Episode 119 - A conversation about ebooks for educators

It’s Friday April 29th, 2011 and welcome to episode 119 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. We’ve got a real treat for you on todays show as we will be talking about ebooks. Ebooks have been in the news a lot lately and many schools and universities are considering their use on a wider scale in the classroom. While ebooks have been around for a number of years now many schools and universities are considering school-wide implementations. There are however a number of issues that need to be worked out before a successful ebook program can be implemented on a larger scale.



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(40 minutes 58 seconds)


For todays show we talk with Karen Whisler who is the Head of Collection Development at Booth Library here on the campus of Eastern Illinois University. On the surface ebooks look so easy to use and we educators often see articles extolling the virtues of ebooks, but there are also a number of challenges with implementing a successful ebook program. Gadgets are constantly changing, ebook formats are evolving, Digital Rights Management and licensing fees need to be addressed on the front end before an ebook program can be successfully implemented.

So, without further delay here is my interview with Karen Whisler about ebooks for educators from earlier this week.

Kindle and Library Lending
http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/20/kindle-library-lending/

Eastern Illinois University Booth Library
http://www.library.eiu.edu/welcome.html

Booth Library - Books, Videos, and More
http://www.library.eiu.edu/resources/books.html

Technology Pick of the Week
For my Technology Pick of the Week this week I would like to encourage everyone to take a look at MyMediaMall and Overdrive. I have provided links in the shownotes to MyMediaMall as well as the Overdrive software that you will need. This is a wonderful resource that is available at many libraries across the country.

http://www.mymediamall.net/3A79CF6F-75E4-4CAF-B211-1D584C42E1CF/10/342/en/Default.htm

http://www.overdrive.com/software/omc/


If you are a faculty, staff, or student here at EIU you already have access to MyMediaMall here on campus and also off-campus if you use your EIU Library Card number to logon.

For others in Illinois many local libraries, such as mine, also offer the MyMediaMall service to their patrons. If you are in a different state or country be sure to checkout your options as MyMediaMall advertises itself as a global company. If you are outside the United States please drop us an email if you can access MyMediaMall or if you are using some other service to access ebooks.

Since we are coming up on the summer months I encourage you all to give MyMediaMall a try. I use MyMediaMall for both ebooks and audio books and it is one way that I keep up-to-date on current topics of interest to me. It is also great for recreational reading or listening.

I would also like to ask, what’s on your reading list for the summer? If you are interested you can leave a comment on our TechTalk4Teachers blog with your reading recommendations for other educators. I mentioned the ebook Blink by Malcolm Galdwell and I downloaded the audio version of this book to my Zune and am listening to it now. It is 7 hours of audio content which is a lot but because I can listen to it when I am doing other things I can multi-task.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
http://www.mymediamall.net/3A79CF6F-75E4-4CAF-B211-1D584C42E1CF/10/342/en/ContentDetails.htm?ID=0FC87C78-8E45-4829-BD99-3210CBE9FEFE

If you have a long commute audio books are a great way to access content you might not otherwise get to and maybe make your drive a little more enjoyable. Many cars have AUX ports in the Radio to plug in a MP3 player so you can use the car radio speakers to listen. Audio books are also great to listen to while exercising or doing household chores.

That wraps it up for episode 119 of Tech Talk for Teachers. I want to thank Karen Whisler for being our guest on todays show and sharing her wealth of knowledge on the topic of ebooks. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom. Keep on learning…

Tom Grissom, Ph.D.