Hello all.
As my first post I would like to start a thread discussing what would entail a good e-book device for educational purposes. What would be needed both on software and hardware front.
So far I have made a "requirements" document as follows. Please comment on it and expand it. Let's discuss it, maybe one day we can hold it in our hands, thinking about all the suggestions we made for it to become a good working tool.
1. Hardware requirements
Dual screen book layout where the screens are protected in closed condition
A4 screen or slightly larger (this format has to be decided up front, and no later changing it, this allows for publishing companies to know what to expect layout wise)
No buttons: except for power, reset , volume buttons, mute button and maybe a back to start screen (or library), and maybe a second row of up to five buttons placed along the screen to allow for adaptable (according to the current ebook needs) functions (wilcard buttons)
Touch-screen interface: with fingers and with stylus
Sound output through headphones or speakers (working with two or more, at home with parents,
)
Microphone input
Battery life which can withstand a full school day (10+ hours) of intensive use with sound, note taking,
Rugged so that it can survive the harshness of K12 school-life, preferably hard plastic instead of glass.
Wifi-connectivity
Enough disk-space to store lots of books, sound and notes (at this moment I would say around 64 GB to 128 GB)
16 shades of grey and in the near future at least 256 bit of color.
A compartment allowing the pupil to easily put in: stylus, spare stylus, head-phones and microphone
No screen glare (if possible)
Allowing screen protectors to prevent scratches from daily note taking
Screen outset and not inset to allow for rulers and such to be used
2. Software requirements
Stable software (even after a crash a pupil needs to be able to recover any made work)
Open source software
Easy library management
Intuitive interface
Good OCR recognition including handwritten characters (maybe based on movements made during writing)
Inter E-books operations
Dictionary support, including translating dictionaries
Good communication between e-book devices and computer:
i. Teachers pushes screen to one or more e-books
ii. Teacher can pull screens of a pupils e-book
iii. Teacher can lock the e-books of pupils: no display, no input, no dictionary lookup, no leaving the current pages, book, test,
iv. If a pupils device leaves the influence of the teachers e-book device, control is surrendered back to the e-book of the pupil (preventing locking mishaps when going home,
)
An e-book format: which can be reflowable, but at the same time allows for fixed positioning
Note taking should be easy to do and easy to correct
A teacher should be able to swiftly gather notes from the students devices, for archival purposes. E.g. Tests taking need to be archived for many years.
Note taking should be versioned so that a teacher can see the original, his corrections, the pupils corrections,
An interface which allows the teacher easy control over the pupils e-book devices
Text-to-speech software with several voices, publishing firms could provide their own voices with their books.
E-book format allowing for sublevel speech hinting, allowing books to be read aloud to those pupils having dyslexy.
The interface should support easy access to the internet (withstanding support for moving images (but who knows what the future of e-ink brings))
Selfcorrecting software allowing for exercises at the level of the pupil.
School and internet-library access could be integrated so that students can easily be offered more reading material and this on a lending basis limited in time
3. Musings
This new to develop device should first and foremost enhance the capabilities of the learning tools. This e-book device with the appropriate software would allow also sound (including text-to-speech), voice recording (learning languages,
), auto corrected exercises (with no teacher involvement). Also this devices would allow students to work more individually as the software could explain the necessary things with sound and the teacher can help then those who need it.
Interaction between teacher, pupil, e-book devices, computers and not forgetting the interactive whiteboards would allow for more easy transfer of knowledge in any formation: individually, selected pupils or the entire class.
The dual screen interface would also work much better for providing the necessary screen estate to simultaneously show a text book and a work sheet.
This device would also be a benefit for the pupils to be able to drag all of their stuff home, including dictionaries, atlas, encyclopedia,
and all of this without breaking their backs. All you would really need anymore is your e-book device.
Also if there are mistakes in the provided e-books a quick update is all that is needed to correct the mistake, instead of re-printing those books for a few mistakes.
Please let me know what you think. Append what I have forgotten as of yet. Maybe if we have worked out a solid idea we could step to a company like the OLPC to develop the hardware and software for such a device.
Cavelion