Using epubs in class

What are the challenges of using epubs in a classroom?

I think some come from having students who use various media formats (e.g., some iPads, some Kindles, some print, some PC) so it takes longer to get everyone literally "on the same page." It can be more challenging to teach when students have varying materials. (Or maybe it requires a different style-- a thought for later).

There is also the difficulty of comparing two disparate pages (e.g., a table on one page with a report on another.

I want to research the idea of "close reading" to understand the components. Part of it is annotation-- but annotating what? How is that done digitally (depends on what the device and text format permits) and then how does the user reasonably re-access those notes?

How does highlighting impact close reading since highlighting is available on many ereader devices? What are the best models for highlighting-- use different colors for different text functions? different characters in a novel? different major concepts? or relative to the reader (red "I disagree," green "I agree" or emotional reaction).

Jane Fife, who directs our Writing Center (email communication 6/28/12) suggests a series of methods for using color coding:

• "I think that highlighting by color could be a really helpful shortcut when what you're looking for can be lumped into two or three categories.
• I could imagine in classes where they're learning to read research articles that highlighting text according to whether the author is presenting ideas in sources to agree or disagree with them l and a third color for the parts where the author introduces his/her new ideas/implications .
• Or a variation in two colors--where is it the source talking and where is it the author. Primary sources, secondary sources, anecdotal evidence. 
• You could also color code for categories that go with a particular kind of analysis--like logos, pathos, ethos for a kick-start of rhetorical analysis.
• For an article review/analysis, they could color code for parts they see as strengths vs. weaknesses and then another for implications/gaps/places the argument could be extended.
•  I imagine that the three-color highlighting potential could help cover a whole lot of category sets for different types of analyses.
• Sometimes I just have them mark distinctive words or phrases that stand out to them as particularly distinctive, striking or powerful when they're doing a rhetorical or stylistic analysis and they can go back later and determine what was striking about each one. "

For awhile I think we'll have to use an array of reading tools-- different sorts of versions of the text (print, electronic) in order to take advantage of the strengths of both.

Thanks Jane!

For more on her ideas:

Fife, J. (2010). Bringing outside texts in and inside texts out. In J. Harris, J. Miles & C. Paine (Eds.), Teaching with Student Texts: Essays Toward Informed Practice (pp. 220-228). Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.

Tick Tock

What happened to the last week plus? Life just gets in the way of writing. It's so discourteous that way. I have at least had one insight, unrelated to my topic (at least on first inspection). It seems that I'm in an abusive relationship with Mexican food-- it keeps beating me up but I keep going back to it "This time all will be well...."  I suppose we are all capable of self-delusion. Knowing when to get off the train is the challenge.

More on topic, I have joined Text and Academic Authors Association (http://www.taaonline.net/) . I wanted to see what they had on digital publishing/ebooks and so far I have seen a few bits but I was expecting them to be "abuzz" with conversation about that which is changing the pre-existing models of publication. I thought maybe it was just this group or I haven't yet learned to search their resources effectively, but a friend returned from ISTE (http://www.iste.org/welcome.aspx), having gone with the particular mission of finding out what others are doing with epub and she didn't see much either among the tech-oriented.

I'm still contemplating the nature of a "book." Length has been part of that definition but that seems superficial and at least partly grounded in publication/profit-margin expectations. What is the intellectual reason to bring information together in a larger collection, especially in an age of Google? It's easy to say "for deeper intellectual engagement" and maybe that is enough.

I've been thinking of this in juxtaposition with viewing Joe Kraus on "We're creating a culture of distraction" (May 25, 2012).

http://joekraus.com/were-creating-a-culture-of-distraction The bit I particularly liked was his notion of slow technology. One of his ideas is to think of how technology were to change if, instead of being designed for "productivity" at work (at its heart), it were designed for other goals, such as

• causing insight or
• imagination or
• humaneness or
• creativity or
• building real connections with people or
• even simply building a longer attention span or
• mindfulness,
• He envisions a technology that affirms boredom or reflection or pauses in life.

I think epubs may contribute to that, it may be a slow technology and that may also be why it isn't on the radar of "fast twitch" techies (to use Kraus' term). I'm put in mind of the turtle and the hare. The hare had an iPhone. The turtle carried a book (whatever that is).

Join me in the game. Pause a moment and pick one of those topics then critically analyze a tool you have used for how it advances that goal. Or envision what slow technology would you create? (How long before you turn away from the task?)

I think of "fire" which clearly helps us to gather together and spend time with one another in slow, potentially thoughtful ways. Yes, I think of Scrivener (you knew I'd mention that software) and how it helps me see the big picture, a distinct different style from softwares that are linear like Word.

Of course none of these will do us any good if we aren't willing or able to pause. And perhaps that brings me back to my beginning with either an insight or a rationalization....maybe time away from writing is part of pausing and incubation. Even if that pause is due to Mexican food. 

Augmented Reality Book

So some folk are playing with making information "pop" out of a "book" via reading the book and then displaying on the computer a 3-d image.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pGyFjgvBbE&feature=related 

Definitely cool, wish I could do it, but it seems a bit cludgy.

iPad iBooks report

Heard from a colleague who is experimenting with iBooks. She is unhappy with the publishing system-- has tried 4 times and it hasn't gone through, plus it only works on an iPad. On the plus side she likes all the interaction (review questions, videos). She can export it as pdf but the interactive pieces don't come through. She is looking for a better option.

Based on my research InDesign may be it, at least as far as video.

I'm still concerned about accessibility issues and maintenance as well as file size.  I prefer to start simpler and then go more elaborate...I also want to design for cell phones. ...but the "interactive bits" are motivating to many students.

Scrivener Report: Template

This week I've been creating an online course. I've been simultaneously working on a course template for those wanting to use Scrivener for that purpose. It's been fun. Yes, fun. Other than not enough hours in the day. I'm not sure how to get my template saved and then re-used.

Warning: The Earth is About to Move

Okay, maybe not the earth, but any book about the earth. I've been reading "Electronic Text Editing" (ed by Burnard, O'Keefe, and Unsworth, 2006, Modern Language Association of America) trying to discern the essence of "book." 

Seems a book is really a database of some linear and other poorly sorted information (Buzzetti & McGann, "Critical editing in a digital horizon" p. 53-73)

There is
a) the content (an abstraction without form)

b) symbols that contribute to conveying the content (e.g., letters)

c) Markup language (e.g., punctuation but also html type such as  <title>, or more precisely DTD (document type definitions)). There’s a whole group called the Text Encoding Initiative http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_Encoding_Initiative  that has come up with 500 plus textual  components. Thanks to Terry Elliott for this bit of information.

d) A knowledge representation scheme—a model for relating the content with the process (markup). I’m thinking they mean a print book or e-text.

Then, throw in the interpretation of the reader and the whole thing “shakes.” A book is a very unstable thing.

Are digital media strong enough to "contain all that a book is?" or perhaps they are the only container that can hold all the possibilities of a modern book--the options for searching, the way we may record or create DTD to add new levels to the experience of "book."

Is the markup part of the authoring of a book? or is it part of the societal context? There's a dual nature here, like that of light as both particle and wave.  A book stills in a moment of non-reading to be a particle, and then when interpreted, when read, shifts form into a series of processes impacting on the reader who impacts on it in a self-reflective cycle.

In related news, it seems our distant ancestors may have been creating animation on those cave walls: http://news.discovery.com/history/prehistoric-movies-120608.html watch the video.  Perhaps the shift of "transcribed work" has always been around.

"Media" comes from Latin for medius, the middle. Perhaps all media have always been in that tense place "in between."

Scrivener Report: Epub Issues

I continue to learn Scrivener and am beginning to appreciate its subtleties and points where I need to take it outside to Word.  I compiled some documents and looked at them on my e-reader and it assumes menu items like this: Chapter 1.  I don't see any way yet to alter that. So I took to opening the Scrivener epub in Sigel and modifying the look there. For something in which appearance mattered a great deal, I'd probably go by way of Word. Or just start with it stripped of code.  I'll see what the next version is like.