::: The EdTech Advantage :::

Lisa started Day 3 with a discussion on eBooks. “Is there any reluctance in accepting eBooks on handhelds in school districts? (No…, not really … ) Okay … then why aren’t we using them?” That made all PETC 2 attendees sit back and think for few moments.

Lisa went on to talk about the benefits of eBooks and how more of us teachers and administrators should talk to publishers and tell them what we want on eBooks and how to do this. She went through a number of websites that hosts free eBooks. Then she posed a question to PETC 2 attendees: “what would you do with ebooks to bring them to another level?” We were divided into different groups — curricular areas.

After a few minutes of talking about this, we all shared our thoughts. So, this is what we would do to bring eBooks to another level. We are looking for / will add:

• embedded functions / probes / calculators
• audio definitions upon tapping
• quick concept mapping
• mobility – home and in the educational environment
• integrated presentation
• immediate assessment
• sd card portfolios
• audio assessment collection
• highlight text and read back in natural voices
• language conversion on the spot
• showing parts of speech
• word track changes or colorization of parts of speech
• wikipedia on the handheld

Lisa also shared an idea that we can use in the classroom now on eBooks: one can have read-along audio books playing in the background on PocketTunes and you can read along on the eBook text in eReader. This could be very beneficial for students with fluency problems, ESL students, etc.

After our discussion on eBooks, Jeff Arrigotti from ImagiProbe presented the ImagiProbe AirLink BlueTooth-driven sensors. He talked about the different specifications of ImagiProbes for a while and then demonstrated a few of the sensors. Then he distributed the BlueTooth AirLink modules and let everyone play with the sensors. I was particularly interested in the Physics sensors since our physics teacher has shown interest in using these probes in the classroom.

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Filed under: Educational Technology, Palm Handhelds, Professional Dev't.