Web and basic knowledge

In a direct challenge to the conventional school syllabus, Tapscott argues that although it is still important that children have certain basic knowledge, the details, such as the date of the Battle of Hastings, are less important when they can be accessed instantly on the Web.

This is controversial thinking with far-reaching consequences for the way young people are taught and employed. But the book aims to tackle Internet prejudices head on. His conclusion is that "the kids are all right." The best managers and educators will understand that there is much they can learn from this cohort, as well as the other way around. His seven guidelines for managers include a recommendation to "rethink authority," giving feedback where it is needed but remaining open to learning from young employees.
Other guidelines include encouraging employees to blog and avoiding bans on access to social networking sites. Instead, managers should work on ways to harness these technologies to promote better collaboration.

The book is a thoughtful antithesis to entrenched and sometimes alarmist managerial opposition to Internet-influenced behaviors. Read it next to the computer, scanning, flicking through and annotating it as a valuable addition to the Internet knowledge that is revolutionizing our world.

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PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

Replacing textbooks to get Kindle-type devices

Chris Dawson over at ZDNet Education wrote a great post about what it would take to get Kindle-type devices or paperless educational curricula to replace textbooks and reading lists in elementary school and high school, and some of the problems that would have to be addressed.

Indeed, to get Kindles in the hand of 5th graders, we’re going to have to think about battle hardening the devices (think a companies like Motorola Symbol Technologies or Panasonic’s Toughbook division stepping in to help) and having them owned by the schools, because unless the prices of these things drop to the point where the replacement costs are roughly equivalent to what it currently costs to outfit kids with textbooks and literature for a wear and tear lifetime of 3 to 5 years, it’s going to be a non-starter — kids are going to lose these things and destroy them.

This of course, is assuming your kids don’t go to a school district where textbooks are 30 years old because of budgetary issues.

Also Read: OLPC is dead… What Kindlenomics taught us

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -

PHONEREADER Library - - Jean-Philippe Pastor

Textbooks via Ebooks for universities

With the announcement that universities in the US are looking to distribute textbooks via e-books rather than the tower of paper we were all used to, is it time for the e-book to make its way into the mainstream?

But who are the runners and riders, what does the future hold, and it is the end of the paperback as we know it? Let's quickly look at what an e-book is before we go on to see which e-books are leading the pack in the market. All the devices here use a technology called E Ink. E Ink is a type of electronic paper manufactured by E Ink Corporation.

Basically electronic ink displays are made up of millions of tiny microcapsules, about the diameter of a human hair. Each microcapsule contains positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles suspended in a clear fluid. When a negative electric field is applied, the white particles move to the top of the microcapsule to become visible to the reader. This makes the surface appear white at that spot.

At the same time, an opposite electric field pulls the black particles to the bottom of the microcapsules where they are hidden. By reversing this process, the black particles appear at the top of the capsule, which now makes the surface appear dark at that spot. To form an E Ink electronic display, the ink is printed onto a sheet of plastic film that is laminated to a layer of circuitry. The circuitry forms a pattern of pixels that can then be controlled by a display driver. This in the real world means a number of things, but most importantly that you don't get the glare normally associated with LCD displays, and additionally battery power is only needed to change the microcapsules on the display you can achieve greater battery efficiency.

So what are the players (or should I say readers) in the market?

The Sony Reader Digital Book .

The iRex iLiad reader

The Bookeen Cybook Gen3

The Kindle

The Readius

The HP e-book reader

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts - Jean-Philippe Pastor

Education and Hypertext to JD Bolter

Roy Christopher: Hypertext will greatly influence/wholly form the next paradigm of education. Do you agree?

JDBolter: The influence of hypertext on education will come about because of and through the World Wide Web. It is amazing to me how quickly and easily the computer, the Internet, and the Web are being accepted into American education. Compare the reception of the other ‘new media’ of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: photography, film, radio, and television. American education has given only a marginal place to these media, and, at least in the case of television, it has been openly hostile. None of these media forms has seriously challenged the textbook as our main educational resource. On the other hand, there is a near consensus that computers belong in schools, that schools should be hooked to the Internet, and that students should be given (censored) access to the Web and in many cases should learn to create their own Web pages. This ‘networking’ of American education may result in a hypertextual style of writing. I think the principal effect, however, will be more emphasis on visual communication: using images in addition to or in place of words. This could be significant, when we remember that American education has been principally verbal for centuries. Learning to read and write (words) has been the center of the educational process. I’m not predicting that verbal literacy will cease to be important, but I do think that visual literacy may began to claim a place in our educational programs.

Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts -