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epubs: From Pages, to DropBox, to iOS Device...

Last weekend I had the opportunity to listen to Meg Wilson present a Classroom 2.0 session on using Pages on the Mac to create epub documents that can then be viewed on iBooks on iOS devices and other devices that can read the epub format. Several of our teachers have been using the method that Meg describes to publish teacher created ebooks to our iOS devices. She did a great job explaining the workflow in Pages and I recommend this session to anyone looking to learn how to create epubs using Pages on the Mac.

Dropbox rather than Sync
One aspect of the workflow that we have used at Lewis is to share the epub books with students via a live link to the epub in a Dropbox folder. Rather than sync our iOS devices with a desktop computer, we place a live link to the epub on our student web page. (We had planned on just uploading the epub files to our student web site but we discovered that our WordPress install will not accept an epub file format. The Dropbox method is a work around.) Students then use Safari on their iOS device and visit the web page with the epub link. By clicking on the link, they initiate a download of the epub file and then are prompted to save the epub file to the iOS device. They are presented with an option to open the epub file in iBooks. By clicking the iBooks option, the epub file is opened and saved within the iBooks application. Follow the link to see a few screen shots that highlight the process.

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Clarence Clemons...

“With Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music,” he added. “His life, his memory and his love will live on in that story and in our band.”

That quote by Springsteen is very moving. After the announcement of the passing of Clarence Clemons, I spent the next few hours watching various clips of concerts and performances via YouTube... I still find it amazing that all this material is available. My kids don't quite seem to understand my fascination.

Lloyd Reynold Exhibit at Reed College

http://www.reed.edu/gallery/

On Wednesday, June 15, 2011 I had the opportunity to tour the Lloyd Reynolds exhibit at the Reed College Cooley Art Gallery. Reynolds was a professor at Reed and is seen as a leading influence on many type designers. The exhibit contained examples of his work and historical artifacts from his life and work. Remember that part of the Steve Jobs Stanford commencement speech where he talked about sitting in on calligraphy classes while at Reed College? It all flowed from Lloyd Reynolds... An interesting man, and a very interesting exhibit of his life and work...

Reed is located less than a mile from my school and several of our classes had the opportunity to walk over to reed and tour the exhibit.

Playing with the Canon S95...


This morning I was playing around with my Canon S95 and took the image
above with the Miniature Effect. The S95 is a pocketable camera that
also has a f 2.0 lens. It is is great for low light situations. I
carry it around with me at school and try to take several photos a day
of classroom work and other things I find interesting as I visit
classrooms and wonder the halls.

I also have an Eye-Fi SD card installed, so I can quickly upload
photos to our school Flickr account and then edit them on my iPad and
share them with our community. The s95 is a nice balance between size
and quality.