Academics (paid by the taxpayer or students) provide free content, and then the same academics provide free services (editorship and peer-review) and then hand over rights and ownership to a commercial company, who provide a separate set of services, and then sell back the content to the same group of academics.
Nexus 7 on the midnight train
Fresh back from Copenhagen, I declare that my nexus 7 tablet makes an excellent travel companion.
The tablet made the flight bearable as I watched some funny Louis C.K comedy to take my mind off the fact I was off the ground. Like nearly all hostels, the Danhostel Copenhagen Downtown has wifi in the main lounge area. But instead of the common desktop PC, they let guests make free use of several laptops and an iPad in exchange for I.D. On top of this they had a charging station behind the counter so that anybody could safely charge mobile phones and USB devices like my tablet (it really needs a name: Frank Mobile, FM for short ok?).
I found out about the charging station as my lack of foresight had me bring a generic charger that failed to breath any life into FM. Luckily Copenhagen was so much fun that I didn’t actually ever flatline.
Me and the brothers (an aside: we got called “semi-black” in a bar cue #awkward moment lost in translation) mostly used the music in our hostel room with a dash of twitter/facebook stalking thrown in for good measure.
The size of FM is perfect for my backpack, a North face “Big shot” and sat easily in the front zip. I fashioned a case from a used Amazon parcel cardboard box with rubber band which did the trick. I have yet to stumble across an affordable case so this will do for now.
At this point it is worth highlighting the cost. At £199, I felt totally happy to use the device everywhere and not cringe whenever I handed it over or rammed my bag into a carry compartment. The price point is pretty compelling and my fellow travelers will be investigating devices at this price point (amazon fire and maybe the rumoured Apple iPad mini). The only disappointment for my brothers was that most UFC sites still use flash for video, can’t win every time.
The apps we used in no particular order were Flipboard, google reader, youtube, Google chrome, Google email.
I forget that I am a nerd and have a need to code, but that for most of the world, email, facebook, youtube and web browsing is plenty enough internets. I did sit in the bar over the 6 days looking at travelers from all reaches of the planet. I observed that none of them had a laptop, it was either the Apple iPad or various flavours of mobile phone. Anybody who says that a mobile phone isn’t heavily used for reading is a mug.
An interesting discovery was that one USA traveler was using the 2nd Gen Kindle purely for the 3g connectivity, for email and twitter no less. 20 bucks well spent was the simple answer.
So next time I travel I will be bringing my new travel friend along.
Copenhagen 2012
02 ebook testing kit
I have just finished up a consultancy project building an ebook that i’ll talk about soon. The photo above shows the kit that I used to test the ebook at various stages. I produced two files in the process: EPUB for most devices including the iPad and a Mobi file for the Kindle hardware and app version.
- Laptop with various reading software – Adobe Digital Editions v2.0, Kindle app, ibis reader, Kindle previewer (lets me test all versions of the hardware on the computer and saves buying hardware).
- iPad with the Kindle app and ibooks (i used 3 iPads v2+3)
- Google nexus7 with the Kindle app, Aldiko reader (lame) and Moon+reader (also lame), ibis reader
- Kindle Paperwhite
- Nook Simple Touch
- Kindle 2nd Gen – it was kicking around so why not?!
- Kindle previewer (allows you to test in all versions including the Kindle Fire)
- Kindle Touch
- Sony PRS-350 (thanks Stephen) – great to see how e-ink handles colour graphics
- iPhone 4 with the Kindle app, ibooks and also ibis reader
- HTC One X with Kindle app and ibis reader
For each device, the ebook displays and behaves differently so it is essential to test on the devices that you think will be used. Mr Andy Clarke said it best:
Designers need use only a subset of devices, because what matters most is that we develop an affinity for how our designs work on any type of device when we hold it our hands. To be clear, how a menu feels when used on a smartphone is a very different issue from whether it technically works on a particular make or model of smartphone. That’s why designers don’t necessarily need to buy a myriad of smartphones and tablets, just those they need to develop an affinity for.
Andy Clarke, Encouraging Better Client Participation In Responsive Design Projects
Sound simple right?! I got the list partly from what I have been using anyway and then from The mobile read wiki which has popular community input.
I will write more about ebook building, testing and frustrations in future posts.
By the way, my favourite reader is the now in limbo ibis reader which I read on my mobile phone or nexus7.
George Ayittey on Cheetahs vs. Hippos
How to view Kindle books from Dropbox
When I produce ebooks I will always knock out versions in EPUB, PDF and Kindle file formats. Testing on the hardware device is straightforward but I suspect the Kindle App is very popular and thus a priority to test thoroughly. Yet it isn’t obvious how one goes about getting the ebook into the app.
Below I describe the method that enables me to quickly load a mobi file format book into the Kindle app on my phone.
For this test I use the Apple iPhone 4 with the dropbox and Kindle apps installed then:
- Save the Kindle file (.mobi) into dropbox
- Open dropbox and browse to the kindle file
- Press the icon/filename – dropbox will attempt to open the file
- Dropbox will fail to open the file and give you an unhelpful message saying “Unable to view file” BUT you should notice the arrow icon is now available in the bottom corner
- Press the button and you’ll have the option to open the ebook in the Kindle app.
- Choose the Kindle app and then happy reading!
Talking ebooks with James Clay
I recently chopped it up with James Clay about digital books and it is now live, enjoy!
What is the current landscape of ebooks in education? What is the future of ebooks? Where are we going?
This is the 87th e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Are you a glue sniffing, magic mushroom addict?
Guide to using digital media in teaching and learning
Using digital media in teaching and learning is a new guide that I wrote aimed at people who are curious about how images, video and audio might be applied.
I hope that this guide can act as the first port of call for learning technologists and teachers who aren’t quite yet ready to read about the “how-to” kind of stuff that we are great at.
We explore what digital media is, where it can be used to support teaching and learning and what the key opportunities and challenges are.
Talking digital books with Craig Taylor #1
Earlier today I joined Craig Taylor to talk about ebooks (digital books) TODAY, in the first of several episodes about our current and emerging thoughts on ebooks.
I think an interesting point from the conversation was about the ‘uniquely digital uses for digital books’ and the fact we haven’t yet scratched the surface of the potential for digital features.
Enjoy
The Challenge of ebooks: Workshop one
Yesterday I was in London for the first workshop towards the new JISC funded project The challenge of eBooks in academic institutions run by Ken Chad. The two hour session gathered a range of stakeholders to discover what the priorities are for institutions around the creation, curation and consumption of digital books. Here are my notes on the workshop:
- There are major accessibility issues with current ebooks from publishers who aren’t building accessible ebooks from the start. Retrofitting accessibility is costing the sector vast sums of time and therefore money.
- Issue – how to support remote access to resources and staff 24/7
- Issue – publishers are often public companies and only concerned with share price so unless they see “growth areas” things won’t change.
- The future is for either very small collaborations and projects or very large. The medium ground is tough
- We need a collection of real use-cases. For example, there is a need for ebooks that once on a reader device can be read without the need for “checking-in – feature of some DRM tools” as the reader may not always be online (mobility can have its challenges) or “I want to see all my groups notes from this reading”
- There is a need to definite the entire system we are talking about, I suggested Craig Mod’s Post-artifact system as a starting point
- A series of “myth busters” is needed, hat-tip to Amber Thomas
- Innovation and disruption are needed asap and this won’t likely come from most publishers anytime soon
- We need to make sure we focus on the goal of using digital technologies to help teaching, learning and research. What are the unique selling points of digital books that we should be using e.g. social features such as highlighting and note sharing for learning purposes
- A more detailed report of the workshop was made by Phil Barker from JISC Cetis