Holding onto my Kindle

October 27, 2010 James Clay 4 Comments

I was looking through my old Evernote notes seeing what I had noted and what I needed to keep and what could go. One notebook had some blog article ideas, one of which was entitled:

Why I didn’t get a Kindle for Christmas

This made me smile, as at the time (March 2010) I was dead set on getting an iPad and did not think I would ever use a Kindle. Another factor that convinced me I didn’t need a Kindle was the thing about having to buy it from the American Amazon, and buy American Kindle books. This was something I thought I probably could cope with, but would the average person really feel comfortable with this. So though I liked the Kindle I couldn’t see myself buying one.

Well…

Things change…

In July, Amazon announced that they would be released a UK version of the Kindle that would be lighter and smaller, and they also announced a UK version of the Kindle store.

As I was doing lots of stuff around e-books I decided that even though I had my iPad, I would order and buy a Kindle.

It arrived just in time for ALT-C where I was presenting a symposium on e-books and e-book readers. I loaded it with some free books and I even bought a few too.

Now a couple of months later where am I with the Kindle?

Well I am not using it as much as I would like to, but when I do, ir works for me. I find it easy to read, just as easy as paper and much easier than reading on the iPad, though I do like the fact that I can read my Kindle books on the iPad. I like the fact that I don’t have to charge it up all the time. I really like been able to buy books on demand and download them really quickly. I like been able to download sample chapters for free, really nice way of getting free reading. I like how I can buy a newspaper on my Kindle.

Anything I don’t like?

No backlight! I know that’s the reason I don’t have to charge it up so much, but does make it difficult to read in poor light.

It’s not quite there for reading complex documents, but for simple text it really can make it easier to do work, typing on the laptop and reading on the Kindle.

app of the week, ipad

WIRED Magazine – iPad App of the Week

October 26, 2010 James Clay 3 Comments

WIRED Magazine – iPad App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone and iPad Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will work on the iPod touch or the iPad, some will be iPad only apps.

This week’s App is WIRED Magazine.

Free with each episode costing £2.39

I know, I know, I can hear you saying, “haven’t you done this one before?”

Well yes I have.

I reviewed the Wired app when it first came out and at the time I did wonder if I would buy any more issues…

Well here we are four months later and yes you can ask what’s happening with Wired now.

Well the first thing that was changed was changing the app from a app that was a whole magazine to an app that allows you to purchase and download individual issues within a single app.

This means that you have a single icon on your iPad for Wired rather than an icon for each issue. What was annoying was that I had to re-download issue one again! The size of each issue has dropped, the first issue was something like 500MB, newer issues are about 250MB. Still big and something that you wouldn’t want to download using 3G. So you can see why I was initially annoyed with the change in app format.

So have things changed?

Firstly I have bought more issues, that is something that I think is quite telling in terms of how I feel about the app.

So yes I am buying further issues.

Though I am reading the magazine, I am not seeing huge leaps in the interface or sophisticated exciting ways of engaging with the content.

It has to be said that the content is more interactive and engaging than the content on the web. I don’t think this is a feature of the iPad or the iPad interface, more that publishes aren’t really using the web in a similar way. Most magazine articles I see on the web are just text versions of the printed article. Occasionally I see links and embedded video, but more often it is just text.

Though what I am seeing with Wired is more of the same type of engaging and interesting content, that I don’t see on the Wired website. The content is the US version of Wired, no UK version available.

I am pleased to see that each issue on the iPad is cheaper than the paper version (though I know that is not the case with all iPad magazines).

So based on my experience of using the Wired App over the last four months, I am still buying issues of Wired, I am still reading Wired.

I am still impressed and enjoying the reading experience. In many ways it was a similar experience to reading WIRED magazine, but the enhancements did add to the experience.

This is though, still very much old media trying to use new tools to sell a traditional old media type experience.

I would recommend it, if the type of content you find in Wired is your cup of tea.

stuff

Windows Phone 7 Series

October 25, 2010 James Clay 2 Comments

I am quite intrigued by the new Windows Phone 7 Series.

I am not sure I will get one (I have way too many phones as it is) and I think it probably would appeal to a very social person (and I am one unsociable person).

What do you think? Are you going to get one?

jiscel10

Bringing innovation to life: From adversity comes opportunity

October 25, 2010 James Clay Leave a comment

Those of you who know me will know that I quite like online conferences and have participated in a fair few over the years. JISC are running their fifth this November.

The JISC Innovating e-Learning 2010 Online Conference takes place between the 23rd and 26th November 2010.

The online conference will explore how colleges and universities are sustaining and encouraging innovation and creativity in technology-enhanced learning and will cover topics including assessment and feedback, open educational resources, mobile learning, curriculum design and delivery and institutional change.

Innovating e-Learning 2010 will explore why it is more important than ever that universities and colleges continue to innovate in their use of technology in the current climate of economic constraints to compete globally.

If you are a researcher, institutional manager or practitioner involved in technology-enhanced learning and teaching, Innovating e-Learning 2010 will be of interest to you. Delegates from further and higher education and from overseas are welcome.

Proceedings take place in an asynchronous virtual environment which can be accessed wherever and whenever is convenient to you. The 2010 conference includes real-time sessions in Elluminate® for each keynote, a tool that facilitates participation and interactive online collaboration. You will be able to see presenters on video, meet other delegates in the Virtual Coffee Shop and try your hand at new tools and techniques. You can also follow delegates at the conference on Twitter using the tag jiscel10 and enjoy the informative and entertaining conference blog.

The fee is £50 per delegate.

There are a few advantages of online conferences over traditional face to face conferences, feel free to add to them in the comments.

With an online conference it is feasible to go to all the presentations and workshops even if they are at the *same time*.

If you are a reflective person, then like me the question you actually want to ask the presenter is thought of as you travel home on the train, with an online conference you have a chance to reflect and ask that question.

You can attend a meeting at the same time as attending the conference.

You can deliver a lesson or lecture at the same time as attending the conference.

You can watch Strictly Come Dancing at the same time as attending the conference, or listen to the radio.

You can attend the conference at 2am, useful for insomniacs and those with small children, and especially useful for those who live in different time zones.

Nice comment about a previous online conference.

Enjoyed the conference last year so will be doing my best to attend again. Worked from home one day during last year’s, for my lunch break I treated myself to a stroll round my local park – having the freedom to dip in and out of sessions is a real plus. Also, I’m ashamed to admit that I often don’t enjoy conference ‘networking opportunities’, maybe I’m not very good at it, but it often seems to involve hanging around drinking too much coffee and feeling a bit lost. Of course sometimes you pick up some gems of info, but not always.

Having said all that it is useful too to make time for the conference, shut the office door, work from home for a bit, wear headphones, move to a different office, work in the coffee spaces in the college or university.

You can see presentations again, you can ignore them and (virtually) walk out without feeling you may be offending someone as their talk doesn’t relate to you as you thought it did.

No more do you have to stand on platform 12 at Bristol Temple Meads wondering if the delayed 18.19 is in fact ever going to arrive before you freeze to death.

The coffee is usually better.

A few disadvantages as well…

No bag, so nothing to add to that huge collection at the back of the cupboard in the office…

No physical freebies, no mouse mats or mugs…

Finally the JISC have asked if I will be the conference blogger again for the third year running, hmmm, do they realise what they have done…. Probably by now!

Go, you’ll enjoy it.

Find out more.

Photo source.

keynote, podcast, presentation

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #062: This is Bullet Points

October 24, 2010 James Clay Leave a comment

Chatting about presentations, Powerpoint, keynotes and bullet points.

With James Clay and David Sugden.

This is the sixty second e-Learning Stuff Podcast, This is Bullet Points

Download the podcast in mp3 format: This is Bullet Points

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes

Shownotes

coming soon…

e-book, kindle

Lending me Kindle

October 23, 2010 James Clay Leave a comment

One of the main criticisms of e-books over paper books is how easy it is to lend a paper book to a friend.

To be honest that is a fair and valid point. Publishers it would appear would much rather prefer if the secondhand book market didn’t exist and that everyone bought their own copy of any book they wanted to read. I always think that is slightly short-sighted as I know when I lent out copies of The Colour Of Magic, people would go out and buy other books by Terry Pratchett. Hey I must have bought about four copies of The Colour of Magic myself as after lending my copy out and not getting it back I wanted my own copy. As with music I am inspired by others.

However of course with the current way in which e-books are bought and sold I can’t lend an e-book. I could lend my Kindle or e-book reader, but there are certain issues with that (as whoever has my Kindle can buy books).

However Amazon recognising the value that lending books has, have announced a new feature for the Kindle.

…later this year, we will be introducing lending for Kindle, a new feature that lets you loan your Kindle books to other Kindle device or Kindle app users. Each book can be lent once for a loan period of 14-days and the lender cannot read the book during the loan period. Additionally, not all e-books will be lendable – this is solely up to the publisher or rights holder, who determines which titles are enabled for lending.

So it isn’t as far as I would like it to go and you still can’t permanently transfer titles from one Kindle to another, however this is a start.

coffee, conference, jiscel10

Make mine an Americano….

October 23, 2010 James Clay 4 Comments

I don’t know about you, but what is it about conference coffee? Why is it so bad?

I do understand large scale catering, in the past I have worked in the industry so know a bit about the issues.

It is a real challenge to provide coffee for three hundred plus delegates in less than 30 minutes.

The main reason for poor conference coffee is poor planning and an audience that doesn’t really care.

I was aware at one conference that the catering team decided to use instant coffee for the conference, as they couldn’t work out how to do a large amount of filter coffee for that number of delegates so decided to go down the easy route…

Another conference the mid morning coffee was actually prepared a couple of hours earlier! So by the time it was served to the conference it had been hanging around for so long that it was rough and bitter.

Another factor in the awfulness of conference coffee is that conference delegates don’t really care how awful it is… most of the delegates probably only drink instant coffee or Nescafé at home or work and only drink “proper” coffee now and again. Even then they probably go to Starbucks and any coffee aficionado will tell you that Starbucks coffee is certainly no where near good coffee should be, as it is slightly over-roasted.

So there is no hope is there?

Well at two conferences I attended last year what was nice was there was for delegates a choice. They could either go with the standard conference coffee experience that was free, or they could if they wanted pay for a real proper coffee experience if they so wished. At Ascilite 2009 there was free conference coffee, but upstairs at the University of Auckland there was a coffee shop and I could go and buy a proper Flat White with an extra shot.

At Handheld Learning 2009 outside the venue was a wonderful invention, a Piaggio Apé conversion that had a real coffee machine in the back. So during a break (even though it was raining) I could go out and buy a proper Americano with a splash of milk.

The issue here is not about conference organisers and conference venues providing free decent coffee for all delegates, because to be honest I don’t think many of them would appreciate it. It’s about providing delegates with a choice. Enabling those who prefer and are willing to pay for decent coffee, can get one, likewise those who aren’t can get a free conference coffee!

There is one conference coming up that has the perfect conference coffee, well perfect for me, as I will be making it. That conference is the JISC Innovating e-Learning 2010 Online Conference. As it is an online conference I can not only choose and make my own coffee, I can also choose when I want to drink it. I can drink my coffee during the keynotes, whilst in discussions, debates and in the social area.

Okay it isn’t the same as drinking a coffee at a face to face conference, but when it comes to an online conference you can at least choose when and what you drink.

Make mine an Americano….

app of the week, iphone

Instagram – iPhone App of the Week

October 19, 2010 James Clay 9 Comments

Instagram – iPhone App of the Week

This week’s App is Instagram.

Instagram is an amazingly fun & simple life-sharing app for your iPhone. Snap photos wherever you go to show the world what’s going on in your life. Follow your friends’ photo updates as they move through the world. Select from photo filters that transform regular ol’ photos into works of art you’ll want to keep around forever.

Free

If you are a regular reader of this column then you know that I do quite like photo Apps for the iPhone. So where do I put all these photographs that I take, well most of them end up on my Flickr account, I use FlickStackr to upload them to Flickr.

However I was introduced to Instagram a week or so back from someone I follow on Twitter. This interesting App (and service) allows you to take photographs with your iPhone (or use a photo in your library), apply a filter and then upload them to a website.

The website hosts your photographs and each image has a unique URL.

You can then automatically post a link to Twitter or Facebook.

It also saves the photo to your phone’s photo gallery. Interestingly all the photographs are square.

Unlike other photo apps though, Instagram is also a kind of photo social network too. Within the app you can follow other people and see their photos, you can be followed. You can view a feed of photographs, you can comment and “like” photographs. There is a feed of popular photographs and some of these are really good.

The thing is you don’t need to do the social thing to use the app and the filters are quite good and interesting. I always think that these kind of filters are ideal for creating images that can be used in presentations, handouts or other learning materials.

As a free app it is certainly a really useful photo app. As a social network, well it is certainly no Flickr and not a Twitter either. The social network can only be accessed from the phone and that limits it in my opinion.

As a photo app it’s great, as a social networking tool, less so.

Get Instagram in the App Store.

fote10, ipad