Synopsis:  The Ectaco JetBook, the world’s first full colour e-ink ereader has been taken up by Brooklyn Technical High School after having been used with success in schools all over Russia and Europe since the launch of this model.

This ereader, which has been designed specifically for educational use and been tried out in the real world of schools for a while now, and apparently proven to be exactly what is needed in such a device for educational use, has now moved into the USA.

What Ectaco have produced here is a serious ereader with a full colour e-ink touch screen, which is large enough to be used in a classroom, but not so large that it is cumbersome, and which has been filled with a most impressive list of functions designed for school use in a variety of disciplines.  Further, it works with a wide range of ebook formats, so enabling schools to create their own content too, should they so wish.

No text books in ebook form?

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The number of kids who now have ereaders or tablets has increased enormously during the Christmas break (now why would this be so you might wonder?   Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm)

School librarians are happy and worried by this:

Lets look at the worried side of this first.  There seem to be a couple of main points about this increase in kid’s use of ereaders that worries school librarians, the first one is to do with what was rather charmingly referred to as “Digital Citizenry” by one school librarian.  In this context it relates to illegal downloads of ebooks.

This particular librarian had been approached by a number of the kids in her school with the request to help with installing ePub ebooks on their shiny new ereaders.  In the course of helping them she noticed that the ereaders had way more ebook in them already than the kids could possibly have paid for…  So she not unreasonably feels that the subject of theft of digital media needs to be carefully addressed in schools now.

I was slightly puzzled by this, since if the kids already had filled their ereaders with illegal copies of ebooks, how had they done that if they apparently needed help installing ePub ebooks?  Sort of gap in the logic here.  But none the less, the point is a good one.

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Worldreader have been given a large collection of Puffin and Roald Dahl ebooks for those lucky kids in Africa to enjoy on their Kindle ereaders

Worldreader’s Director of Digital  Publishing, Elizabeth Wood announced this at the Frankfurt Conference 2011 in the following way:

This is a huge win for the children in our programs. Dahl’s wicked sense of humor has delighted children—and adults—in the developed world for more than 50 years.  Now, children in the developing world will have the opportunity to meet Matilda, Augustus Gloop, the evil Aunties Spiker and Sponge, and all of the other wonderful characters from Dahl’s beloved classics. This is the caliber of books we want to offer the children in our programs.  We encourage other publishers to follow suit.  Ask yourself what books would turn reluctant readers into avid readers?  Those are the books we want.

This is yet another sign of how successful the projects that the good folk of Worldreader are being, and the sort of response that they need to make the whole idea flourish.

Obviously those kids in Ghana and Kenya will have enormous fun reading these books, books that seem to be able to cross borders and cultures with no trouble, appealing to something that all kids seem to have inside them.. a sort of anarchic view of their worlds.

For their part, Puffin in the person of Francesca Dow, managing director of Penguin Children’s Books, had this to say.

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Plastic Logic are here again:

After the sad debacle of the QUE ereader, Plastic Logic have bounced back with a new school centred ereader, this one goes under the romantic name of, wait for it…….   The Plastic Logic 100 Ereader.   Now there is a name to conjure with if I ever heard one.

Anyhow, that to one side, what is this gadget?

Well it is a super slim tablet ereader with a nice big screen, all of 10.7″, which is being aimed absolutely at the education market, initially in Russia of all places.   Not sure if Putin is in need of re-education or not, but he seems slightly bemused by the thing iin his hand.

One of the main points of this ereader is that it uses the plastic based e-Ink paper that they developed  for the QUE, and is thus as good as indestructible, a good thing if it is going to be used by kids I would imagine.

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Worldreader report yet another big step forward – Penguin ebooks come on board:

In a new post on their blog, Worldreader tell us that Penguin ebooks have donated a large number of their ebooks to them to be used in the African schools where they are currently working..

Specifically it is the Penguin Young Readers Group who have donated these ebooks to them and the kids they are working with.

This is tremendous news for all of us who are concerned to see the sensible use of ereaders in developing countries, and means that these kids now have an even wider range of ebooks to choose from – at no cost to the kids.

To start with Worldreader have decided to go with a series from Penguin called “Who Is / Who Was” series, specifically “Who Was King Tut” and “Who is Barak Obama,” and then later add more ebooks from Penguin to their lists.

What we are seeing here is that publishers, both international and national are seeing that by supporting the work of Worldreader, they are in fact helping to create a future market for their products, as well as simply doing good for these kids – A happy conjunction of interests.

In fact, Worldreader already have Random House (one of the world’s largest publishing houses) onboard, and even more important perhaps, some 15 African publishers are already producing ebooks with the active help of Worldreader for these kids, which is obviously a very good thing, as those ebooks are written by African authors and are thus highly relevant to the lives’ of these kids, and their communities.

It is intriguing to see how this idea is spreading and flourishing in both Kenya and Ghana, and to see how the hard work and dedication of the Worldreader folk and the teachers and publishers they are working with is beginning to take off.   Months ago, when I first became aware of Worldreader and their plans to bring ereaders (kindles) and ebooks to the world’s poorer schools and communities, I felt that it was a superb idea, but  was far from sure that it would work.  But as a result of the very careful and well planned and organized way in which the project has been carried out so far, it is working wonderfully, and will surely spread to other countries before long.

It is appropriate technology: Read full story »

Apparently American students would prefer to give up sex rather than hump heavy text books around.

In a survey released by Kno inc (the bunch who didn’t release those enormous ereaders for students) we are told that American students revealed the most unlikely things when asked what they would rather have, etext books or paper ones.

The main findings are as set out below, and are rather intriguing I find:

• 73 percent are willing do something they might not normally do, including give up dating or sex, in order to never have to carry another one
• Most college students (71 percent) want to go digital, whether through an application on a tablet such as an iPad®, through the Web on a laptop, netbook or desktop, or via a smartphone.
• 46 percent of college students have been prevented from studying because they forgot the specific book they needed.
• 16 percent have been hindered due to missing pages in the book.
• 75 percent of students have had to forgo entertainment such as movies or concerts in order to pay for textbooks
• 57 percent have surrendered travel such as their spring break so they can purchase textbooks
• 48 percent are afraid that they will run out of memory to store all of the books they need
• 45 percent have had to cut back on food in order to pay for their books
• 35 percent are afraid that they will not be able to find the exact book or edition required
• 34 percent of college students would rather take 8am classes every day for their entire college career if it meant never having to carry another textbook  Read full story »