Libraries are a great source for ebooks

Most public libraries have audio ebooks, and an increasing number are carrying electronic audio and text ebooks that you can download from a web site and use on mobile devices. I've been seeing many that have ebooks in the Mobipocket format. Below is a list of just a few.

Moipocket is a great format (much more usable than PDFs) because it works on the desktop, as well as on Palm and PPC. It also supports instructionally beneficial features like highlighting and adding notes.

If you haven't visited your public library's web site lately, check it out!

Also, my next mashup will be on audio ebooks, so stay tuned for that.
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Here are just a few libraries that have Mobipocketebooks:

NY Public Library
Naperville Public Library
DenverPublic Library (They also have "eFlicks." Cool.)
Greater Phoenix Library
King County Library System (WA)
San Jose Public Library
Hawaii State Public Library System

You can look here to see if this is offered in your area.

Mini-movies for learning sight words

I've written before about the power of mini-movies to engage kids and teach core content with mobile technology.

One use of this is for teaching sight words to beginning readers. Here's an example:



These videos are relatively easy to create (or inexpensive to have someone else create). Once they're done, they can be viewed online, on handhelds (Palm or PPC), on iPods or other mobile video players, on game machines, and on DVD players.

One interesting thing we've seen in using mini-movies with kids (especially older middle school kids) is that they are more likely to watch an instructional video repeatedly if they can do it in private. This is one of the advantages of mobile technology.

Free Kids Dictionary Project

For a long while, many of us have seen the need for a free kids dictionary that could be used on mobile devices. Since none seem to exist that are at a kids' level and are "kid appropriate," I've always had an idea to make my own, but haven't done much about it.

Now that's about to change! With my recent growing interest in the Open Education movement and mass collaboration, I'm going to start a collaborative project to create such a dictionary. Most likely, this will be on a wiki platform, like Wikibooks.

The focus will be on having simple kid-appropriate definitions targeted at a grade 5-8 level. Everyone will be able to contribute, and we'll be looking for lots of help!

Then after we have a critical mass of words, we'll download the content and convert it to a variety of platforms, including Mobipocket for handheld use and probably some kind of offline desktop format. We might even do a skinny version for mobile phones.

If you are interested in working on this project, stay tuned for more details. We'll be getting a prototype and perhaps a mailing list together for this soon. And whatever we come up with will freely usable by anyone.

Science podcasts

Awhile back, I posted some links for some science podcasts. This is one of the richest areas for high quality podcasts, and I've put together a new list and mashup of what's available. Enjoy!