Last year, Amazon made headlines with their release of the Kindle, a new generation of portable e-reader that uses E ink, a low power display technology that mimics the look of a printed page.  The screen isn’t backlit like a computer display.

Since that time, interest has grown in the Kindle and similar offerings from Sony and we’re seeing a new generation of devices that add functionality, increased screen size, and partnerships with publishers to provide content for the devices.  Some are predicting that the hot electronics item this holiday season will be the e-reader.

Sony is offering three models this year.  The Reader Touch Edition is a thin, touch screen version of the device selling for $299.  An included stylus can be used for highlighting and annotation on the 6″ screen.  The Reader Pocket Edition, priced at $199, has a 5″ display and is a kind of “entry level” model.  Due for release sometime in the next couple of months is the Sony Reader Daily Edition, which includes a 7″ touch screen display and adds wireless capability, mainly aimed at downloading news content.

The most well publicized and largest selling e-reader to date is the Amazon Kindle.  The Kindle is notable for being a wireless device, which operates independently from your computer – you browse for content at Amazon’s e-book store and download material directly using a wireless technology that uses a cell phone network.  If you want to read your own documents – PDF files or Word documents, for example – you email them to a special address and they are converted and downloaded to your Kindle for a small fee.  The cost of wireless access is hidden in the cost of a book or document conversion.

The Kindle is available in two models.  The Kindle DX, selling for $489, features a 9.7″ screen while the latest version of their entry level device with a 6″ screen sells for $299.  The Kindle allows for annotations using a small keypad on the device.

Philips is introducing a new version of their iRex Reader, the DR 800 SG, in October.  Priced at $399 and featuring a 8.1″ screen, it includes a stylus that can be used for adding annotations.  The iRex is wireless using cellular network technology similar to the Kindle.  For content, Philips is partnering with Barnes and Noble for e-book offerings.

Just announced is an offering from Barnes and Noble – the Nook.  This e-reader has some features in common with the Kindle – access to a large library of titles for purchase through their bookstore, availability of subscriptions to newspapers and magazines, and wireless connectivity.  The Nook also includes a touch sensitive color lcd screen along the bottom of the device that can be used for controlling options, selecting books, or entering notes with an online keyboard. One distinctive feature of the device lets you “check out” books to friends using a Nook.

There are two clear models that have emerged for content on e-readers.  Amazon’s using a “closed” system – you can only download books from Amazon’s site and have to do a conversion to get other documents on the reader.  All of the Sony models and the iRex support EPUB, an open format for digital books, so you can download books from independent authors and publishers or public domain material from Google Books.  You can also create your own EPUB formatted documents with several online or desktop tools and EPUB files can also be viewed in e-reader software on other devices – laptops, netbooks, or even the iPhone.

Both Sony and Amazon offer programs for authors to self publish.  Sony has a partnership with Smashwords while Amazon’s service is called the Digital Text Platform.

For faculty that are interested in using electronic books in the classroom, the main issues with ereaders are availability of content applicable to your course and whether your students have an e-reader or other device capable of displaying the file..  Both the Amazon and Sony e-book stores concentrate on current best-sellers and older catalogue titles in the areas of genre fiction, business, popular history and hobbies.  Some textbooks are available for both devices.

The market for e-readers and e-books is small, but growing.  Faculty that use primarily public domain texts or assemble a textbook and readings from documents available on the Web might find the use of PDF and EPUB files useful in courses – both formats can be viewed on a wide range of devices including e-readers, laptops and mobile phones.

Through our exploratory equipment loaner program, the CIT has an original Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle that can be checked out by faculty.

Apple has released their new operating system for the Mac, Snow Leopard.

The update isn’t for everyone - it only works on newer Intel-based Macs and, since this is a major rewrite to the operating system, it has had some glitches on some computers and isn’t compatible with some current Mac software.

However, it gives you a glimpse of some new features that will be common on the Mac that will provide some useful options for you and your students.

A new version of Quicktime has a redesigned interface and simplified options for saving videos.  One of the most intriguing new features in Quicktime X is a built-in screen recording utility, allowing you to make a video of your computer screen.  Here’s a YouTube video demonstrating screen recording in Quicktime X.

If you work with the Chinese language, a new feature of Snow Leopard might be useful – input of Chinese characters using the computer’s trackpad.  The YouTube video below shows a demo.

If you’re interested in investigating Snow Leopard, talk with your local technical support staff to see if the upgrade is for you.

Since its inception in 2004, the Duke Digital Initiative (DDI) has explored the application of a range of new and emerging technologies, including iPods and tablet PCs, in teaching and learning. Funded by the Provost’s Office, the program provides training and support to help faculty and students use the tools effectively.

This year’s DDI programs explore new ways to connect and collaborate using digital media, mobile devices and social networking tools.  Programs for 2009-10 are described on the DDI website and include:

• exploring web-based virtual collaboration such as online office hours, virtual guest speakers, web conferencing and more
• providing flexible web publishing for courses using WordPress MU
• investigating how Twitter could be used to support teaching and other academic work
• several options for learning about and using mobile devices students already have, in and outside the classroom
• creating new and flexible teaching spaces with micro-projectors so small they can fit in your pocket
• continuing to use the VoiceThread online media annotation tool to provide easy ways for students to share and comment on media from their instructors and classmates.

Undergraduate faculty interested in learning more or joining one of these explorations should visit the DDI website to apply, or contact cit@duke.edu.

Faculty and students interested in digital video can still check out a variety of equipment – including high-definition Flip video cameras, video camera kits and web cameras – available for loan at the Link in Perkins Library. No application process is necessary, but see the DDI website for specifics of availability.

To learn more, visit the DDI site: http://dukedigitalinitiative.duke.edu/

Guest post by Julie Reynolds, Duke University

Twitter posts are limited to 140 characters, but I discovered it takes slightly more than 140 characters to convince colleagues of Twitter’s value. I’ll try to make my argument for why professionals should use Twitter, and I’ll do it in just 14 tweets. Here we go.

#1) Professional use of Twitter 1 of 3: Post URLs for blogs, articles, & events that you want to make public to a larger audience

• #2) To promote publications, ex: “When Communicating with Diverse Audiences, Use Velcro to Make Science Stick http://bit.ly/4GD4fX“
• #3) To publicize students’ work, ex: “#DukeEngage interns turn dung into fuel in India http://bit.ly/c3u1a”
• #4) To publicize events, ex: “Citizen Science Training Opportunity July 19, 2009 http://bit.ly/16NYgc”

#5) Professional use of Twitter 2 of 3: Network w/folks who share interests or are using similar pedagogy/technology/research method

• #6) Networking tip: be sure your Twitter profile has a descriptive bio so people can find you, ex: http://bit.ly/Vqepp
• #7) Twitter can be like a virtual business card. Be sure your profile bio and webpage are up-to-date and informative
• #8) Join a twibe to find similarly-minded people. Visit http://twibes.com/ to search and join twibes
• #9) Add yourself to http://wefollow.com twitter directory so people can find you (I use #scientist #conservation #educator)
• #10) I posted ex of students’ use of edu software, was contacted by software maker to ask if they could showcase my students’ work!
• #11) Retweet to share info & build community, ex: “RT @saprasanna: Our DukeEngage project is on Duke News: http://tinyurl.com/nmuxkz”
• #12) Search for keywords http://search.twitter.com/ (or via Tweetdeck, my fav Twitr app) & follow people who have interesting tweets

#13) Professional use of Twitter 3 of 3: Back-channel conversation at conferences for feedback on talks & updates on things you missed

• #14) Ex: search for #NECC09 for examples of rich conversation and information resulting from back-channel conversations at a conference

You can follow this conversation on Twitter by searching for #TwitValue. For professional updates, follow Julie at http://twitter.com/JulieReynolds88.

Have you wanted to give your students easy access to a public domain book or to an excerpt of a copyrighted book available for preview at Google?

Google Books has added some enhanced features, such as improved browsing and searching and the ability to view scanned or plain text pages.  As part of the updated, they’ve added an embedding feature that lets you put a book in your web page or blog, similar to the way you can embed a movie from YouTube.

To embed a book, look for the “Link” button in the upper right corner of the page when you are browsing it at Google.  Just copy the “Embed” link and paste the HTML code into your own blog or web page.

If the book appears too large or small, try changing the numbers for “width” and “height” in the code. In many books, the table of contents in the text is hot-linked to easily browse through a book.

Princeton is one of the schools partnering with Amazon around uses of the Kindle in higher education. While many of the other schools in the pilot program are focusing on electronic textbooks, Princeton is especially interested in reducing printing. The Library and OIT at Princeton are co-sponsoring the pilot project, with support from a foundation that will enable them to offer the devices at no cost to about 50 students. The library will scan e-reserves in Optical Character Recognition form, which will enable students to annotate the readings. This may reduce students printing out e-reserves. An article in the Daily Princetonian provides more information: http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2009/05/08/23660/ as does a website about the pilot project: http://www.princeton.edu/ereaderpilot/.

At our recent Instructional Technology Showcase, we created a presentation to celebrate CIT’s ten year anniversary using a new web-based presentation tool called Prezi. Prezi allows users to create a presentation with several levels of magnification – so instead of moving from one slide to the next, you can zoom into areas of the presentation for more info. In contrast to a standard PowerPoint presentation, a Prezi provides opportunities to create a more interactive, contextual and dynamic presentation.

I’ve embedded a YouTube video of the CIT Prezi below.

You can watch the Prezi in full screen by visiting our presentation here. NOTE: After it loads, click the right pointing arrow to move through the presentation. Holding down the right arrow will open options to automatically move through the slides (if we can truly call each zone of a Prezi a ’slide’) at intervals of 2, 10 or 20 seconds a slide. To start the presentation over, hold down the left pointing arrow and choose the looping arrow icon.

Creating the CIT 10th Anniversary Prezi

For a quick overview of the process involved with building a Prezi, I’ll walk through the steps we went through to create the CIT 10th Anniversary presentation.

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NOTE: This post is part 3 in a series addressing concepts found in the 2009 Horizon Report. Part 1 can be found here. Part 2 can be found here.

In this series of posts, I’ve discussed blogs being used as personal web publishing systems and explored ways educators might use Web2.0 tools, originally designed for ‘personal’ use, to instead work with students to build knowledge together. It probably goes without saying that one of the key aspects of the World Wide Web is that it’s all (potentially) connected – but until a few years ago, these ‘connections’ were at best accomplished by creating hyperlinks to other sites and content, and later by smarter search engines. With technologies like RSS feeds, however, the Web 2.0 world has made it easier to link, share, and re-purpose content. We have increasing ability to view and publish content in any style/format/design we choose.

The web is continuing to spill over from our computers to all of our other everyday gadgets, including our music players, televisions, and radios – in some cases, even our refrigerators. On the Map of Future Forces Affecting Education (created by the KnowledgeWorks Foundation and the Institute for the Future) this concept is described as ‘The End of Cyberspace’ and is listed as one of of the key ‘Drivers of Change’ in the coming years:

“Places and objects are becoming increasingly embedded with digital information and linked through connective media into social networks. The result is the end of the distinction between cyberspace and real space.”

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If you’ve looked at the new Recovery.gov site recently, you’ve probably noticed an interesting interactive element at the bottom of the main page.

This timeline is a good, simple example of the SIMILE Timeline tool created by MIT Libraries, and MIT CSAIL.

SIMILE Timeline tool general info:

Original project homepage: http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/
New, Google-hosted homepage: http://code.google.com/p/simile-widgets/
Getting Started guide: http://simile.mit.edu/wiki/Timeline#Getting_Started
See examples here: http://simile.mit.edu/wiki/Category:Example_timeline

Though creating the timeline does require someone to actually edit code, the code for the timeline is not much more complex or daunting than the average HTML website. Here’s an example of a process that might be employed as an assignment wherein students would collaboratively build a timeline.

I. SIMILE uses two files to work properly. First, there’s an .html file (I’m calling this file ‘timeline.html’) that presents the application and includes several tweakable parameters. The .xml file (which I’m calling ‘events.xml’) is the code representing the times, dates, headings, description and image links for the specific event.

II. Download and/or reuse these files:

1. events.xml – this file lists all the events. Copy/paste more events after </event> tag for previous events. Events don’t need to appear in any particular order.

2. timeline.html – This is the file that includes the modifiable code for the SIMILE timeline. This is also the file that you would link to for viewing the timeline.

3. Use Lifehacker’s XML generator script to quickly create xml form data
http://www.lifehacker.com/assets/resources/2006/10/eventmaker.html
OR download/save eventmaker.html and upload it to your own webspace.

III. Possible student process

1. Students collect different event detail, images, etc. Perhaps groups of students work together collecting events based on particular themes or chunks of time, etc.

2. Creating a ‘wiki’ tool in the course Blackboard pages for each group may help them collaboratively work out the event details and images before they run them through the xml generator.

3. Once the final details are set (image URLs are prepared, dates verified, titles and descriptions set), the student(s) can go to the eventmaker.html page and generate the xml code snippet for their event.

4. Students can post this code on another Bb wiki representing the entire xml code for the timeline. The faculty member, a TA, and/or a student would then grab this code either periodically, or toward the end of the semester, and upload it to the Duke WebFiles space as the new events.xml file.

Still too complex? Well, Google has you covered. The timeline can now be created as a ‘widget’ when using Google Spreadsheets.

A webpage written by David Huynh explains the whole process. Suffice it to say that this process only requires a class to create and share a single Google Spreadsheet file, and then simply edit the content cells to work. Enjoy.