Ls521wmc
Iva Martin
Electronic Publishing and E-Books Elective
My experience with this elective was frustrating. Initially, I tried to download ebookReader at home on my Gateway. Although my modem is supposed to be 55K, it is in reality only 26K. Consequently, the daunting message came up that it would take an hour for the program to download, but I wanted to persevere. However, I was booted off my provider twice and basically spent an hour getting nowhere. I knew that I had a faster connection at school. I installed Acrobat ereader on my laptop. The How-To manual was very difficult to read, even after going in and adjusting the sharpness. The manual seemed to be rather large with many good tips. I believe I would have done better if I had printed out the entire manual. I chose not to do that because we have a paper shortage, and, honestly, I hardly ever read manuals. I ventured into CyberRead and found many great stories including Aesop and Grimm. I downloaded two zip books to a disk to read later. The one feature that I did not like about CyberRead is that you have to complete a reader survey every time you enter the site. Next I went to eBooks and found a lot of free Dickens stories. I noticed that most of the children’s books cost about $6.00, which is not a bad price. I tried several times to go into iPictureBooks, Inc, but I could not get the site to load. Some links that I noticed included Social Studies and other textbooks and activity books. Finally, as part of the ebookReader experience I went into Live Reads, but I did not find any free books, just trailers.
My next plan was to download Microsoft Reader; however, I discovered that I needed Windows98 or higher, and my laptop only has Windows95. At a later time, I downloaded Microsoft Reader to my only Gateway in the media center which has Windows98. I had no trouble with the download or finding the file. I read the manual easily. I activated my account, making sure that I made a note of my Product ID number, and I was ready to shop. I visited the Microsoft Reader shopping site and then went back to eBooks.com. I visited fictionwise and was pleased to see that this site gives ratings for its books. I had difficulty there getting the book to open so that I could read it. Just out of curiosity, I went to efollett and saw that most of their books cost $7.00, $10.00 or $13.00. I was surprised to see that amazon.com has 2 or 3 free books that you may download. Also, their books are really cheap, $3.00, and have customer review stars. I went back to CyberRead and was annoyed again by the fact that I had to complete the reader survey. Finally, I visited audible.com and found out that I could purchase Last Man Standing for $33.00. Their kids’ stories ranged from $16-$20. The audible route seems to be very expensive, but a very cool idea.
My
preference would be to use Microsoft Reader because the manual appeared to be
more user friendly. I just need to
experiment some more with downloading books.
I would go back to CyberRead, even though the survey annoys me. I would go back to fictionwise and
amazon.com. I really want to experiment
some more with this medium because I received a Visor Edge for Christmas, and I
want to use it for other purposes than just an organizer. I am excited about the potential of the ebook
medium. It still seems unwieldy, but I
am used to cuddling up with a book. I
think it is a very viable motivator for the young students today because they
practically teeth on computers.