922-Session 10--But wait there's more!

Welcome to the 'beginning' of the 'end', but not the 'end' of what has 'begun'!




This semester I've tried to guide you through what some people consider very complicated topics:

• Navigating through Open Source content, 
• Digital books, and 
• Mobile devices. 

Through my "Internet travels and wanderings" while researching content for this course, I've come across countless resources that I knew were useful and valuable, but as the semester progressed, I was never quite sure where some of these items would best connect under a certain week's themes.  Therefore, throughout the semester, I collected many of these resources (from webinars, to videos, to readings) that I thought would be interesting to most of you with the hope of getting the chance to show you before the semester was over.  


Well, this is our last session, so it's now or never.  (After all, your Finals are due by midnight EST Friday, 7/27.)  If anyone is having trouble meeting the deadline, just drop me a line and ask for an extension.  I've got to complete the grading by Monday, 8/6.


In this, our concluding session, I've included this potpourri of remaining resources that I know to be powerful, useful, and practical.  These resources never made it into this semester's weekly sessions either due to the sheer size of the workload per week or b/c I just couldn't find the best fit for them. So, knowing the value of these items I couldn't very well not share them with you.  That's why I've added this compilation in Session 10.


As I stated above, your Final Projects will be due by midnight of July 27th.  I'll add an additional blog entry for you to post a brief summary of your F.P. later this week where you'll also include the url for the Curriki page where it can be found.  


As I was reading through last semester's Final Projects I noticed that some people ran into some techno-trouble uploading material to Curriki, so if you would rather put your material in a Google Shared Doc. and then just place that link into Curriki, then that's fine.  Feel free to let me know if you have any questions.


==============================================


Let's start this week with a video explaining Project Gutenberg. (If an ad comes up, make sure you skip it.)







=============================================
Readings: 

• "Who needs a bulky textbook?"

• SLJ's 2011 Technology Survey: Things Are Changing. Fast.

• "Textbook-free Schools Share Experiences, Insights"

• " The App Squad: SLJ's advisors weigh in on kids' book apps
• Student Comprehension of Books in Kindle and Traditional Formats
by Michael Milone, a research psychologist and educational writer at Renaissance Learning. He asked students in two fourth-grade classes located in the Upper Midwest to read up to six books from a selected list of a dozen popular fiction titles that included Eleanor Estes's Ginger Pye (Harcourt, 1951), Gary Paulsen's Lawn Boy (Random, 2007), Mary Pope Osborne's Sunset of the Sabertooth The 31 students—who read a total of 135 books, 69 on the Kindle and 66 in print—were asked to alternate between reading half of the books on the Kindle and the other half in a bound, printed format.

=============================================

Teachers and eBooks: What's the Story?
View the Recording
Read the Chat TranscriptFeb 8, 2011: e-Book Lending and Borrowing for Beginners

Webinar
Public Chat Transcript

Jan 11, 2011: eReader Device Comparison
WebinarPublic Chat Transcript

Watch and listen to: "eBooks, eReaders and the Role of Mobile Devices" and

March 8, 2011: Ereaders in the Classroom

"Using eBooks to Motivate Students"

=============================================



Kansas State Dept of Ed. 
This webpage contains open access resources and digital textbooks that are available within the public domain. They are not copyrighted and may be customized, modified, or combined with other materials.


Enjoy these resources! It was a pleasure working with you this semester. The enthusiasm in some of your posts was contagious. Through the years I've worked with plenty of districts that didn't encourage their employees to strive and reach for new goals. I hope this course has convinced you that over the next few years we're going to see exponential growth in the use of eBooks for all purposes. Education won't be far behind, and you, the participants of this course, will be the leaders of this movement.

922-Session 9-iPads and iBooks

Welcome to Session 9

You can't talk about eBooks and Digital Content  and not address Apple's dominance in the tablet arena.  There's no doubt that their current market share (61% in Q3 of 2011) is a force to be reckoned with.  I've taught this course a few times before, but its content and focus has shifted a tremendous amount.  What was important and trendy in the 2010 Spring semester is very different today.  The first iPads didn't hit the shelves until April of 2010.  No one could have predicted the explosive growth, so given this information I've decided to spend the bulk of this week on Apple's iPad and the new iBooks product.  


In March of 2012 Apple came out with their newest version of the iPad.  Some call it the iPad 3, but that's not official.


Learn about it here, but I warn you, you'll probably want to buy one after this:

Then see some of the engineers demo the product:

And lastly, here are some of the additional features:

Now let's transition to their most recent publicity hype for the new iBooks project called the Apple Education Event read about it here.  Let's remember though that as interesting as this sounds it's all just a big commercial. Apple's in the business of making money, so you won't find many mentions of Open Content.  The first 10 minutes are just talking, but the demonstration starts around minute 10.   

Now a few of you may be interested in learning how to create books using Apple's iBooks Author tool.  It may be too advanced for most of you, but if you ever want to learn how you can always come back to our class web blog here and refresh your memories. We hear about that here.

Now if you wanted to find textbooks for your iPad then you can see an overview here:

==============================================================

Now the flipside

We've now seen the promos, infomercials, and Apple employee demos, so let's balance things out with some outside reviews, analysis, and feedback.




First let's start with a webcast recording from Edukwest entitled: "What do iBooks mean for the eBook/eTextbook industry?"

Summary: The eTextbook industry got a big publicity and market education boost with Apple’s announcements in 2012. What it didn’t get was the market revolution it could have.





You can take a break now!  Go for a walk and clear your head.  I'm sure that's been a lot of video.  When you come back I'd like you to read, "The new iPad (2012) review"  from iMore.  They have a nice breakdown of the pros, cons, and overall assessment.
===============================================================
Next you can use the following three sections as a go-to guide to help you answer most of the faq's.

2012 iPad buyer's guide

How to sell your old iPad before upgrading to the new iPad Buy vs upgrade vs skip: Should you get the new iPad? iPad 2 vs the new iPad: Which should you get? New iPad vs BlackBerry PlayBook vs Amazon Kindle Fire: Should you go big or go budget?

AT&T vs Verizon: Which 4G LTE new iPad should you get? Rogers vs Bell vs Telus: Which 4G LTE new iPad should Canadians get? 16GB vs 32GB vs 64GB: Which new iPad storage capacity should you get? Black vs white: Which new iPad should you choose?

==================================================================

2012 iPad user's guide

How to set up your new iPad with iCloud or iTunes How to use: Email, iMessage, Contacts,Dictation, Wi-Fi Hotspot (Tethering),Playlists, Twitter, Facebook, Skype,AirPrint, AirPlay, Dictation, Find my iPad

• iOS 5 walkthrough, iOS 5.1 update
• How to get: Music, Movies, & TV Shows,Apps & Game, iBooks & Kindle books,Magazines & Newspapers

==================================================================

And we'll end this week with some of the general stats for the iPad and when it will be available around the world for those of us taking this course from outside the US.

Key features: 2048×1536 264dpi Retina display,Apple A5X processor, 5 megapixel/1080p video iSight camera, HSPA+ 42mbps/LTE 72mbps networking.

Pricing: Wi-Fi $499/16GB, $599/32GB, $699/64GB; Wi-Fi + 3G/LTE $629/16GB, $729/32GB, $829/64GB

Availability: March 16 in the U.S., Australia, Canada, the U.K. and 8 other regions; available March 25 in Italy, Spain, Ireland, Mexico, and 21 other regions

I hope I didn't drown you too much in everything 'iPad'.  See you next week.

922-Session 8--eReaders

This week we are focusing on eReaders. Our session is linked in the left hand margin. The syllabus has recently been updated so be sure to view it and check out this week's new required readings.  In your comments this week on our blog, please share your thoughts and experiences about your e-book reader preferences in the comments below, and also do your own research (try to visit a store and test a few out, sometimes you need a push like this to get you some hands-on experience) and include a nugget of info that I didn’t cover this week to share with your peers. Next week we’ll delve into the merits of using these devices for education.  There is a lot of info here comparing and contrasting.  Don't get too worried if you can't retain it all.  Just save these links and use them for future reference and take plenty of notes.


Have fun exploring this week.

922-Session 7--Creating an OER from Scratch

I thought that we'd start with an inspirational, opening 'comment' from Angela, (a teacher who took a version of this class last summer ) :

Angela Tarr said...

... I feel the need to share. I just had an aha moment. To explain to my staff the basic idea of what OER is all about, I’ll give my own experience as a new teacher for an example. When I started teaching at 22, I had no clue what I was doing. I was assigned a mentor, who said, “I’m down at the end of the hall; holler if you need me.” That was my mentor program. (It’s now much more specific in the requirements of the mentor and mentee.) The only other teacher who taught the same courses I did would not share. A-n-y-t-h-i-n-g. He wouldn’t give me anything other than generic advice. (Don’t smile until Christmas. Don’t let them walk all over you.)
Somehow I managed to survive. I was not a very good teacher those first few years; I struggled. After ten years of teaching, I asked to switch to another grade level when a teacher in my department quit. (Not retired, quit.) The other teacher who taught this grade level in my department shared everything. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. She said she had already done the work, why should I start from scratch? She and I had very different styles, so I wasn’t totally comfortable using her exact plans and assignments. (Since I was working on a master’s and had two young children at the time, she suggested that.) I adapted most of her materials to suit my teaching (and learning) style. Her gift of a place to start other than ground zero was huge for me. I could go to her and ask questions, observe her in the classroom, get help.
When I moved into the library five years ago, I handed fifteen years of materials over to my 22 year old replacement. I volunteered to do anything she needed me to do to get her off on the right foot. I answered questions, came to her classroom a couple of times to present introductions to units, anything she needed. In her first year she was better than I was at five or six years of experience in the classroom. I’m not taking the credit for her success; she works hard. I will pat myself on the back for giving her some tools to work with to get rolling. She’s the classroom teacher I wish I could have been.
Isn’t this what OER is all about? Sharing? Learning from the experience of others? Why should we start from scratch? (Unless we want to, or the learning situation is better served by doing so.) Granted, I didn’t have the internet when I started teaching. I could only share locally. Now we can share globally. We have amazing tools to work with. We need to use them. Our districts need to let us.

 You can read the rest of the class's comments from last year, here and from the Spring '12 semester here.

=============================================================

This week we'll be covering how to create an OER from scratch.  Once again we'll be accessing Curriki's "Open Educational Resources Integration" project.  For this session we'll be accessing the module created by Dr. Michael Searson, the Executive Director for the School for Global Education and Innovation.

Mike created a CC licensed module aimed at both pre-service and in-service teachers.  His module will be particularly useful to you b/c you may very easily use it to guide yourself when you are training, or educating, others on OER's.  I've just gone through his module again and updated any dead links that I could find, but please let me know if you can't access something.  You may find all of the links in our syllabus under the Session 7's details.

Good luck and have fun!
DF

PS--Please also place your brief description of your midterm assignment under this entry's comments section with a link to the site where you have the presentation, so that the rest of us may view it.
Details and requirements are in the syllabus. (If you have a suggestion for modifying this to better suit your setting, then please pass your idea by me first.)  Please complete it before Session 8 which starts on 7/10.