Color display, Barnes and Noble partner and a great price

Pandigital, a company best known for creating wireless digital photo frames, took a novel step forward with the introduction of a $200 full-color e-book reader with multimedia capabilities and a Barnes & Noble affiliation. In addition to the unit’s e-reader functionality, you can store photos, music, and movies, and use the device as a photo frame when you’re not reading.

The Down Low

The first version of the Pandigital Novel is a 7-inch eReader with an integrated and very fulfilling Barnes & Noble eBook Store experience. The comparatively large screen is a full-color LCD touch-screen display. It has Wi-Fi connectivity and a full set of reading enhancements, like a dictionary and notetakers. You can run a browser or play music while you read, since it’s multitasking capable, but the Internet search is not integrated into the book experience itself.

One of the cooler things on my list is a night reading mode where the text inverts from black-on-white to white-on-black. (If your spouse complains about your nocturnal reading habits this is a great answer.) It’ll also take advantage of the cutting edge Barnes & Noble LendMe technology, making it one of the first e-readers to work like a 14-day lending library.

I called Ross Rubin, an NPD analyst who monitors e-books, for his opinion. He believes that Amazon and Barnes & Noble have an advantage (presumably over iTunes), since both have vast databases of avid readers. “Barnes & Noble is reaching out to be the default bookstore on such devices as this one, the Plastic Logic device, and the forthcoming RCA e-reader from Audiovox,” says Rubin.

One of the tradeoffs of using an LCD screen is a shorter battery life, significantly shorter than the Kindle’s e-paper screen. One of the other tradeoffs is using Wi-Fi (home and hotspots) versus the Kindle’s data connection that works anywhere.

On the plus side—let’s face it—the iPad, a device with many similar features, costs $500. The Pandigital Novel is $200. The new Pandigital Novel eReader is an Android-based system, though it does not yet support downloadable apps.

The end result? Affordable, handsome, and a welcome contender to the e-reader plus world. It’s on my list as the closest thing to an iPad at one-third the price. And I’m betting that future versions will take more advantage of the Android operating system.

The classic example is Ethan Allen.  Enter the term into Search and you’re out furniture shopping.

But all kids really want to know about Ethan Allen is that he was some great Revolutionary War figure from Vermont.

Wading through a cluster of furniture ads is confusing and takes away from the task at hand.  Other examples: Long John Silver, Madagascar (the movie or the place?)

If Google doesn’t want to create a student version they could simply make it one of the options–like Images, News, or Buzz.  A Student option would tailor searches more to academic terms and less towards advertising.

When the homework’s done you can just click back to regular ‘ole commercially funded Google.  School and homework should be given the importance of having a specific search engine optimized for learning not consuming.

Whaddaya say Goggle?  Introduce a study mode or run the risk of slim pickings for the next generation’s workforce.

]]> http://www.robinraskin.com/blog/2010/02/26/why-google-needs-a-student-version/feed/ http://www.robinraskin.com/blog/2009/09/23/learn-a-language-like-babies-do/ http://www.robinraskin.com/blog/2009/09/23/learn-a-language-like-babies-do/#comments Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:01:08 +0000 admin http://www.robinraskin.com/blog/?p=560 I remember sitting in Dr. Salas’ Spanish class. The sum of the year? I can sing A Las Son Las Mananitas and have a great conversation with anyone who has a cold. (Ojala que se mejore pronto.)

I’ve always felt a little sheepish about comparing a human teacher to a computer, but when it comes to Rosetta Stone’s language immersion software, TOTALe, it’s hard for to give the advantage to Dr. Salas. (Tom Adams, the company’s CEO, would argue that Rosetta Stone was designed as a teaching supplement, and not a replacement, but maybe he didn’t have Dr. Salas.) 

When I met Tom Adams from Rosetta Stone, I was prepared to roll my eyes a bit. I’ve listened to podcasts, visited websites, and made a few other attempts to get my Spanish game back.

Tom explained that the magic sauce behind Rosetta Stone is that it treats you like an infant. Infants learn by matching words to things. Rosetta Stone starts you off with simple pictures and language. But within 10 minutes, just by looking at pictures and hearing words, you’re differentiating between a girl and a boy, girls and boys, men and women, and whether they’re drinking, eating, running, etc. You’ve learned masculine and feminine as well as singular and plural without realizing it.

The second magic ingredient–the one that’s really changed–is the social networking component. In addition to the course, the newest version of the product, Rosetta TOTALe, lets you practice with a live coach, play online language games, meet native speakers, and join groups of people so you can practice at your level. There’s even an Audio Companion that you take with you in the car.

You need a headset and microphone to use to Rosetta Stone. The program checks your pronunciation and inflection. There are scheduled tutorials with native speakers.

The TOTALe approach just adds a level of gravy to an already world-acclaimed way to learn a language. It’s not inexpensive, either. Rosetta Stone costs $999 for a 12-month subscription (regularly priced at $1,100).

Gulp! As much as I’m motivated to improve my Spanish, I have to confess that in the last month I’ve only been able to put in an hour of practice time. That’s an expensive hour! Dr. Salas, on the other hand, was with me every day at 5th period whether I was motivated or not.

I spent two days being a voyeur at ISTE/NECC, a conference about technology’s role in education. It provided me with a welcome call to 21st century education in the classroom. While there wasn’t one single “killer product” on the show floor, the sum of a bunch of solid technologies is giving teachers a real chance at cultivating the original thinking part of their students.

Collaborative Education: We all have memories of the group project where one person did the lion’s share of the work, but the new collaborative tools bring both novelty and structure to group projects. Systems like Promethean’s ActivClassroom, eChalk, and Saywire offer schools complete collaborative systems. Promethean’s is centered on its electronic whiteboard. Saywire includes a suite of social networking tools that includes blogs, wikis, document sharing, and more.

Digital Storytelling: Digital storytelling has become the new buzzword for the old fashioned research paper. Images, audio, first person research, videos, drawing, and other elements create reports that are more lifelike and encompassing than ever before. The student plays the role of multimedia author and a new sort of research product is born. Tools like Google Apps for education and Apple’s iLife are helping students create complex and visually arresting reports. Some good examples of the modern classroom’s projects can be found here.

Distance Learning: There are many who think that the savior of ridiculously priced colleges will be online learning. The cost per student to have access to top notch curriculum and personalized instruction is lower when you eliminate the physical bricks and mortar. Video, online assessment testing, and multimedia  curriculum are the enabling technologies.  The University of Phoenix and Kaplan are the 100-pound gorillas, accredited full degree schools, but watch for newcomers like University of the People (a free degree based on open source curriculum) and institutions like MIT, Stanford, and others to incorporate online components into their regular courses of study.

Personalization: What happens to the student who’s never learned his multiplication tables? As he progresses through the school curriculum, he never recovers from missing a piece of the puzzle. Students who fail to master basic concepts fall behind forever. Software and hardware that can track a student’s progress, giving them remedial or accelerated instruction as needed, sometimes tailored to their specific learning style, provides some assurance that every student will master a unit of information before moving to the next. Solutions include products like McGraw-Hill’s Acuity Unwired, which relies on hardware clickers distributed to students who use them to “click” on an answer and makes tracking progress easy. My eCoach offers a full solution for individualized lessons.

Learning Games: There’s a part of school life that is just a big game of Jeopardy—with laundry lists of facts and figures. Sites like BrainPOP that teach odd facts in strange and humorously hip ways have their place in the classroom.

eBooks: E-books may not be particularly satisfying for reading the next great novel, but there’s a lot to like about them as textbook replacements. They are easier on the back, easier on the pocketbook, and easier on the eyes (with adjustable fonts). With tools for underlining, note taking, web lookup, and immediate downloads, they hold tremendous potential to be more powerful than a traditional book. The Kindle DX, with its larger screen format, is currently being tested as a textbook replacement in five universities.

Electronic Smartboards: Blackboards are erased without a trace, but smartboards keep the knowledge flowing. A teacher at a smartboard can “write on the board,” interact with software and the web, track student progress, and record lectures and then distribute content to the entire class.  Blackboard is the big kahuna in this category, but some of the most interesting products you’ll see in this space are ones like mimio that turn any wall surface into a smart electronic board.

Amazon announced two major partnerships: one for students and one for newspaper readers. In a partnership with three of the top five textbook publishers, trials are being held at five well-known college campuses including Princeton, Case-Western, Reed College, University of Virginia, and Arizona State. Expensive textbooks—obsolete almost before the ink dries—will be available for the Kindle. Even the most heavily formatted calculus and anatomy books look quite lovely on the Kindle display. Students will have lighter loads and clearly save money over the course of four years at over $1,000 a year in textbooks.

Not a moment too soon, three ailing newspapers—The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe—will be offering their readers special discounts on a Kindle DX when they sign up for newspaper delivery. While details haven’t been announced, it’s clear we’re talking about saving trees as well as money.

The new Kindle DX is also a more open system. It’ll read PDF files, play music, and even convert the written word into speech. It’s got enough storage to house 3,500 books and uses the same 3G wireless network to download a book in less than 60 seconds with no subscription fees or service charges.

In terms of new technology, the Kindle is only a modest upgrade—a jumbo-sized version of its former self. In terms of creating a new e-book market that serves students and newspaper readers, Amazon strikes gold. When you can purchase content and have the Kindle discounted we all win.

For more:
A website for all things Kindle: http://ireaderreview.com/2009/05/06/kindle-dx-review/

For history buffs, Stephen Levy saw it all coming in this 2007 Newsweek article http://www.newsweek.com/id/70983

:

The site and its cable TV channel, Disney XD, is targeted at boys ages 6-14 and replaces the Toon Disney channel. The new channel combines a smorgasbord of content from Disney’s more testosterone-laden properties: Disney Channels Worldwide, ABC Cable Networks Group, Disney Online, and ESPN.

The XD network features sports and video games, live action games, and social networking. Theoretically, it aims to satisfy the “new boy” – one who’s a bit more sensitive and in touch than boys of yore. The company has already announced a live action game called Aaron Stone, an original series about a boy with a secret life as a crimefighter.

A few years ago I wrote a lament for boys, who’ve been marginalized into farting, burping goofballs by many media creators. Contrast them to girls from Legally Blonde to High School Musical, where they may be into shopping and frills but they’re also quite brainy.

It remains to be seen whether Disney is creating a place for the same old jerky guys or the new, sensitive 6-14 year-old. It also remains to be seen whether the opposite sex will cross the chasm and join them for a little competitive action as well.

Last year my book, The Parents’ Guide to College Life (shameful plug), talked about the gestalt of being a college parent (from allowances to where to store their things every summer). This year I looked at technology on campus in a series of posts on my site at Yahoo! Reading through them should give you a good picture of high tech campus life.

You can read about Gear for the College Freshman: After paying for textbooks for the next four years, the biggest expense your students will have in college (other than tuition and board) is electronics. The average freshman family spends nearly $1,000 when they head back to school. Here are some reasonably priced, but excellent gear and gadgets.

Favorite Time Wasters: And since campus life is not all work, work, work here’s some gear to let loose for a bit.

My colleague, Ben Patterson, looked at the top texting cellphones for the college set.

The college campus today is certainly different from the one I went to with its mainframe computer and punchcards. Here’s a glimpse of just how lazy you can get on today’s wired campuses.

And a look at how today’s professors feel about lecturing a group of typists pounding away while they’re speaking. The classroom has been invaded by technology and professors have mixed reactions.

And a look at what schools are doing to combat high tech cheating.

Finally, here’s a look at some web-based reference sites that students will find handy.

Last week USA Today reported that parents are rushing to Facebook to check out their kid’s freshman roommates. If they don’t like what they see, some get on the phone to with the college office to request a roommate change on their child’s behalf.

How many red flags do you see with this behavior?

First, there’s a parent intervening in their child’s relationship with their college. It might have been acceptable to call the school when your child was in second grade and intervene on their behalf; not when they’re off to college.

Second, parents are reinforcing the notion that snap judgments about people are OK. The college administrators report that parents are most concerned about seeing Facebook profiles that contain excessive partying photos. They also react to a potential roommate’s sexual orientation, race, or religion (these are often made abundantly clear in the student’s Facebook profiles). And certainly they react when they read or see instances of drug or alcohol use on the potential roommate’s Facebook page.

Parents are not the only ones pouring over Facebook profiles. Kids are checking out their new classmates and making their own judgments before they ever set foot on campus. In an article in the Baltimore Sun, the author says that with access to Facebook “any freshmen already will have formed cliques and crushes, traded tips on classes, dissected roommates’ pop-cultural tastes, planned parties. and scoped out likely nemeses.”

So what do you do? For parents: In a word, look but don’t touch. Who wouldn’t be tempted to check out their child’s future roommate? But it should stop at the check out. Unless the profile claims that the student has done time for murder or larceny, whatever happens between the roommate and your child should happen without your intervention.

If you’re a student go ahead and get comfortable with your new world by using Facebook. But please, check your biases and prejudices at the dorm room door. It’s OK to bring your Facebook with you, but not your preconceived notions about a person based on a Facebook profile. College is a time to open your mind, not close it.

How can I find out about crimes on campus?

According to the Clery Act, colleges and universities are required by law to file annual reports on campus crime. Schools must also make timely warnings to the campus community anytime something that poses a threat to the community happens. You can find a list of campus crimes at The Department of Education’s web site and visit Securityoncampus for good information.

What is the school’s notification system in the event of an emergency?

Some schools use email, some have students’ cell phone numbers, and some schools are even looking at using text messaging and Facebook as part of a campus alert system. Every campus should have an explicit notification system that students know about.

What can I observe on campus to let me know it’s a safe school?

Nothing in life guaranteed, but typically, on-campus private security guards, good campus lighting, a system of emergency call boxes, and video cameras on campus are all signs of a well-protected campus. Unfortunately dark, poorly lit areas may be romantic, but less safe.

Dorms that use electronic keys (which can be deactivated if a student is no longer on campus) are much safer than dorms with traditional keys. Traditional keys require changing the locks, something that seldom happens. Look for good window and door locks, too.

Does the school encourage a culture of partying?

Parents can pick up subtle clues. Look in the dumpsters. Are they filled with empty alcohol bottles? Look for bars in close proximity to campus. Do they advertise “2-for-1” or “finals week” specials? Check to see if the school has a policy about underage drinking and how it is enforced. Look at the lists of “party schools” generated by the college guidebooks to get an idea of the culture.

How prevalent are mental health issues on campus?

Unfortunately, studies suggest that more and more students are either on prescription drugs or suffering from depression or stress. Parents should ask about the campus’ programs and facilities, including things like time and stress management and activities to encourage other than solitary studying. Make sure you know the type of mental health services the college offers. If possible, meet the RA (resident advisor, typically an upper classperson who’s the students’ first line of contact in the event of problems).

Parents need to be in touch with their children often enough to recognize unusual or disturbing patterns. Sleeping all day for one day or saying that they’re depressed is not a problem. Sleeping every day and complaining of chronic stress and depression is. Use CampusBlues and ActiveMindsOnCampus as two good resources.

How common is rape on campus?

Research indicates that college students are more vulnerable to rape than any other age group. Parents should find out if the campus has programs in place to discuss how to stay safe from sexual assault. Parents can remind their students to go out in groups or to leave word with a roommate or friend when they go out on a date. Encourage them to go on first dates in public places, not to someone’s room. Check to see whether or not the campus has well-lit paths at night and whether there is some sort of escort service for getting back to their dorm after hours.

What are my rights as a parent?

Less than you would think. Because a student’s privacy needs to be protected many schools do not share students’ grades, medical issues, or sometimes even their transgressions with parents. Sometimes a school will notify a parent if there’s a repeated problem (the three strikes rule) and sometimes they will notify a parent if the child is in imminent danger or endangering their community. Find out what your school’s policy is towards keeping parents informed of problems.