The best e-publishing resources — from Jane Friedman

Excerpt:

This week I’m teaching a 101 course on e-publishing with Writer’s Digest. I’ve taught it several times in the past year, but each time, I have to carefully update it. New services pop up, standards change, and things you couldn’t do before suddenly become possible—and vice versa. It can be a challenge even for me to keep up.

With that in mind, I thought I’d share what I consider the must trusted resources on e-books and e-publishing. If you think I’ve missed a critical resource, please let me know in the comments.

Are apps the future of book publishing? — from forbes.com by Alex Knapp

Excerpt:

It’s no surprise, then, that publishers are turning to the app as a possible product for books moving forward.  This has led to another movement towards enhanced books, particularly as apps for iPhone, Android, and other tablets. Are tablet apps the book of the future? In order to find out, I talked to authors, publishers, and app programmers, and read more than a few book apps.

McGraw-Hill report demonstrates power of adaptive learning technology to personalize education and support needs of 21st century students — prnewsire.com
Report illustrates how personalized learning is the key to engage, retain and graduate students and prepare them for the global workforce

Excerpt:

NEW YORK, April 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — A new report released today by the McGraw-Hill Education characterizes adaptive learning technology as the lynchpin in personalizing education in today’s K-12 and higher education classrooms. According to the report, adaptive learning technology, also known as a computer-assisted smart tutor, helps teachers tailor instruction for every student in the class, effectively creating a “class of one” and significantly improving learning outcomes.

The authors highlight three of McGraw-Hill’s adaptive programs:

  • LearnSmart is the leading interactive study tool for higher education that adaptively assesses students’ skill and knowledge levels to track which topics students have mastered and which require further instruction and practice. It then adjusts the learning content based on students’ strengths and weaknesses…
  • Power of U is a revolutionary, digitally rich personalized middle school math pilot program that uses real-time assessment data to group students in ways that allow them to learn at their own pace, in their own style, using the medium that works best for them…
  • ALEKS®, one of the pioneer products to use adaptive learning technology, is a web-based assessment and learning system created by the ALEKS Corporation and exclusively distributed by McGraw-Hill Higher Education to colleges and universities.

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From DSC:
These are the types of technologies that will make their way into courses that you can take from your Smart/Connected TV (i.e. “learning from your living room” and “The Forthcoming Walmart of Education” trends continue to develop and are moving one step closer to reality).  

 

Rafter™ launches to revolutionize the entire course materials process for students, educators, and administrators, making education more affordable, accessible and effective — from Rafter
Rafter Delivers First-of-its-Kind Technology to Manage Textbooks and Digital Content On Campus and Online

 Excerpt:

SAN MATEO, CA–(Marketwire – Feb 28, 2012) – Rafter today launched as a new education technology company offering a network of software services that enable administrators and educators to better control costs and manage course materials for their students. Addressing higher education course materials management at an enterprise level, the Rafter Course Materials Network™ is the first suite of cloud-based software services that helps reduce costs for students and stores, helps educators discover and adopt the best materials, and provides college administrators with unprecedented power to control the complexities and reduce the costs of the entire course materials management process.

Rafter evolved out of one of the fastest growing education technology companies, textbook rental company BookRenter, which has saved millions of students more than $175 million across more than 5,000 campuses nationwide. In 2010, the company began to partner directly with schools to co-develop services to reduce the cost of and improve the experience associated with textbooks. Today, more than 500 schools have adopted BookRenter’s solution.

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See also:.

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rafter.com

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Also see:

Who decides what gets sold in the bookstore? — from paidcontent.org by Seth Godin

Excerpt:

I just found out that Apple is rejecting my new manifesto Stop Stealing Dreams and won’t carry it in their store because inside the manifesto are links to buy the books [at Amazon.com] I mention in the bibliography.

 

From DSC:
By the way, some nice quotes from the Stop Stealing Dreams page:

  • The economy has changed, probably forever.  School hasn’t.
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  • Our kids are too important to sacrifice to the status quo.

The Digital Classroom
Via:
Accredited Online Universities Guide

Addendum on 2/14/12 — also see:

Daniel Christian - Emerging Technologies and Trends - January 20th 2012 Presentation at Calvin College

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Daniel Christian - Emerging Technologies and Trends - January 20th 2012 Presentation at Calvin College

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From DSC:
In case it’s helpful, clicking on this link or on one of the images above will link you to a recent presentation that I did for an Interim course at Calvin College entitled, “Social Media for Business?”  As the class had already covered a lot of the topics relating to social media, my job was to focus more on some of the recent emerging trends and technologies.  I will continue to keep pulse checking on those technologies which will allow for ubiquitous, mobile (as well as from the living room), 24x7x365, multimedia-based learning.

NOTE:

  • Almost all of the images on the slides are linked up to web-based resources; so if you see something of interest, go ahead and click on that image/slide in order to learn more about that topic/article/etc.

 

 

 

openstaxcollege.org -- Access. The future of education.

Tyrrany-of-the-textbook----Jobrack- 2011.

Book Description
Publication Date: December 16, 2011 | ISBN-10: 1442211415 | ISBN-13: 978-1442211414

Excerpt:

Educational reforms and standards have been a topic of public debate for decades, with the latest go-round being the State Common Core Curriculum Standards. But time and again those reforms have failed, and each set of standards, no matter how new and different, has had little impact on improving student achievement. Why? The textbooks. Textbooks sell based on design and superficial features, not because they are based on the latest research on how children learn and how well they promote student achievement. In Tyranny of the Textbook, Beverlee Jobrack, retired from educational publishing, sheds light on why this happens. She gives an engaging and fascinating look behind-the-scenes of how K-12 textbooks are developed, written, adopted, and sold. And, perhaps most importantly, she clearly spells out how the system can change so that reforms and standards have a shot at finally being effective.

Did you Know?

  • Reform efforts have focused on writing and rewriting standards and tests, but these rarely have any effect on the core curriculum that is published.
  • School districts and states don’t use effectiveness as a criterion for evaluating and purchasing textbooks.
  • Publishers don’t offer textbooks with better content or the latest teaching methods because teachers don’t want textbooks that require them to change their practices.
  • Teachers report that they don’t rely on a textbook in their class, but research shows that they do.
  • Three companies publish 75 percent of the K-12 educational materials.
  • Those three companies are producing similar programs with the same instructional strategies, none of which require teachers to change their practices significantly.
  • Publishers write textbooks for California and Texas. All the other markets have to make do with books only superficially adjusted for their states.

From DSC:
I originally saw this at:

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/epicenter/2012/01/Top-Publishers-2011-PW.jpg

Data via Wischenbart; Graphic via Publishers Weekly

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Also see:

NBC News launches interactive e-book publishing venture — from pcmag.com by Adario Strange

Excerpt:

NBC News plans to launch NBC Publishing, a venture dedicated to releasing interactive e-books for tablets and e-readers.

How iBooks Author Stacks Up to the Competition [CHART] — from Mashable.com by Chelsea Stark

Author, Author! Apple, Apple! — from The Journal by Therese Mageau
Apple’s new interactive textbook authoring system might just revolutionize the way districts develop their own curriculum. 

iTunes U vs. Blackboard – A Look at Apple’s New Online System — from padgadget.com

Thanks to iPads and Kindles, E-Book Lending at Libraries Explodes — from ReadWriteWeb.com by John Paul Titlow

Why textbooks of the future are not books — from gigaom.com by Erica Ogg

Apple Jumps Into Textbooks — from the WSJ
With More iPads in Classrooms, Education Push Would Help Fend Off Android-Device Competition

Apple’s iTunes U Morphs Into a Tool for Full Online Classes — from Mashable.com by Sarah Kessler

Reinventing Textbooks: A Hard Course — from the New York Times by David Streitfeld

 

Also see:

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Donald Chan/Reuters
People flooded Foxconn Technology with résumés at a 2010 job fair in Henan Province, China.

Apple to announce tools, platform to “digitally destroy” textbook publishing– by Chris Foresman

Excerpt:

GarageBand for e-books

At the same time, however, authoring standards-compliant e-books (despite some promises to the contrary) is not as simple as running a Word document of a manuscript through a filter. The current state of software tools continues to frustrate authors and publishers alike, with several authors telling Ars that they wish Apple or some other vendor would make a simple app that makes the process as easy as creating a song in GarageBand.

Our sources say Apple will announce such a tool on Thursday.

 

Some thoughts/reflections from DSC:

  • If the educational publishing industry doesn’t want to help students out by greatly lowering their prices…
    (But don’t relax people in higher ed…most likely, we are next.)
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  • Another example of “the dangers of the status quo.
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  • We constantly need to be actively reinventing ourselves and our businesses so that we are staying relevant.
    (And at prices running up to and over $200,000 for 4 years of college — as of January 2012 —  the assertion that higher ed is not a business just doesn’t hold any water for me anymore.)
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Addendum later on 1/17/12:

 

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