Entries Tagged as 'digital textbooks'
Earlier this evening I posted about Apple’s digital textbook announcement. I don’t know much more than you, but Mike Cane responded to the post with an interesting quote from the Isaacson biography on Steve Jobs. I think it might give a couple major hints into what next week’s announcement might be. From the Isaacson biography:
Most of the dinner conversation was about education. Murdoch had just hired Joel Klein, the former chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, to start a digital curriculum division. Murdoch recalled that Jobs was somewhat dismissive of the idea that technology could transform education. But Jobs agreed with Murdoch that the paper textbook business would be blown away by digital learning materials.
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I came across a survey today from the University of California-Riverside (PDF). Like most colleges, UC Riverside has a survey every year where they ask their students any number of questions about their experiences at the school.
In this case, I’m really only interested in the results that show a growing number of students who are avoiding buying textbooks. A full 73% have reported delaying a purchase, and even more have reported not buying one of the required textbooks.
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Interesting press release making the rounds today.
There’s a new bill before the Calif. state legislature this week (one of many). California Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg is proposing that Calif. fund a new program to create an Open Educational Resources (OER) in California. The end goal would be to offer college students free access to textbooks for 50 core undergraduate classes.
The digital textbooks would be available for free online, and the print edition is expected to cost around $20.
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(AP Photo/Jim Mone)
One Minnesota school district balked at paying $200 grand for a new set of statistics textbooks, so a group of teachers came up with an alternative. They wrote their own.
Michael Engelhaupt, a 31 year old math teacher, was one of 3 teachers for the Anoka-Hennepin School District who spent their summer developing this new textbook. The total cost was around $15 thousand,and most of that went to paying the teachers’ salaries. Also, about $5,000 was spent providing offline copies of the digital textbook for students who don’t have a consistent internet connection.
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Flat World Knowledge and the University System of Ohio announced Wednesday that they will be launching a joint pilot program. The program will allow 1,000 Ohio students to receive digital textbooks for free.
Flat World Knowledge are a new textbook publisher, and they specialize in free and open college textbooks. They’re working with the USO to bring free digital textbooks and low cost print textbooks to all students, no matter the grade level or income. Their textbooks are free to read online, and are also available as low cost, DRM free, ebooks. Also, all textbooks are released under a CC license.
For more information on Ohio’s effort to help make textbooks more affordable for college students, please visit the Ohio TextbookHQ website.
Tags:flat·knowledge·ohio·pilot·program·start·system·team·university·world
Last week the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that the Georgia State Senate are currently considering whether to adopt Apple’s new textbook platform for middle school students. According to state Senator Tommie Williams:
“Last week we met with Apple Computers, and they have a really promising program where they come in and their recommending to middle schools – for $500 per child per year, they will furnish every child with an iPad, wi-fi the system, provide all the books on the system, all the upgrades, all the teacher training – and the results they’re getting from these kids is phenomenal.” [Read more →]
Tags:georgia·ipad·middle·replace·school·textbooks
Texas A&M University announced Tuesday that they’ve signed a contract for Vitalsource to provide digital textbooks to undergraduate students.
From the press release: [Read more →]
Tags:digital·texas·textbooks·vitalsource
From THE Journal:
Education publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has launched a new algebra curriculum delivery system for Apple’s iPad. Dubbed “Fuse,” the system is being piloted for a one-year period in middle schools in four California school districts.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt said the Fuse: Holt McDougal Algebra 1 app is the first full-year algebra curriculum application for the iPad. In addition to Holt McDougal content, the app’s interactive tools provide feedback on practice questions, allow students to take notes and save them for later use, give students access to video-based lessons, and provide guided instruction. It also offers tracking tools focused on student comprehension, as well as real-time reporting tools for teachers.
I made a vow to be less negative on this blog, but this is such a bad idea. We’re talking about a $600 piece of electronics running a custom app (which was probably pretty expensive to develop).Does anyone really think there are any school districts who can afford expand this program to cover a whole school district? I don’t.
I don’t see any value in even trying these pilot programs if there are no funds to expand upon it. And so long as a school district asks parents to send in supplies to be used by the teacher, no, there is no money to spare.
Tags:4·calif·ipad·launch·middle·pilot·program·schools
From the UMP blog:
The University of Michigan Press announced today that it launched a new ebook rental program for more than 250 of its scholarly titles, allowing students or faculty to rent digital copies of the books at a discount for a month or six months.
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Costs will range from 40% of list price for a 30-day rental to 75% of list price for a 180-day rental. For example, a paperback textbook might carry a list price of $22.95; it could be viewed as a rental for $10 for 30 days, or $18 for 180 days. Scholars who rent a book will have the option at the end of the rental period to buy it permanently at an additional charge. Purchased versions include additional interactive features.
If customers endorse the program, the Press may make as many as 325 books available by the end of the year. …
To see a list of the titles currently available for rental, visit www.press.umich.edu/ebooks.
I never pay more that 75% to buy a paper copy; why would I pay that much to rent the ebook? It’s a rip off.
Tags:ebook·launch·press·program·rental·um
The student newspaper for Abilene Christian University, the optimist, are reporting:
Students in Dr. Ian Shepherd’s microeconomics class were greeted with more than just a syllabus on their first day of class Tuesday. The students were told they will be given iPads and told they will be among the first in the nation to use a textbook on the device.
The 50 students in Shepherd’s class, along with 14 students in a senior level marketing course taught by Dr. Rick Lytle, will be issued iPads with the preloaded digital text book for their course. Students will not pay for the iPad or digital textbook, but will return the device at the end of the semester.
ACU is collaborating with iPad textbook developer Inkling to investigate the textbook and platform along with some other software being used in the class.
Curiously enough, last fall ACU ran another pilot with an iPhone textbook app. ACU are probably working with the same developers.
Tags:ipad·launch·pilot·program·texas·university
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