I just added a voicemail feature for easier commenting. See that little "Send Voicemail" popup-bar on the far right there? (It takes a few seconds to load)
Just click it, make sure your mic is on, then click "start recording." Be sure to hit "send" when you're done!
More importantly, wouldn't that be a great addition to your library site? A great way to get student feedback/comments. Of course, if you hosted in on Wordpress.com you're out of luck. Most add-ons don't work with that, though you can add a link.
To get the addon from Speakpipe, click here.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
iBooks Author: Go Interactive!
Yesterday I posted the link to my iBooks lesson on primary sources. If you have access to an iPad or iPhone, I hope you take a look at it.
Today, I'll give you my thoughts on iBook Author (iBA). Having spent 13 some odd hours with it this week, I have a fairly good understanding of its capabilities and some of the kinks.
First off, I like it a lot. I spent at least two of those 13 hours watching the iBooks tutorials on Lynda.com, which were helpful but not actually necessary (there's also a free course on iTunes U). If you have any familiarity at all with the iWorks interface, you'll feel right at home with iBA, as you can see from the image below.
For those more used to the MS Word interface, your biggest issue will be getting used to working through the inspector, a pop-up panel where much of the formatting happens. Handily, unlike with the iWorks apps, Apple also makes many of those formatting functions available in the toolbar, where Word people would expect to find them.
iBA, a free download, comes with six templates; for $9.99 you can buy another 20 well-designed templates from Jumsoft, which was much better pricing than the $20/template here. I used one of theirs for the Real History book. Of course, any template is merely a starting point, and all of them are customizable, or if you're a lot better at graphic design than I am, you can just start with a blank page.
I won't go into the how-to details, as there are plenty of resources for that . I'll just review the pros/cons of the app.
STRUCTURE GRIPE
My biggest complaint, just to get that out of the way, lay with the Table of Contents formatting. If you want your ToC clickable (and of course you do!), you are tied to the Chapter/Sections structure built in to all of the templates. Use those page styles, and iBA automatically adds them to the ToC, in order. That particular structure isn't always appropriate, however, and you're out of luck if you don't want to use it, as far as your ToC goes, because you can't make your own interaactive ToC.
Moreover, it didn't work all that well. Given that I was tied to that structure, I grouped my lesson into two main chapters--the first on explanatory material, the second on actually working with documents. Then I had sections within each of the chapters. That's where the problems started.
When you're starting a new page, you choose to make that page 1) a Chapter, 2 section head or 3) just a regular page. That choice affects how the page is dealt with in the ToC. What's supposed to happen in the ToC, is that sections are just listed on the Chapter page, as here.
But iBA for some reason, gave a couple of sections their own page, like a chapter, even though I used the same section page style. It's not that big a deal, but if you're aiming for continuity, it's annoying.
In addition, instead of using the image that was on the page, it left the image space blank. When I added it on manually, it then added it to every other ToC page, too. After a half hour of fiddling with it to no avail, I just deleted the page and did it all over from scratch, at which point it worked fine. Go figure.
THE COOL STUFF
Of course, iBooks Author is all about the widgets, and there are six of them, allowing you to add :
You can also get a few more widgets at ClassWidgets, and iBooks Widgets.com The latter is in Beta, and not actually live yet, but they sent me a very nice email when I signed up, and actually wrote personally to ask what types of widgets I would like to see available.
In the lesson I created, I used the image gallery, review, Keynote and interactive image widgets. Most of those do exactly what you expect them to do, so I'll just discuss the review and 3D image widgets.
REVIEW WIDGET
The review widget gives you several options from which to choose, as seen in the image to the left. I used the straight multiple choice and the Drag thumbail to target.
I wanted to give students a section where they had to decide whether multiple items were either a primary or secondary source. Actually, I just realized I could have used the multiple choice with an image for that (Duh!). But I was in playing mode, so used the Drag Thumbnail option. That meant I had to create an image with Primary/Secondary as my base image, then students would drag a thumbnail of the object onto the appropriate section.
More clunky, but a bit more interactive. The widget provides anchors, and students drag the image to the anchor they believe is appropriate. Obviously, this is meant more for labelling tasks. The problem I ran into was when I tried doing multiple thumbnails. There were 3 anchors on the primary section. Obviously, it didn't matter which one was which, only as far as the widget was concerned it did; so unless students happened to put the thumbnails in the same order on the primary section that I had, they were marked as wrong. So I had to do a series of individual ones instead.
3D IMAGES:
I was most excited about this one, imagining embedding images of sculptures that students could manipulate, until I realized you had to make the 3D image yourself! Aack! I am seriously art-challenged, so while that is theoretically possible in, say, Google Sketch-Up, it's not something I'm going to be doing soon. Still, if you're buddies with the Design Tech teacher s/he could always do it for you, or ask one of the students to do it.
WIDGETS I'D LIKE TO SEE:
As it currently stands, the widgets available aren't all that participatory or thought-provoking. I hope this changes as companies have time to develop more. Here is a short list of what I'd like to see:
As I said, I like it a lot. I've mentioned before I want to digitize all of my lessons this year. iBooks isn't appropriate for ALL of them--some will be in video--but I can see using this for many of them. Unfortunately, the interactive stuff right now is limited mostly to manipulative items, rather than student input/thought. I hope that changes over time.
The other big draw back to this is your (or student) efforts will only be available in iBooks. Since my next school is Mac 1:1, that's less of a problem, but Apple really needs to make an iBooks App for the Mac. Since they haven't done even that yet, I don't see one coming for a PC any time soon.
Today, I'll give you my thoughts on iBook Author (iBA). Having spent 13 some odd hours with it this week, I have a fairly good understanding of its capabilities and some of the kinks.
First off, I like it a lot. I spent at least two of those 13 hours watching the iBooks tutorials on Lynda.com, which were helpful but not actually necessary (there's also a free course on iTunes U). If you have any familiarity at all with the iWorks interface, you'll feel right at home with iBA, as you can see from the image below.
For those more used to the MS Word interface, your biggest issue will be getting used to working through the inspector, a pop-up panel where much of the formatting happens. Handily, unlike with the iWorks apps, Apple also makes many of those formatting functions available in the toolbar, where Word people would expect to find them.
iBA, a free download, comes with six templates; for $9.99 you can buy another 20 well-designed templates from Jumsoft, which was much better pricing than the $20/template here. I used one of theirs for the Real History book. Of course, any template is merely a starting point, and all of them are customizable, or if you're a lot better at graphic design than I am, you can just start with a blank page.
I won't go into the how-to details, as there are plenty of resources for that . I'll just review the pros/cons of the app.
STRUCTURE GRIPE
My biggest complaint, just to get that out of the way, lay with the Table of Contents formatting. If you want your ToC clickable (and of course you do!), you are tied to the Chapter/Sections structure built in to all of the templates. Use those page styles, and iBA automatically adds them to the ToC, in order. That particular structure isn't always appropriate, however, and you're out of luck if you don't want to use it, as far as your ToC goes, because you can't make your own interaactive ToC.
Moreover, it didn't work all that well. Given that I was tied to that structure, I grouped my lesson into two main chapters--the first on explanatory material, the second on actually working with documents. Then I had sections within each of the chapters. That's where the problems started.
When you're starting a new page, you choose to make that page 1) a Chapter, 2 section head or 3) just a regular page. That choice affects how the page is dealt with in the ToC. What's supposed to happen in the ToC, is that sections are just listed on the Chapter page, as here.
In addition, instead of using the image that was on the page, it left the image space blank. When I added it on manually, it then added it to every other ToC page, too. After a half hour of fiddling with it to no avail, I just deleted the page and did it all over from scratch, at which point it worked fine. Go figure.
THE COOL STUFF
- an image gallery
- a video
- a review quiz
- a Keynote slideshow
- an interactive image
- a 3D image
- HTML5 code (dashboard widgets)
You can also get a few more widgets at ClassWidgets, and iBooks Widgets.com The latter is in Beta, and not actually live yet, but they sent me a very nice email when I signed up, and actually wrote personally to ask what types of widgets I would like to see available.
In the lesson I created, I used the image gallery, review, Keynote and interactive image widgets. Most of those do exactly what you expect them to do, so I'll just discuss the review and 3D image widgets.
REVIEW WIDGET
I wanted to give students a section where they had to decide whether multiple items were either a primary or secondary source. Actually, I just realized I could have used the multiple choice with an image for that (Duh!). But I was in playing mode, so used the Drag Thumbnail option. That meant I had to create an image with Primary/Secondary as my base image, then students would drag a thumbnail of the object onto the appropriate section.
More clunky, but a bit more interactive. The widget provides anchors, and students drag the image to the anchor they believe is appropriate. Obviously, this is meant more for labelling tasks. The problem I ran into was when I tried doing multiple thumbnails. There were 3 anchors on the primary section. Obviously, it didn't matter which one was which, only as far as the widget was concerned it did; so unless students happened to put the thumbnails in the same order on the primary section that I had, they were marked as wrong. So I had to do a series of individual ones instead.
3D IMAGES:
I was most excited about this one, imagining embedding images of sculptures that students could manipulate, until I realized you had to make the 3D image yourself! Aack! I am seriously art-challenged, so while that is theoretically possible in, say, Google Sketch-Up, it's not something I'm going to be doing soon. Still, if you're buddies with the Design Tech teacher s/he could always do it for you, or ask one of the students to do it.
WIDGETS I'D LIKE TO SEE:
As it currently stands, the widgets available aren't all that participatory or thought-provoking. I hope this changes as companies have time to develop more. Here is a short list of what I'd like to see:
In Summary...
- Google Apps: A widget that lets you embed editable documents, surveys (using Forms), etc.
- Custom/Advanced Search Tools
- Polls
- Group chat/discussion/sharing
- Database widgets
As I said, I like it a lot. I've mentioned before I want to digitize all of my lessons this year. iBooks isn't appropriate for ALL of them--some will be in video--but I can see using this for many of them. Unfortunately, the interactive stuff right now is limited mostly to manipulative items, rather than student input/thought. I hope that changes over time.
The other big draw back to this is your (or student) efforts will only be available in iBooks. Since my next school is Mac 1:1, that's less of a problem, but Apple really needs to make an iBooks App for the Mac. Since they haven't done even that yet, I don't see one coming for a PC any time soon.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Real History: Download on iBooks!
The "book" just went live in the iBooks store. If you have an iPad or iPhone, I hope you check it out. I'd love feedback. I have a couple more sections I'd like to add--interviews, for example, but I'm also open to other ideas.It's interactive, so won't work on a Kindle or Nook.
My thoughts on working with the App tomorrow.
Friday, July 6, 2012
Preview Books with NetGalley!
If you're a teacher or librarian (or both, of course!), you definitely want an account with NetGalley!
A service for "people who read and recommend books," NetGalley allows users to download and read galleys of upcoming books. It's browsable by genre or publisher, and you can search by author, title, publisher, imprint or genre.
It works with multiple devices--Kindle, Nook, and iPad, to name the big three--and the site provides good instructions for loading them onto your specific device.
How It Works:
Very easy! Once you find a book you want, just hit the request option. Your request is sent to the publisher, usually with a reply in a few days. If you have one, be sure to add your ALA number to your profile. Publishers are more likely to grant your request if they know you have purchasing power!
You'll have most galleys for 60 days, plenty of time to read!
(Thanks for the head's up, Shannon Mersand!)
UPDATE: NetGalley also offers librarian-specific newsletter, NetGalley at the Library, which highlights upcoming notable books, among other things.
A service for "people who read and recommend books," NetGalley allows users to download and read galleys of upcoming books. It's browsable by genre or publisher, and you can search by author, title, publisher, imprint or genre.
It works with multiple devices--Kindle, Nook, and iPad, to name the big three--and the site provides good instructions for loading them onto your specific device.
How It Works:
Very easy! Once you find a book you want, just hit the request option. Your request is sent to the publisher, usually with a reply in a few days. If you have one, be sure to add your ALA number to your profile. Publishers are more likely to grant your request if they know you have purchasing power!
You'll have most galleys for 60 days, plenty of time to read!
(Thanks for the head's up, Shannon Mersand!)
UPDATE: NetGalley also offers librarian-specific newsletter, NetGalley at the Library, which highlights upcoming notable books, among other things.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Mental Health Break
I try to spread these out, but this was so hilarious, I had to share. For all you Game of Thrones fans.
Big Brother On Your Kindle?
An article from the WSJ is kicking up some online fuss, discussing the plethora of consumer information mined from people's e-book reading habits and the privacy implications of that. According to The Guardian, the bulk of the responses tend to echo Doug Johnson's "meh."
And on the whole, I agree. Sites such as Goodreads thrive on people wanting to share their reading content, and if Amazon wants to shove more dystopian novels my way, based on the fact that I downloaded (and devoured) Insurgent, Blood Red Road, and Drowned Cities, more power to them. They'd do that whether I bought an e-book or the physical book, anyway, and I have the power of "No" in my control.
But here's what pulled me up short:
That's a big deal, and we should all be concerned.
As followers of net neutrality issues know, thanks to media consolidation, six companies now control 90% of all media content, limiting the variety of voices and discourse in national debates.
Similarly, there is a finite number of 1) eBook platforms and 2) large booksellers. Do you really want B&N or Amazon deciding that, because most people who buy China: A New History fail to finish it, that it's not worthwhile offering, or only watered-down (i.e. shorter, article length) versions? Because once booksellers start doing that, publishers will stop printing them in the first place. Maybe I only needed a few chapters for whatever research I was doing. That doesn't mean the book isn't valuable.
And the English teacher in me just cringed at this.
Publishers already know that more people would rather read John Grisham than John Barth. Heck, so would I! Audience testing vs. literary value isn't the point--even Shakespeare changed the endings of plays based on audience reactions (according to on my English profs, anyway). And, personally, contrary to Jonathan Galassi in the article, War and Peace could do with a little shortening based on audience drop-off rates.
The question is, do we really want that kind of detailed data driving both a) what publishers will publish and b) what authors write? They need to make a living after all, so it's not like most of them are going to ignore this.
Furthermore, it's not necessarily even good data. Case in point: Over spring break this year, I went to Thailand and took my Kindle. I started reading Ken Follett's (vastly over-rated!) Pillars of the Earth. It's a hefty tome. I got about halfway through it on vacation, returned to school and finished reading it using the book from the library. As far as Amazon is concerned, I never finished the book. I can see someone, somewhere, deciding that lengthy fiction just isn't what people want. Good-bye George R.R. Martin.
I read somewhere that the answer is turning off the wireless and loading books via computer downloads. I may start doing that. Most people won't, though, so the issue remains: we don't want publishing decisions made ONLY on what's going to be #1 on the bestseller lists. That means booksellers need to be willing to stock books "just because," regardless of whether readers ever finish the thing.
Actually, I think this is another reason to just get rid of publishers and bookstores as the middle-man between authors and the reading public. It's not going to happen anytime soon, but more authors are experimenting with publishing directly. It dramatically reduces the cost of a book, while simultaneously increasing the writer's (rather than the publisher's) profits. Its' win-win.
Of course, currently that mostly works only if an author has already established a name for him/herself. It's where we're heading, though.
And on the whole, I agree. Sites such as Goodreads thrive on people wanting to share their reading content, and if Amazon wants to shove more dystopian novels my way, based on the fact that I downloaded (and devoured) Insurgent, Blood Red Road, and Drowned Cities, more power to them. They'd do that whether I bought an e-book or the physical book, anyway, and I have the power of "No" in my control.
But here's what pulled me up short:
Barnes & Noble has determined, through analyzing Nook data, that nonfiction books tend to be read in fits and starts, while novels are generally read straight through, and that nonfiction books, particularly long ones, tend to get dropped earlier. Science-fiction, romance and crime-fiction fans often read more books more quickly than readers of literary fiction do, and finish most of the books they start. Readers of literary fiction quit books more often and tend skip around between books.
Those insights are already shaping the types of books that Barnes & Noble sells on its Nook (emphasis mine).
That's a big deal, and we should all be concerned.
 |
| http://frugaldad.com/2011/11/22/media-consolidation-infographic/ |
Similarly, there is a finite number of 1) eBook platforms and 2) large booksellers. Do you really want B&N or Amazon deciding that, because most people who buy China: A New History fail to finish it, that it's not worthwhile offering, or only watered-down (i.e. shorter, article length) versions? Because once booksellers start doing that, publishers will stop printing them in the first place. Maybe I only needed a few chapters for whatever research I was doing. That doesn't mean the book isn't valuable.
And the English teacher in me just cringed at this.
Publishers already know that more people would rather read John Grisham than John Barth. Heck, so would I! Audience testing vs. literary value isn't the point--even Shakespeare changed the endings of plays based on audience reactions (according to on my English profs, anyway). And, personally, contrary to Jonathan Galassi in the article, War and Peace could do with a little shortening based on audience drop-off rates.
The question is, do we really want that kind of detailed data driving both a) what publishers will publish and b) what authors write? They need to make a living after all, so it's not like most of them are going to ignore this.
Furthermore, it's not necessarily even good data. Case in point: Over spring break this year, I went to Thailand and took my Kindle. I started reading Ken Follett's (vastly over-rated!) Pillars of the Earth. It's a hefty tome. I got about halfway through it on vacation, returned to school and finished reading it using the book from the library. As far as Amazon is concerned, I never finished the book. I can see someone, somewhere, deciding that lengthy fiction just isn't what people want. Good-bye George R.R. Martin.
I read somewhere that the answer is turning off the wireless and loading books via computer downloads. I may start doing that. Most people won't, though, so the issue remains: we don't want publishing decisions made ONLY on what's going to be #1 on the bestseller lists. That means booksellers need to be willing to stock books "just because," regardless of whether readers ever finish the thing.
Actually, I think this is another reason to just get rid of publishers and bookstores as the middle-man between authors and the reading public. It's not going to happen anytime soon, but more authors are experimenting with publishing directly. It dramatically reduces the cost of a book, while simultaneously increasing the writer's (rather than the publisher's) profits. Its' win-win.
Of course, currently that mostly works only if an author has already established a name for him/herself. It's where we're heading, though.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
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