Using camera phones for education

Many students around the world have more computer power in their pockets than exists in the classroom. School's fret because camera phones can be used to invade privacy but they can also be use for a wide array of educational purposes such as:

• Photos of work
• Photos and video of excursions
• Produce vod casts.
• Photograph down a microscope
• Tape audio of a class to listen to later.
• Tape audio to make a podcase.... and the list goes on.

Once media is collected it can be mixed and presented as a video... here is an example of a video I made from an excursion to the Melbourne Aquarium. Every kid should be able to do this at school!

Sony ereader

Finally I lashed out and bought a Sony E-reader, despite having a mac and living in Australia. Why did I buy it? 

     Because I can put 100's of books to read on it, no flickering screen, no light shining in my eyes.

Where did I buy it? 

     Ebay - and got it sent from the USA.

How can I get it to work with the mac? 

     I use libprs500 a free software package to synchronise books and electonic mgazines with it.

How do I get books when they only sell to USA customers through their online store?

    I buy in microsoft reader (.lit) format from other online stores (ebooks.com is the best for professional and academic books). To dowload in the mac I use internet explorer in a vm-ware fusion windows xpvirtual machine - but you can buy and download on any windows machine. Within windows I use a piece of software to remove the DRM protection. Then I switch back to MAC and use libprs to convert and load the .lit book onto the ereader as a sony file. 

I have read that sony is working on implementing Adobe Reader compatibility. This is an absolute must- or they need to open their online bookshop to the whole word. Adobe reader format can be downloaded and read on the mac- if they can then be synchronised with the ereader this would be a whole lot easier.

Ultimately when this technology decreases in cost, allows some sharing or once off reselling, and moves to color- I can see it largely replacing books within 10-15 years. Of course it doesn't have the interactivity and collaborativity so necessary for generation Y, but for the rest of us, who like to read more rather than spout our own opinions... it will be perfect.