenberg useful, we kindly ask you to donate a small amount so we can buy and digitize more books. Or you can help us digitize more books or help us record audio books.
Over 100,000 free books are available through our Partners, Affiliates and Resources.
Our books are free in the United States because their copyright has expired. They may not be free in other countries. Readers outside of the United States must check the copyright laws of their countries before downloading or redistributing our ebooks.
If you don’t know who Jeff Utecht is, you really should. I feel as though I know hm, although I have never met him in person. I follow and talk with him via Twitter and other Social Networking. He is one of the hosts of ED Tech Weekly Podcast show on Sunday evenings (6:00 central time, 7:00 Eastern) . I subscribe to the show via iTunes Podcasts, but, I try to participate in the live show on Sunday’s as often as possible. It is so much fun to be in the chat room with a group of educators. The conversations are rich and sharing is amazing!! Worth your time for sure.
Jeff recently had an open course of which I sorta, kinda participated. Actually, I would have to say I was a lurker!! But I learned a ton!!
I downloaded the book and at first glance, I plan to purchase it too. Only $9.99 from Lulu. I can already see I want a printed copy and 102 pages on my printer would work, but the $9.99 is probably a cheaper way to print and he does deserve to make a bit of money on this project. Don’t you agree!!
Download your free copy of Reach via The Thinking Stick
Thank you for being part of my blog community. Whether you’ve been a reader for years or just a day. This is my way of saying thank you for all your support and help in understanding this new digital world we work and teach in.
If you have the password from The Thinking Stick you can click on the link below, enter the password and download the complete book in a DRM free PDF format.
If you would like you can also buy the book from here.
http://www.thethinkingstick.com/free-book-download
http://www.jeffutecht.com/reach/download-your-free-copy-of-reach-via-the-thinking-stick/
Well this certainly worth downloading, 53 pages, in PDf or from an eBook publisher called ISSUU.
Ana Maria Menezes, Life Feast Blog; This is my personal blog and an attempt to try different ideas on blogging. I´m very interested in learning and my personal project is to learn how to use internet tools to enrich my classes and offer variety to my students.
I´ve finally managed to finish the english version of the e-book I´ve published earlier this year.I describe 20 webtools I´ve tried out, give examples of how teachers have been using it and suggest other ways to use them in class.
The e-book is free and can be read online or downloaded from the link below.
http://issuu.com/anamariacult/docs/webtoolsappliedtoteaching
by Shelly Terrell| Teacher ReBoot Camp Blog
Part of the 30 Goals 2010 Challenge Series
Read The 30 Goals Challenge: Join the Movement
Publishing Software from Yudu
Over 1500 educators have joined the The 30 Goals Challenge since January 2010. This free e-book challenges you to accomplish 30 social media and professional development goals in 30 days. These are short-term goals, such as guest posting, setting up a Google alert, causing a ripple, and contributing to a blog carnival. Download the free e-book to get started.
To Read the full Story and download the FREE eBook: CLICK HERE
DOWNLOAD THE PDF FOR THE BOOK AS A ZIP FILE: The30GoalsChallengeJ
I receive the print version of Wired Magazine each month in my mailbox at home and just discover they have an app for the iPad now. My first reaction was Yippee, but either I am confused or it cost $5 an issue. That is pretty pricey considering the print version prices averages out to only about a $1 an issue. If you have a better understand, let me know.
I do checkout their website most of the time, basically following links in the print version. Always interesting stuff.
My little grandsons are so excited about Toy Story 3 and I have the Read Along iPad app, which is simply amazing, and I only have the FREE version. The paid version must be beyond amazing. I suspect it will be on my iPad before today has ended since I get to see them today!!
Anyway, Wired Magazine has a great article that is available to everyone on the web about How Pixar Built Toy Story. Very interesting.
