Many of the people I work with at my school must think that either my knowledge of technology was preprogramed in me at birth or that I was the result of some super secret government experiment (probably gone wrong) in which I was bombarded with radiation that gave me mystical superpowers of education technology. Actually, neither is the case. My knowledge of technology came to me by way of lots of research and even more time with trial and error. In other words, old-fashioned hard work. I have had more things go wrong, blowup in my face, and lost mega amounts of data, and said lots of words that would make my mother constantly wash my mouth out with soap.

One example happened last weekend when I was attempting to download a book from Overdrive to my Nook. The process was so frustrating that it almost made me turn Kindle. First, I sent the file over to my Nook and of course nothing happened even though it was supposed to be an epub file. Oh wait, I needed Adobe Digital Editions which I downloaded. Tried the file again and met with failure again. The file would not open. That's right, I have to convert the file you silly person! Somehow I got the file converted then sent it to my Nook. I opened the file to only to see a message that my device was not authorized. Colorful metaphors were coming from my mouth at a steady stream now. After a couple of more unsuccessful attempts, the dog was seeking a place of shelter as far away from me as he could get. After about an hour or so I was finally able to authorize my Nook and open the book I downloaded. After that ordeal the only thing I could think was I wonder if it is as much trouble for Kindle owners as for epub reader owners. If not then Amazon stands to make a lot of money off Overdrive.

When I shared my Overdrive adventures and key lessons from the ordeal with our media specialist, instead of laughing along with my story she gave me the strangest look. The look was similar to what Glen Walter recounted in his book So Where's My Apple when a student saw him eating in the faculty dining room and exclaimed, "You eat!" Yes folks, I am human after all.

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting e-publishing to the Island Writers' Network of Hilton Head Island. While I resources were gathered since booking the engagement in the summer, I must admit I didn't put the presentation together until a week before the event. I was glad I waited! If I had done the work even a month ago I would have had to delete most of the work I had done and almost start over. The reason is e-publishing is evolving so fast it is leaving me in an almost state of shock.

I know many who just love the feel of a traditional, paper-bound book but I also noticed the increasing number of people carrying e-readers. A couple of days ago a Facebook friend asked if she should buy a Kindle or a Nook. Local retailers are starting to carry up to five different e-readers. E-book sales are now overtaking hard copy books, something I thought would happened in another five years. Companies including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Lulu, and Smashwords are making publishing to e-reader formats as easy as uploading a document to their websites. The companies do all the conversions and you just wait for the money to roll in from sales (well not that easy a task).

This explosive growth in e-publishing should be great news for beleaguered students weighed down by heavy bookbags. Barnes & Noble just made things interesting by announcing the Nook Color. The latest Nook is a full color touch screen device that will run the Android operating system. Barnes & Noble says the Nook Color will be able to show videos and surf the Internet, what e-textbooks need to be effective. The $249 price tag makes it a compelling device to purchase over the iPad if all you want is an enhanced e-reader. A big drawback is users will not be able to add any Android apps but Barnes & Noble plans to offer their own app store. Even if the Nook Color does not fit the e-textbook bill it is a major step forward. With the rate e-readers are progressing, it won't be long before better devices will enter the market. Note to IT leaders: you better figure out how to integrate Android or iOS into your networks. It does not look like Microsoft is doing too much in the tablet and e-reader areas.

Let me know what you think about e-readers. In the meantime I am going to curl up with my Nook and catch up on some reading.