EduKindle

In a surprise update (a surprise to me, anyway), Amazon announced improvements to the firmware of the Kindle 2 yesterday. Thanks to Teleread, Len Edgerly, and the KnuckleHeadNetwork, I learned about the improvements in great detail.

For an educator, this upgrade is a win. First, the K2 will now support PDF files directly, without conversion. On top of that, Amazon is offering a PDF conversion via email that will make the text reflowable. Interested to hear what people who have tried that think.

Second, the battery life has been extended. Since the same battery is in the device, the software must manage the connection to the Whispernet better in some way. I have to say by manner of recantation that my whining about the departure of the exterior Whispernet switch in an earlier post was wrong. The battery management on my DX has only gotten better and better, and this update promises even more.

Finally, the firmware update apparently enables manual control of the page orientation on the K2, a must-have feature for the reading of PDFs and the viewing of images. Even with the zoom and the landscape orientation, the Kindle resolution still isn’t good enough for the detailed illustrations from, say, an AP Biology textbook. But it’s getting there…

I knew something was up when I got up this morning and saw Ralph Ellison staring at me from my sleeping Kindle DX. Just a little extra touch from the Kindle folks, and a nice one at that.

Amazon released in beta this week its Kindle for PC application, and educators will welcome this development. Even though you have heard me rant a bit about the anti-education direction the company has taken in the development of the Kindle ereader (loss of SD card slot, loss of replaceable battery, loss of external Whispernet on-off button, and so forth), I have been generally more positive about the development of the online and now software tools that the company has created to support the use of the device: Kindle for iPhone app–great, addition of ability to view notes and marks online–fabulous, and now, Kindle for PC–not bad at all.

Ereader software for computers is one area in which Amazon has NOT led the way; many, many companies have created ereader software for devices from the Palm Pilot to the netbook. These providers have contributed to the current plethora of formats for ebooks, and each has tried, in its own way, to lock readers in to a particular format, all the better to lock in business with them. This is a game that Amazon knows well and has played aggressively with its closed system and its proprietary format.

Adding a desktop app that integrates with your Kindle library and, of course, the Kindle Store, can be construed as just another tactic in the battle for business. But for educators, “this time we win!” (to quote Brad Pitt’s line from The Mexican). Why? Well, let’s start with the fact that, while there aren’t a whole lot of Kindles in schools these days, there sure are a heck of a lot of computers! Now, any student who goes to the library to study or who fires up the computer at home can view content in the format exclusive to the Kindle. With the popularity of the Kindle and the “cool factor” that it brings, this may be the way that schools and educators begin to think about making academic reading content available across their networks. Kids “get” the idea of a Kindle, and now that idea is readily available at every school in the country.

Could kids have been reading ebooks at school before Kindle for PC (KFPC)? Sure they could have, but in fact they weren’t. Now there is a model in place for a “anywhere, anytime reading” that includes the PC on the desk over there and the ereader device in my bag (and the iPhone in my pocket). Could this arrangement have been cobbled together before KFPC? Sure it could, but it wasn’t very convenient. Now it is. A win for the consumer mentality applied to the schoolhouse.

David Rothman at TeleRead has a nice review of KFPC from an ebook reader’s perspective that I don’t need to repeat here. The software is very basic, with a plain interface, and very few tweakable options that allow you to customize the interface. No two-page reading pane, that sort of thing. Can’t make notes while reading (a limitation for educational uses that amazon is working on correcting). But teachers like simple, teachers like things that don’t crash. So, for me, I think this app is a solid step forward for doing business with Amazon in an academic context.

And what is even better, maybe, for folks like Kathy Parker and her Kindle Crew out there in Seneca IL, is that a PC station qualifies as one of the six devices onto which most Kindle books can be downloaded and viewed. The minute I loaded the app and connected with the mother ship, a new mobile device popped up in my list of such devices on the “Manage Your Kindle” page: “William’s Kindle for PC”, right there next to “Will’s iPhone.”

Educators should not be confused by others’ confusion over whether KFPC will display books not obtained form the Amazon Kindle Store. It absolutely will. In fact, once you open a “free” book that you got from Project Gutenberg in the Mobipocket format that the Kindle prefers, it will appear in your onboard KFPC library unless you remove it. In fact, all the books on your computer that are formatted a Mobipocket files will take on the KFPC icon image shown here. If you look quickly, you can watch the transformation take place. This makes it easy to check a file, a position number, a Table of Contents–whatever–on your PC before you view it on your Kindle. Handy.

For example, I created an article from Wikipedia using the Kindlepedia tool about the Berlin Wall. You can download it here. Once it is on your desktop, the icon will look like the book above, and it will go into your onboard library (NOT the library at the mother ship) and open up for reading. Note that this version of the article appears in full color and nice, sharp resolution on the screen. And if you don’t finish reading it in KFPC, just pop the file onto your Kindle and read up on this topic later. Really handy.

So its a big thumbs up for Kindle for PC from an educator’s standpoint. I will look forward to comment from other Kindle-curious educators about KFPC and the ways it makes ebook reading a reality in schools.

Kindle for Mac, anyone? (Amazon says it is on the way.)

I’ve had my Sony Pocket Edition for a couple or weeks now and I have to say that I like it. It is a handsome unit, very tight and solid. It fits in the palm of your hand and, yes, in the pocket of your pants.

I was drawn to this ereader because of the size. My Kindle DX spends most of its time on and end table in my living room because of its size–the DX is just not that convenient to carry. The DX needs to go inside my bag next to the folders and legal pads (where it fits very nicely), but it’s not the reader I grab in the car waiting at the drive-thru or at the dentist’s office. (Right now, I grab my Kindle 1.) But the Sony Pocket Edition is a great candidate for the quick, easy, have-a-minute read that these devices make possible. In this regard, size matters.

Now, I have read chapters of books on my iPhone using the Kindle app, and that is good in a pinch as well. But the thing that hooked me on ereaders in the first place is the e-ink screen. In this regard, I just don’t get Nicholson Baker and the others who find e-ink screens to be a muddy mess. The Kindle and the Sony both produce a crisp e-ink display that I find pleasurable to read, and the Sony not a bit less than the Kindle.

From a Kindler’s perspective, the greatest limitation of the Sony Pocket Edition is the absence of wireless connectivity to a source, any source, of reading material. This is the Kindle’s gift to the world, and soon to be matched by other devices.

But what I found is that the Sony interface through their “eBook Library” software provides an experience very similar to the one that I have happily participated in with my iPod Mini and iTunes. The Sony software, once installed on your computer, looks like a primitive version of iTunes. There is the list of folders and devices on the left, the list of items in the selected folder or device on the right. Plug in the Pocket Edition and it is recognized, just like my iPod with the iTunes software. The Sony software certainly doesn’t offer all the bells and whistles that iTunes does, but it gets the job done. It allows you to access content and transfer it, create collections, and otherwise manage your reading, both on and off the device.

Now the BIG up for Sony is its integration with Google Books, where a treasure trove of Epub-formatted public domain texts await. And the Library+Sony Bookstore make it VERY easy grab and load those books.  More on that wondrous process in the next installment of my look at the Sony Pocket Edition.

I know that we are all about the Kindle here at EduKindle, but as others in this space step up their games to compete with Amazon, I plan to look at all comers and compare what they offer to the Kindle value proposition. The real emphasis here is on the “edu” part of EduKindle, so if another reader offers something that the Kindle can’t or won’t offer, we need to look at it from the perspective of how it might help kids and teachers.

With larger readers all the craze these days, led by the Kindle DX and by the promised arrival of the Plastic Logic reader in the new year, I was quite surprised to find myself drawn to this smaller “pocket” reader. Maybe that comes from finding the iPhone to be a better ereader than I expected it to be, or maybe it grows out of the fact that I still love my Kindle 1 for its portability. The DX is just a tad too big for my everyday reading, with the exception of my morning perusal of the New York Times.

So I saw this little unit and decided to give it a try. A fuller review from an educator’s perspective to follow!

Pierre Gorissen has produced a nifty video on how to use the Kindlepedia tool from EduKindle to create reference articles for you Kindle or any other ereader that supports the Mobipocket format.

In addition, Pierre has written a little script that allows you to make a bookmarklet in your browser (works fine in my Firefox) that will automatically send any page you are on at Wikipedia to the Kindlepedia engine and return the article for download, perfectly formatted with a linked table of contents and live links throughout. He demonstrates how to set this up in the video.

I am posting the video here, and you can see more of Pierre’s handiwork at the EduKindle Community site.

This week I created a “partner” site for EduKindle called Kindle Educators Group. The idea is to build a discussion around ideas and experiences related to the use and/or potential use of the Kindle ereader in the classroom and as a “learning appliance” (see my post on this topic here).

This forum is built on the popular “Ning” software that many educators are already using. A great example of what a Ning can become is Jim Burke’s English Companion Ning for ELA teachers. Jim has attracted over 5,000 members in just a few months, demonstrating how effective this kind of professional community building can be for folks trying to improve their teaching and their kids’ learning.

You can post to your own blog at the site, start a discussion, add an event, comment on colleagues’ posts, and much more. I just started a discussion on what people think about the potential of the Kindle to improve struggling students’ reading skills.

It is a fine, bright Saturday morning and I think that today I will clean up my Kindle. What I mean is, clean up all the content that has been chewing up space in the onboard memory. I knew it was time when I recently received the message that I could read my book but that there isn’t any space left in memory for highlights or notes. Yikes!

How did get into this pickle? Well, I am one of those who downloads every book that is offered through the Kindle Store for free; I mean, how could that hurt? I am also a big fan of Kindle’s “sample” feature–I just love getting those pages to read before I have to buy (even if some of them barely get me past the dedication). And I am also one who lets the periodicals stack up. I have a virtual pile of Wall Street Journals that’s taller than I am. Gotta do something with all of them.

My first step for content cleanup with my Kindle (an original Kindle, not a 2, although all of these suggestions should work with both) is to connect the Kindle to the computer with the USB cord and backup my complete “documents” folder by copying it to my desktop. Then I rename it something like “kindle backup 060609″ and tuck it away somewhere on the hard drive or my thumb drive. Then I ruthlessly delete a bunch of the old newspapers and other detritus from the folder that is resident on the Kindle itself. Why start this way? Because these are the items that account for pages and pages of items when I fire up the “content manager” in the menu to delete items individually.

Why not make all my changes this way? I could. But when you look at the documents in the folder, each with its own .mbp file, the picture is not as clean as it is in the content manager or in the main menu of titles itself. So I disconnect the USB and use the content manager on the Kindle or the menu list of titles in the Kindle 2 and I identify the titles I don’t need handy and delete them from the device.

I am comfortable in doing so, of course, because I backed up the whole folder before I started. No deletion will, in fact, be permanent because of this step. This is important to remember since files that you put on the Kindle yourself, or had sent to your Kindle via wifi after emailing the document to Amazon, won’t be available later from your media library at Amazon. These items are NOT archived by Amazon and it may be that they only exist, in their .azw format, on your Kindle. (Of course, the original Word doc or pdf may well still exist on your computer.)

Finally, just to be safe, I turn on the wifi and synch the Kindle, so that everything can remind itself where it is: on the Kindle, at Amazon, or safely resting in my “documents” folder backup waiting for me to miss it and drag it back onto the Kindle where I can read it again.

Can’t find the expansion slot for additional memory on your Kindle 2? That’s because there isn’t one. And, as I have indicated in earlier posts, that’s not a good deal for educators.

This change seems to be part of the “closing” of the Kindle, where a sleek form factor trumps functionality. If the Kindle is to become the go-to reader of choice, it needs to be more rather than less useful; the device does not yet support folders, so keeping things on different chips was one potential way to store and organize your library. This removal of the SD slot also eliminates the possibility of a third-party vendor (I can hear the boos and hisses from Seattle) offering formatted books on a chip to readers. With 1) wifi that is hard to turn off and 2) no chip slot, you are pretty much left with the Kindle Store as your source of books.

And this is as it should be–in a retail universe.

But for schools, we need something more adaptable to different situations and uses. To the extent that the DX follows the design of the K2, it will fall far short of its promise as a device that could make sense in a classroom.

If you want to prep for tonight’s new episode of The Tudors on Showtime, I have pulled a short article from Wikipedia on “The Pilgrimage of Grace” to assist you. As with all these articles, click on the download link and save the file to your computer. Then connect to your Kindle using the USB cord, and drag the article into the “documents” folder on the Kindle, or on the SD card, if you have one installed. You can download the article for your Kindle here.

Why the Pilgrimage? As the series, and the history behind it, progresses, King Henry demonstrates his Machiavellian nature by placating the rebels and then brutally crushing them. In the drama of the series it is easy to miss some or most of the underlying issues that drove the rebellion in the first place. In the article, you will find that the rebels achieved significant goals, even though the outcome was a disaster for the cause (as the monasteries continued to be pillaged and their riches transferred to the royal exchequer).

What did the Pilgrimage accomplish? From the article:

• The government postponed the collection of the October subsidy. This had been a major grievance amongst the Lincolnshire rebels.
• The Statute of Uses was negated by a new law, the Statute of Wills.
• Four of the seven sacraments that were omitted from the Ten Articles, were restored in the Bishop’s Book of 1537. This marked the end of the drift of official doctrine towards Protestantism. The Bishop’s Book was followed by the Six Articles of 1539.
• An onslaught upon heresy was promised in a royal proclamation in 1538.
• Thomas Cromwell was pushed from power in 1540.
• Lady Mary (later Queen Mary I of England) was restored to the succession in 1543.
• The Council of the North was re-established in 1537.

Of course, there is a lot more to say about the Pilgrimage and the individual historical figures involved. You can read more about them as we post additional articles here. Or you could just settle in by the t.v. and watch it all play out before your eyes.

Right after I posted Calendar for Kindle as a free download a few weeks ago, I got a bunch of feedback about how folks would really like it to work. Calendar was intended as a quick reference, but many of you are like me and find it helpful to be able to keep notes and reminders on the Kindle using the keypad (one of the BIG advantages that the Kindle has over other ereaders). In fact, I have found myself using Notepad more and more, sitting at Starbucks or at my daughter’s indoor lacrosse practice, not fumbling for a pen and the back of a store receipt to take a note on. I really like being able to view all my notes at once by selecting “My Notes and Marks” while I have Notepad open.

So, long story short, based on your feedback, I created Planner 2009 for Kindle and you can get it on the Downloads page (see tab above). Here you can keep your date reminders in an orderly way, but still navigate around the year pretty quickly with the linked months on the start page and the “back button.” (I was glad to hear Leslie Nicoll mention this underused navigation resource her Kindle Chronicles interview a week or so ago!) I also included a “Year at a Glance” page and some instructions for use.

Go ahead and grab the Planner for free and let me know what you think!