Digital Sandbox

This Blog is designed to provide the reader with information on how to adopt technology into the classroom by relooking at traditional classroom tools and transitioning into new ways of teaching and learning. The Digital Sandbox explores the future of learning through the recreation of 21st Century learning environments.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

dotEpub and Equitable Mobile Learning Opportunities

When introducing ideas on mobile learning  can be  frustrating to some educators; especially when they know what the future of classroom learning should look like and have limited resources to provide a working classroom model. Realizing now that it is not the idea of mobile learning that they are trying to replicate. It is the ideas on how to provide those tools or resources to make it equitable for all students to have the same opportunities.

Over the past year, I have conducted several workshops on mobile learning in the 21st Century. On every occasion during these sessions teachers have expressed an equitable frustration about students who do not have internet at home. Usually these ideas of reality awareness are expressed within the last ten minutes of my presentations on mobile learning opportunities, those knowledge opportunities that are extended beyond the classroom walls. Inevitably during these closing moments one educator will state openly, usually with emotion, "What about those students who do not have internet access at home?"

It is at this point that the reality for my knowledge of equitable opportunities for technology resources needs to expand. To help teachers find solutions for extended learning opportunities that are derived through technology but are unavailable at home for some families. One solution that is currently on the horizon is to give every student an iPad, or a mobile learning device as a substitute for a textbook.

To take it a step further research on the idea of creating teacher generated text materials through a new conversion format called ePub has come to the forefront of equability. The idea is to help teachers with the process of creating and generating their own text material in ePub format and push the teacher generated assignments out to student mobile devices. In my workshops I have called this idea the "New Alexandrian Libraries." To expand this thought further, on both fronts of equitable access within the mobile learning environment, and the conversion of teacher/student generated text to ePub format, a new open source solution has arrived, dotEpub.


"dotEPUB is free software that allows any webpage to be converted into an e-book. This works on any epub-compatible device including e-readers, tablets, smartphones, netbooks, and desktop computers. This applet gives you the ability to save a webpage now and read later when you don’t have Internet access or to just save those long articles you didn’t have time to read while browsing."

Now students and teachers can convert a webpage into an ebook on an iPad, store the generated eBook in their reader and have the materials needed, to take home for extended learning opportunities. To learn more about how to convert a webpage using dotEpub into an eBook or how to create eBooks select any of the resource post listed below:            

No comments:

Post a Comment