I don’t like paying for shipping (or paying a subscription to not pay for shipping).

But have you seen the Espresso Book Machine? It launched on Friday at a Blackwell’s bookstore. You type in which book you want, it binds a new copy while you drink a cup of coffee.

Insane.

Now you don’t have to worry about books being in stock, especially rare/old books.

What will really be interesting is to see how the employees of the 60 branches scheduled to get the machines adapt. Will people look for more recommendations now? Less? There will be less time walking the shelves, straightening titles and all that. What if the employees now had a set-up like an Apple Store Genius Bar?

Here are her guidelines, reprinted without her permission:

Anne Frank’s legendary diary didn’t start out that way; in fact, its purpose was merely to record the thoughts and feelings of someone who was once just an ordinary teenage girl. Anne Frank had no idea that the sentences she scribbled in her diary would become famous.

The purpose of this project is for you to take some time to explore the world around you in the written word. Instead of writing these thoughts in our journals, I’d like to give you the opportunity to communicate with your peers- especially some of those peers that you normally do not converse with in or out of school.

Before you being your blogging, please take note of some important assignment guidelines:

1) You should be prepared to respond to each prompt in well-developed paragraphs. Please try to elaborate your answers in at least two full paragraphs (5-7 complete sentences) in order to earn a grade of 10 points.

2) “Texting” language is completely unacceptable. Uz it n i will not grade ur work! K?

3) After you have answered a question (in two paragraphs) you are welcome to respond to your classmates. When responding to others, you do not have to write in complete sentences. You may add short comments or questions. For example: “Good point.”

4) Please keep all responses appropriate and respectful. Anything that would not be acceptable in class is unacceptable here.

5) Be brave! I know some of you are nervous about sharing your thoughts in a forum, but just remember that your input is valuable! I am always impressed with the amazing ideas in your journals; this is your chance to share that brilliance with the people you have sat with in class for the last six months!

One session that has blown my mind are the new features of Google Docs. I had followed this during the beta for Word and Excel files. Now have you seen Presentations and Forms? Why would anyone pay for surveys to be created anymore?

The best part has been hearing from the speakers. We’re hearing from Tony Vincent, Amanda Hughens, and Tim Tyson. 

The whole point? Find your vision and align everything to that. Whatever students do must be meaningful. Don’t just add technology: an interactive whiteboard used as an interactive blackboard is pointless. Use technology to have students create something that the world has never seen before.

One program is PlayGo, where students can play the ancient board game Go against each other. What’s really cool is that it’s multiplayer across the Internet. Lots of fun.

Enter one of my favorites: Project Gutenberg.

Project Gutenberg takes public domain documents and indexes them. Many times you’ll find audio versions, as well.

So, for that Language Arts class, enjoy the classic Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, presented by Project Gutenberg.

How about this: hook up the videocamera that your library already has to a TV. Instead of switching the camera to VCR, take out the videotape and switch the videocamera to the record mode. (Taking out the tape should prevent the camera from going into sleep mode/standby.)

For extra snazziness: attach the camera to a tripod, hook the camera up to an LCD projector.

Now PBS has teamed up with iTunes U for free, downloadable TV shows. Great stuff.