The Educational Engineer

Where are the ebooks for the iPAD?

Here at N.C. State, I am part of the group that is in charge of the K-12 textbook collection. When we first received ebooks with the state adoption, I was excited. The eTextbooks could be placed on ereaders including iPADs. I inserted the cd into my computer. To my surprise, the ebook was a HTML page with an image viewer imbedded. The images were poor scans of pages of the textbook. I was so disappointed that these ebooks were useless. When I was a grad student at East Carolina University, I made ebooks for Palm and Pocket PC devices. We started with .PDB and .LIT files. The ebooks on the CD were poorer in quality the those ebooks of ten years ago. Then, we switched to .PDFs for mobile devices. Using .PDFs, publishers could limit printing, embed watermarks, and other functions to increase the value of the ebook. The one thing the iPADs allow is the ability to collect data from textbooks. It is a shame that publishers have not jumped on this aspect. I am trying to put together a grant to built a software development kit where professors and teachers could work together to built etextbooks that focus what is being taught to the classroom. A teacher probably use between 60-75 % of a standard textbook. Etextbooks need to be able to have interactive homework that tracks attempts to achieve a correct answer to homework, not just that it was completed. If you are a Publisher and you are reading this, please do not release an .ePub or .PDF and call it a day.

iPAD continues

I am running multiple iPAD projects currently. I am planning to clone our iPAD cart in the next week or two. I am trying to decide between subject-based app folders and app pages. I will probably decide right before I start cloning. All of the projects I am working are really taking a toll on keeping the wiki up to date. I have three pages of apps to add and review. Back to the projects, the Ed psych project is going well in it's first month. Students are using them in their other classes, which is a bonus. With the students using the iPADs in their other classes, they are developing good questions about how to use the iPADs. The other two projects involve
math and counsellor Ed. Math involves replacing graphing calculators and counsellor Ed is collecting data and reviewing interviewing skills via air video.

Using the keyboard dock with my iPad

I got my iPad about a week or so ago. I tried to connect them together and the ridge on the bottom of my apple case kept them from connecting together. I measured the dock and found that I needed to remove about two and a half inches from each side of the doc whole in the case. I cut down the sides. (If you try this, a very sharp knife will be required. I use my box cutter.) I left the pieces on the case to protect the bottom on the device. However, when I need to connect to the dock, I hold the flap back and connect. Not the most ideal thing to do, but it works.

Blog posted here.

How these apple devices are like palms

Remember when you had a Palm and you wanted to look at web pages on the go. Most of the time you would have to use Avantgo or Flingit. I found a offline browser for the iPad that can download a page from the Safari and load it into the app. I have not had a much time this weekend to use the device except to explore a couple of new apps. I hope this week to try a couple new ideas that I have.

Blog posted here.

iPad day 3

One thing I have noticed with the on screen keyboard is that when you are trying to follow a presentation and take notes, I tend to lose track of the presentation when I have to look down at the screen. As I was typing in Evernote for iPad, there is a voice capturing function at the top. It adds a bar at the top of the screen with a timer. Now you could record a class and take notes at the same time.

Blog posted here.

More from the Trial

I tried using drupal gardens with my iPad. Some of the functions did not work correctly or show up. I placed an image on the front page and I had to login to see it. The new eBay app is starting to grow on me. I thought it was a little much at the beginning, but I am getting use to it. I showed off the iPads functionality to some others today. They really liked the use of some of the offline surveying apps. Tapforms is a very nice tool for this. I also tried iSurvey but it has a tiered payment system. I keep wanting to get to my amartbooks idea but I don't seem to get enough time to get to it. The more I try to use the iBooks software, the more I like Stanza. It is easy to use, allows to upload in the software from a third party site.until tomorrow.

Blog posted here.

More from the Trial

I tried using drupal gardens with my iPad. Some of the functions did not work correctly or show up. I placed an image on the front page and I had to login to see it. The new eBay app is starting to grow on me. I thought it was a little much at the beginning, but I am getting use to it. I showed off the iPads functionality to some others today. They really liked the use of some of the offline surveying apps. Tapforms is a very nice tool for this. I also tried iSurvey but it has a tiered payment system. I keep wanting to get to my amartbooks idea but I don't seem to get enough time to get to it. The more I try to use the iBooks software, the more I like Stanza. It is easy to use, allows to upload in the software from a third party site.until tomorrow.

Blog posted here.

iPad trial workday 1

First thing I would like to say is Typepad really needs to get their iPad app out. It would make adding Entries so much easier. The keyboard will not rotate with the iPhone app. Today went pretty well with the iPad. I setup my mobl21.com account. If you have not checked it out, it looks like a great way to distribute content. You add content, flash cards, and quizzes to be downloaded to a mobile device. Overall, I did not have a busy day with my mobile device. Tomorrow should be a little more active.

Blog posted here.

iPad two week only trial

Next week I will start my two week iPad only trial as my portable computer. I am putting aside my ipod touch and netbook. I have most of my apps that I will need loaded on it. I will post of Twitter and my blog about my findings. I am looking forward to this. I already use Evernote for most of my documents and other cloud apps with my netbook. Here goes.

Blog posted here.