Ebooks Forge Ahead, But What Extras Do They Offer?

It is probably no surprise to you that ebooks are making a strong showing, but what else does the ebook experience have to offer? The trick is to augment the reader’s experience without getting in the way of the words. Some new forays into the enhanced book experience include Byook that is offering a Sherlock Holmes title that's tricked out with the kind of music and graphics more commonly found in video games. There's also Vook, a New York-based company that combines video, instant social media links and other functionality into its various titles, which cost $2 to $8.

Download Free eBooks

So you have a smartphone or eBook reader and would like to know where to find some free books to download? Take a look at this list. Free is a great price!

Download Free eBooks

So you have a smartphone or eBook reader and would like to know where to find some free books to download? Take a look at this list. Free is a great price!

Kindle v. iPad – One Woman’s Opinion

If you decided to wait until after the holidays to make a decision about an eBook reader you might be interested in reading what technology blogger Shelly Palmer has to say about the differences between a Kindle and an iPad. Bottom line: If you are just interested in an eBook reader than a Kindle is a good choice, but an iPad offers more since it will also run a plethora of apps, do email and let you surf the net and you can use eBook readers from Bluefire, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, Google and more on it, giving you access to more books.

Nook Kids for iPad Comes with Two Free Books

If you have an iPad you share with your little ones you might think about downloading the new Nook Kids for iPad app as it comes with two free books – one caveat: you have to give them your credit card info to get the freebies.

Read Free Library Books on iPhone & iPad & iPod Touch

With the free Bluefire Reader, you and your kids can read eBooks from your public library on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. This reader, according to cnet’s Rick Broida, can read ePub, PDF and Adobe DRM formats.  It’s DRM format that many libraries use for their eBooks. To read library books on the digital devices, you need to have an online account from your library and to install Adobe Digital Editions. Bluefire has a help area that will get you started with this application.

Updates on Digital Book Readers

Thinking about buying a digital book reader and don’t know where to start or maybe you are hanging back waiting for just the right reader for you? Take a look at dbReaders site for all the latest on technology and tips and tricks for the most popular readers.

Does the Brain Appreciate eBooks?

On the New York Times Room for Debate: A Running Commentary on the News, the editors have put together articles about the differences between reading traditional books and eBooks.  Questions relating to the reading experience, comprehension, retention, and attention were covered by three professors, an author, and a computer scientist. Some digital reading is packed with distractions such as sidebars and the ability to link beyond the text. In a way, this type of reading is more like reading a newspaper than a novel or textbook.  Alan Liu, chairman and professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his group believe that reading environments should be places like “historical coffeehouses, taverns, and pubs” where people read and debate perhaps through social networking. Author Sandra Aamodt says that while it’s more difficult, and therefore, more tiring to engage in digital reading, the differences aren’t great and probably only evident with “difficult tasks”.  People seem to read as fast using digital devices as they do when reading traditional books if there are no problems with distractions or quality of the text on the screen. Maryanne Wolf, Professor of Child Development at Tufts, worries that because digital media encourage children to move on to the next activity, children won’t take the time (or have the time) to think about what they are reading, to imagine and to be introspective. David Gelernter, professor of computer science at Yale, says that the Internet and text messaging are “helping to kill the art of editing by crushing it to death. The Internet makes words as cheap and as significant as Cheese Doodles.” He’d like to see digital reading “enhance, not replace, traditional book reading.” The comments in the blog stimulate thought about eBooks in our schools. It seems, however, that when investigating this topic, it would be wise to evaluate digital reading by separating it into its different forms: text messaging, online reading that contains sidebars and advertising, and text in book format. Lumping all the forms of eBooks together won’t give us the answers we need.

Want to Publish on the Kindle?

Got a book you would like to publish on the Kindle? You can sign up to do that at Kindle’s Digital Text Platform. But you might want to wait until June 30,2010 when a new 70 percent royalty option will become available. Here are the requirements:

- The author or publisher-supplied list price must be between $2.99 and $9.99

- This list price must be at least 20 percent below the lowest price for the physical book

- The title is made available for sale in all regions for which the author or publisher has rights

- The title will be included in a set of features in the Kindle Store, such as text-to-speech

- Under this royalty option, books must be offered at or below price parity with competition, including physical book prices

 We’re very pleased to see that Amazon is still pushing the text-to-speech option as that makes these books available to so many more people despite still being controversial.

eSchool News’ Top 10 2009 Ed-Tech Stories

Digital textbooks top the list of eSchool News’ Top 10 Ed-Tech Stories of 2009 and are called an “emerging trend in education”.  Others, in the order listed, include technology as part of the Obama administration’s reform for education, national strategy for expanding broadband use to everyone, providing Federal stimulus funding to help ed-tech budgets, preventing educational disruptions during the swine-flu scare, online learning as a “disruptive innovation”, Google’s book scanning and antitrust concerns, Microsoft vs. Google in schools, Sexting as a problem for educators and parents, and Internet safety as part of the K-12 curriculum. Do you agree with this top ten list? What might also be included?