Hi Gang,
This question just came up on Twitter.  I’ve got an iPhone, not an Android-based phone, so I can’t say much about what’s available for those devices.
Anybody out there know what the Shakespeare situation is for Droid-style phones?  I would hope that somebody’s done a Complete Works browser, but even that I’m not so sure about.
Who can help us out here?

UPDATE APRIL 2, 2012 Funny how things change!  Now not only do I have an Android phone, but my first app “Insults for Shakespeare Geeks” is now available in the Google Play Store!

Earlier this year we were pleased to give away some copies of Shakespeare In Bits’ interactive Romeo and Juliet application, that time for the PC.
They then turned around and cranked out an iPad edition, which has been going very well for them (Apple has chosen to feature them multiple times).  To mark the Back to School season we’re offering 3 promotional codes for those who want to give it a try!
Rules
* This is specifically for the iPad version.  Don’t enter if you don’t have one, or know someone who you’ll be giving the code to.
* Contest runs between now and Tuesday, September 7.  I pick that day because my kids go back to school on Wednesday.
* Leave a comment on this post answering this question: What play would you like to see get the interactive iPad treatment next?
* I will need a way to contact you if you win, but I don’t expect people to include their email addresses in posts, so I’ll publicly post the chosen winners when the time comes.  It’s up to you to come back and look for your name.

Got that?  As always, blah blah blah, I have to write in here that I reserve the write to modify or extend the rules, or otherwise scrap this contest and start over, if any unforeseen circumstances would compromise the integrity and fairness for everybody involved.  Fair enough? I haven’t had to do that yet, though, but I always worry that I’ll leave a loophole that makes it possible for somebody to cheat.
Ok, go!

UPDATE Wednesday, September 8 :  I see new entries coming in, but I’m sorry, I have to abide by the rules that I set up – contest is over as of the end of day Tuesday. Winners will be announced as soon as I can connect up with the guy supplying me the prizes :).

Here’s another one of our thought exercises; let’s see if it goes anywhere. The issue of racism is an interesting one in Othello. People think that it’s going to be a racist play, what with its black hero and all. But really, other than some fairly blatant racist commentary in the beginning, it’s not really about race at all, is it? We’re not led to believe that Othello killed his wife because he’s a black guy. Now, here’s my spin.  Imagine if Othello was white … and Iago was the black guy.  Keep everything else, plot-wise, as identical as you can.  Naturally, a bunch of the early, cruder commentary directed at Othello would have to be altered.  But the story could remain much the same. Except that now, Iago’s a black guy who was passed over for promotion by a white guy for a white guy.  How does that change him as a character? Is he still a villain? I know that Patrick Stewart was involved in a completely race-reversed Othello, where he played a white Othello to an otherwise all-black cast.  That tells a different story.  I’m wondering what would happen if race played a role in the development of the villain rather than the hero.

If you’ve not yet read it, seen it, or heard people talk about it, Wicked is what happens when somebody takes a well-known story (The Wizard of Oz) with a nasty villain (The Wicked Witch of the West), and retells the story from the villain’s point of view.  In the process the villain ends up the sympathetic character.  She wasn’t born wicked, she was just born different. It’s what the rest of the world does to her that makes her the way she ends up. Which Shakespeare play would be most ripe for this treatment?  Which villain could you make the star of his (or her) own show, and in the process make her (or him) come out looking like the sympathetic character? 

Looks like I’m not the only one working on a book – Bill over at Shakespeare Teacher has announced the publication of Literary Education and Digital Learning: Methods and Technologies for Humanities Studies, where he’s a contributing author!  Congratulations, Bill! Stealing from Bill’s summary of his own work:

So I developed and implemented a unit to teach Macbeth to a fifth-grade class in the South Bronx, using process-based dramatic activities, a stage production of the play performed for their school, and a web-based study guide to apply what they had learned. The idea was to use collaborative projects to get the kids to work together to make collective sense of the play.

Sounds awesome, actually.  To not only teach Shakespeare, but develop your own teaching methods for doing it?  And then write up and publish your results? For more details, visit the original post – make sure he gets the traffic and any affiliate clicks from people looking to check out the book.  I don’t want to steal any of his thunder, I just want to make sure more people hear it.