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The ePub Generation: "The Alexandrian Libraries of the Future"

Those of us who have a love for learning also have a love for books. In my office I have four walls of bookshelves each loaded with my favorite titles, the titles I have selected and purchased from the many bookstores I have visited over the years. Antique books of classics to the most known nomenclatures of my interest. These are the books that now rest in my library, ready to be revisited, reread, or provide a reference to support a written thought. Like now. A new title, a new thought, a piece of my presence, now being articulated into written form. 
As I begin this quest of written expression to share my ideas on "The ePub Generation: The New Alexandrian Library," I also look to find that one book, the book that I have read that lays dormant within my memories of past readings. The one book that generated these thoughts that sets on a shelf encased in glass. The book shelf that holds my classics, protected from the environmental exposures of air particles of dust and vapor. Looking across the tiles I had remembered a chapter once explored from Carl Sagan's book entitled "The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean." As I open the book an index card appears from notes I had buried away almost twenty years ago. These are the notes that will help me begin my writings. These are the notes that are taken from page 20 of the Cosmos and begin with the following title, scripted and hand written;

The New Alexandrians
"At the heart of the library was a collection of half million volumes of hand written papyrus scrolls. The scrolls were borrowed, copied from all over the world for plagiarism did not exist for the value of knowledge was sought to be shared. The scrolls were shipped from all over the known world by commercial sea vessels that docked in the harbor of Alexandria. Alexandria was know at the time as the center of learning for every Greek King who succeeded Alexander the Great were serious about learning.  Each time a ship enter the harbor it would be searched by the harbor police to keep the original, and return the copy of the scrolls carried by a vessel. This is the known method for the great collection and how the library grew to the heights of organized topics from multiple languages from the know world."
Today a new kind of Alexandrian library is being formed, similar and not very different from the one created by Aristotle's student Demetrius of Phalerum, over 2,300 years ago. This is the library of the future, a library that will be created by the ePub generation and cataloged by the tools generated beyond Web 3.0 social applications. The semantic Web, built on syntax rules that merge schemas together through Resource Description Framework strands that are supplied by the ePub generation. This is the near future. A future generation of social publishers who will have their content merged, remixed into a new conceptual awareness.
This is the conceptual age, an age where the New Alexandrians will create, publish and formulate new meanings and understandings of the worlds in which they live, virtually or semantically. This is also the focus of this article. A focus on ideas that will provide new meanings to future web found learning and how to access, create and publish information at the gateway of the conceptual age.

The Rise of the Ditto Master

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Most classrooms of today have remained unchanged since they were constructed during the industrial age. These were the classrooms constructed around rigid schedules, inflexible facilities, and fixed boundaries between grades, disciplines, and classrooms. Desks were arranged in neat rows facing a chalkboard at the front of the room, students took notes on paper, and read from printed textbooks. In these traditional classrooms of yester year, teacher-centered practices were embedded in rote learning and memorization which was at the center of task-based approaches to learning. Handouts were created in blue ink ditto masters, with fill in the blank textbook searches that required find the missing word in the sentence approach to learning. Engagement was limited since classroom management was viewed upon as quite places to learn.

The Proclaimed Projector

In the late 1900's classrooms began to get new focal points in delivering content through media devices called LCD projectors. Through these lenses came the long full hour video that reflected a spring day of students daydreaming about summer time. It was much like the 35 millimeter real, as it flickered off the silence of the room that brought the teachers attention back into focus. Teachers in most cases were slow to adopt this new technology as brains were faded into imagination. 

Rise of MobileEngagement

But is today any different? Video projectors, with interactive whiteboards and computers that sit in the back of the room waiting to be occupied as students text from their cell phones social events that are occurring in real time. It is these events, that of texting and mobile trends that educators must find ways to harness. This is the connect energy of the classrooms of today. A classroom where the latest in mobile devices are harnessed and used for carrying knowledge in collaborative work environments that promote continual access to media rich content. 

The e-book Slam

So what will this media rich content look and feel like in tomorrow's classrooms? Will the new trend bring about a casualty in the next technological revolution to replace a functionality in a new format? Already rumors are beginning to surface that teachers will become publishers. Creating a new generation of text materials that is supported by a ePub format. Yet arguments are still abound, "that text on paper will hold its supremacy over the monitor." Now hold that thought. Borders says it's closing about 200 of its remaining 488 superstores while stating, "Your e-book library is perfectly safe. The Borders e-book experience is powered by Kobo, an entirely separate company from Borders. Kobo is financially secure and will continue to maintain an e-book library no matter what happens." So what did happen? Borders wasn't prepared for the newest publishing innovation: e-books for digital readers led by Amazon's Kindle and followed by Barnes & Noble's Nook. 

Knock, Knock Who is There?

Now let's again revisit the thought of ePub? What is it and how will this new publishing format effect education in the near future? Wikipedia the fastest growing encyclopedia of our generation defines EPUB as reflowable content. Reflowable content? "This means that the text display can be optimized for the particular display device used by the reader of the EPUB-formatted book. The format is meant to function as a single format that publishers and conversion houses can use in-house, as well as for distribution and sale." 

The My Book Publishing Idea

Now if this is true does that mean that anyone can publish text in a digital format that can be read on a mobile device? The answer is yes. It is a simple as a Google on the topic of "How can I create ePub files from My Books?" Notice the emphasize on "MY Books." In a series of future articles I will be addressing this idea. The idea of becoming a self publisher of creating the "New Alexandrian Libraries of the Future." Textbooks and resource material created by teachers for mobile learning in the 21st Century.
History of ed tech
Courtesy of: OnlineSchools.com

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The Textbook Infographic

Educational technology is moving full speed ahead, which makes it easy to forget that there was a time, not too long ago, when CD-ROMs were cutting edge, when overhead projectors were the definitive source for classroom presentations, or when students learned lessons on social topics by watching black and white educational videos with titles like "How to Be Well Groomed." As textbooks are being replaced by digital readers, it's important to understand the evolution of educational technology so that we might better understand where our #edtech tools came from—and where they are going. Find out more in the below infographic.

Creating eBook Resources:

Digital devices to replace textbooks
Courtesy of: Schools.com