Archive | technology RSS feed for this section

New MediaShift Post: Kids’ Magazines on the iPad

17 May
Child With Red Hair Surfing, after Lilla Cabot Perry

Photo by Mike Licht on Flickr.

I have a new story up at PBS MediaShift on kids’ magazines making the move to the iPad — or, in some cases, growing up solely for the iPad.

My favorite aspect of this piece is what I learned about how apps might enable kids to read socially — discussing stories with one another in a safe environment, contributing their own thoughts and ideas to the publication, developing their critical reading skills in entirely new ways:

“Children’s magazines are wonderful for creating a sense of community,” Letvin said. She anticipates a time when “digital magazines are able to do some of these things, including some social connections, particularly if it involves international contexts with other schools.”

Timbuktu includes a section called “Ask Auntie Rita” that uses letters from children. Favilli says they hope to open the section to readers’ letters in the next issue, which could be written by Timbuktu’s worldwide audience and submitted within the magazine app.
I love to think about the ways that these digital magazines might make kids better readers and also more globally conscious, connected citizens. There’s amazing potential here if publishers and educators can find the right ways to develop it.

Finally, a Satisfying iPad Magazine Experience

15 Apr

So I decided I might like to get a subscription to Bloomberg Businessweek. It’s a magazine that’s popped up on my radar a few times lately, both for some interesting longer stories and for its innovative design.

March 22 cover, via AisleOne.net

I explored my subscription options:

  • Through the Businessweek website: 50 issues plus 4 “bonus issues” for $40, including a free subscription to digital iPad editions ($ .74/issue)
  • Through Zinio, the digital magazine newsstand company: $46 for 51 issues, digital replica-style ($ .90/issue…wait, 22% more for digital only? Nope.)
  • Through the new Bloomberg Businessweek+ app for iPad (iTunes link): $2.99/month, charged automatically each month through the Apple in-app purchase function. (free for print subscribers, or about $ .75/issue for non-subscribers)

I really wanted only a digital edition because this weekly magazine will hit my recycle bin so often, and because business isn’t a huge personal interest for me. The price is reasonable. (Businessweek will get $2.09/month after Apple’s 30% cut.)

While it might not let me experience the magazine’s intriguing print design, the iPad app is a good deal comparatively – and received rave reviews on iTunes – and so I tried it out.

I have to say: I’m impressed. The first issue did take a few minutes to download, but far fewer than the 11 minutes required by the free May iPad edition of Wired (iTunes link) that I downloaded this morning. A few interesting moments in the app are below:

Provide my personal data to Businessweek? Hmm...

Downloading my first issue (bottom right), with previous issues available for individual purchase

Watching an introductory video linked to the cover images, with editors explaining the chicken on the cover

Finding topics connected to the names mentioned in the story and realtime data through the Related button

Integrated social media connections...yes!

So far, I’m pretty impressed with the app. It provides enriched content, beyond just a digital replica, that is smartly designed for greater usability, not mere novelty. It’s reasonably priced, easy to access, and has clean design. It will automatically alert me to new issues.

It lets me stay in my social reading mode that I have come to enjoy so much, rather than putting me in the “walled garden” so common among digital magazines to date.

And, finally, there’s just the right amount of interactivity – enough that it’s interesting and suits the iPad, but not so much that I’m distracted from reading, which is still – obviously – a major draw of magazines.

My only tiny issue? I wish there were pagination for stories, not just scrolling; personally, I’m a more effective reader in Instapaper’s pagination mode, and I’d prefer it here too. But I can live without it for now.

Worth $ .75/week? Time will tell – but this is an auspicious start.

Two more reviews are here and here for some additional perspectives. Add your thoughts in the comments.

More Teaching Ideas for the iPad

7 Jan

The Atomic Web Browser app - an iPad alternative to Safari.

I’m excited to start my first full semester with an iPad at hand, ready for use in the classroom. I’ve found some ways to work around the frustrations I encountered in my first attempt to teach with the iPad, so here are some of my new strategies and plans for using the iPad during teaching.

Projecting the Web

I’ve downloaded Atomic Web Browser for 99 cents, which will project web content through the VGA connector. This is a major advantage over Safari for iPad. I also much prefer the tabbed browsing offered by this browser to the page system in Safari, as it’s more convenient both for casual reading and for pre-loading a selection of web pages prior to the start of class and easily switching among them. It also supports multi-touch, which is nice when you’ve become accustomed to that capability elsewhere.

Blackboard on the iPad

Starting up the Blackboard Mobile Learn iPad app.

(Setting aside the variety of problems with Blackboard itself for a moment…) The new Blackboard Mobile Learn app is much improved from its previous versions, which for me were essentially useless. You can do a lot of what you can on the web through the app at this point, so administering your class activities on the move during class time (or from your couch at home) is now much more feasible.

Teaching Writing

The iCardSort app in action.

I’m not teaching a writing course this spring, but I can see how some apps I’ve started using for myself are going to be very helpful in working with students on their projects. For example, iCardSort, a free iPad app, can be used to show students how to brainstorm and organize their ideas for a new project. Outliner (currently $4.99) can be the next step in the process, generating a clear outline for the project that can be easily manipulated. (I use Inspiration for outlining on my laptop, though I may move to something with a better UI sometime soon.)

Using the Outliner app for one of my own research projects.

For the more visually oriented, a mindmapping app like iThoughts HD ($9.99) might be a better option, though I haven’t tried it myself. iThoughts HD will apparently also project through the VGA connector, so an all-class brainstorm session for writing projects or other topics is an exciting possibility. Unlike a whiteboard activity, the iThoughts HD session can be saved as PDF and shared with the class in a more permanent form. (Hmm – I may have to buy this one after all.)

When I do teach writing again, I’m also really looking forward to being able to walk around the computer lab with the iPad and immediately locate and show students examples of things we’re working on. For example, I could go find examples of anecdotal leads in online news stories for a student who’s unsure about how they’re used – without having to borrow the student’s computer or project the example on the classroom screen through the instructor’s station, which would distract everyone from their work.

Demonstrating Multimedia

Another great aspect of having an iPad in the classroom for someone teaching journalism and communication is simply the ability to show students some of the innovative new ways media professionals are preparing content for the iPad. If I hadn’t been able to use an iPad through my university, I’d feel very much left out of this rapidly developing area of the industry. However, I’m happy to be able to demonstrate these new products in class and discuss them knowledgeably with students as someone who keeps up with the field and uses these new products daily. The iPad has been a great asset in this way for me as an instructor.

New MediaShift Post: Narrative Magazine

8 Oct

A screenshot of Narrative's iPhone app.

I forgot to post here earlier this week that I have a new story up at MediaShift about Narrative Magazine, a digital literary magazine that is using a variety of formats to provide its content. Wherever the audience may be, Narrative is there.

I think the biggest lesson of Narrative for other magazines is that diversification is key. Though it’s a lot of work and requires some investment of scarce resources, especially for a nonprofit, Narrative has worked to develop a website, print-on-demand options, mobile apps, merchandise and more. They have made their content and their brand recognizable and available to readers who are early and later adopters. I think magazines that adopt such a strategy – now – are best prepared to deal with the changing audience they will face in the coming years.

New Approaches to International Digital Magazine Editions

19 Sep

Just a quick note: I saw today that Zinio will soon allow publishers to dynamically determine their digital magazine pricing based on the reader’s location. I’m hoping this will mean I can soon get more reasonable prices for and/or better access to some of the international magazines I’d like to read more often, all in a digital format, as I discussed in this previous post.

Here’s Zinio’s press release on the new Zinio MAP system.

It would be great to see magazines have more opportunities to go global using digital formats, not only making their content more widely available, but also reducing the environmental impact of international readership. I hope to see other companies also enter this market to provide us more choices in our

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,133 other followers