ePubs... offer more than enough...

Only days after the iPad (v1) was released, a few peeps from my  PLN and I began playing with the possibilities which ePubs present to education. Not the amazing storybook angle nor the groovy app approach, just the possibility of how to make a simple resource that will support students... (embedded dictionary anyone? How about note taking and highlighting...? )  When travelling to and from school when connectivity can be patchy or beyond their means students can continue to enjoy the pearls of wisdom threaded throughout the ePub. 

Sometimes simple trumps complex especially when time frame are short you still need time to walk the dog, cook a meal or spend time with family. So the trinity of  purpose, context and audience comes to the fore. A discerning user of the technology recognises this three elements. 

Operating in a text book free 1:1 learning environment has made it easy to explore the possibilities and yet... expose the inherent weakness of the format. ePubs do not replace wikis or the web itself. (as if it could or would)  Limitations of media file size, layout demands (in those early days) and a lack of understanding left us scratching our heads. ePubs were not Arthur nor Martha.

When students and teachers are already connected and accustomed to the power of wikis for everything educational, an ePub can seem like an irrelevant cousin... until students began responding to learning tasks by making ePubs...
...and we began to understand how to take advantage of the note taking and reference elements in built into the ePub format... 

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