Post textbook world — from HuffingtonPost.com by Tom Vander Ark

Most of the digital courseware being used is decidedly first generation–it’s flat and sequential, not engaging and adaptive. But we’re beginning to see adaptive content libraries that enable personalized digital learning. There will still be a role for curation but that will come in the form of content collections, learning games and virtual worlds, and playlists that (like iTunes Genius but smarter) that stitch objects and sequences together.

Because learning object libraries will replace textbooks, eReaders won’t be big in education. They only make sense where there is a tight narrative. Tablets that can support a full web experience and are also a useful input device will compete with netbooks for 1:1 supremacy.

Digital native kids and teachers expect a more social experience than ‘log in, follow directions, and email me if you have a problem.’ The shift from digital textbook to content libraries requires more flexibility than current learning management systems offers and will kick off more data than anyone is ready to handle.

…BYU has just received a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The pilot project will examine the deeper learning and cost savings that can be achieved when open textbooks replace traditional, expensive textbooks in public high school science classrooms.

15-20 public high school science teachers in Utah will replace their expensive, traditional textbooks with open textbooks from CK12.org for the 2010-2011 school year. Approximately 2,000 students will be impacted by the changes. Most will use printed versions of the books, while a few hundred students in one-to-one schools will use the online versions of the books on netbooks or iPads. Teachers will continue to supplement the CK12 books with additional resources and activities just as they have historically supplemented expensive, traditional textbooks.

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Driving home the point on accessibility — InsideHigherEd.com

The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice on Tuesday released an open letter to colleges expressing concern that some institutions might be “using electronic book readers that are not accessible to students who are blind or have low vision” and warning them that the government will crack down on any institutions that are “requiring” disabled students to use emerging technology that does not comply with federal accessibility laws.

http://picasaweb.google.com/marie.lebert/Booknology#

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Reflections on The E-Book Sector — from InsideHigherEd.com

First of all, some excerpts (with emphasis from DSC):

E-textbooks might be the most-talked about and least-used learning tools in traditional higher education. Campus libraries and e-reader manufacturers are betting on electronic learning materials to overtake traditional textbooks in the foreseeable future, but very few students at traditional institutions are currently using e-textbooks, according to recent surveys.

Not so in the world of for-profit online education.

For-profit institutions in general are moving toward wider e-textbook use than other sectors of higher education, Stielow says. “I think a great many [for-profits] are certainly trying to move toward this model,” agrees Bickford. And the ones that have appear to be succeeding.

Why is that?

John Bourne, executive director of the Sloan Consortium, which studies online learning, posits that it might be a function of the more centralized administrative structures at for-profit institutions. “For-profits do things like provide lesson plans for instructors, provide you with what you’re supposed to do; they hire all these adjuncts to deliver all these things that have been sculpted by instructional designers,” says Bourne. Being able to dictate to the faculty what text format they should assign to their students probably makes it easier to implement e-textbook adoption across the institution, he says.

It is more difficult to engineer change at such scale at nonprofits, because of their more distributed governance models. At those colleges, faculty control of curricular texts — including mode of delivery — is “sacred,” Bourne says.

Manny Rivera, a spokesman for Phoenix, says that the online giant’s centralized administration does indeed allow it to make sweeping changes without many hang-ups. “The university is set up to be more nimble to confront market forces,” Rivera says. “So we’re able to innovate more quickly.”

From DSC:
To be more nimble…to confront market forces…to be able to innovate more quickly…to use materials created by teams of specialists…hmmm….sounds like a solid position to be in as the bubble continues to expand (and may even be beginning to slowly burst based upon where students are going — more community colleges, more state/public schools, lower-cost alternatives, etc.)






Double tablet from Kno -- June 2010

From Kno’s blog:

So how did this all get started? The eTextbook has been available for almost a decade now, yet has not taken off. This was our starting point – we asked the question – why haven’t eTextbooks taken off?

Students are immersed in the digital world, with their computers, access to the web, and social networking on their phones. But, most of this is an “add-on” to their 18 (or more) pounds of a physical textbooks. Textbooks are heavy, costly, and awkward to carry around, but still they are the central reference source for majority of students. Why is that? Why hasn’t a digital device taken off, providing students with a lighter, cheaper, and more functional alternative?

Answering this question was simple: talk to the students, and let them tell us what’s going on. So, that’s exactly what we did, and the answer was surprisingly clear. Students have a “relationship” with their textbooks and build their studying habits around them. Things like seeing both pages in a two page spread, the way they hold their books, using a highlighter, writing on sticky notes they’ve placed on a page, even putting their finger in the book to look something up while holding their place. Lighter and cheaper is a good start, but not enough. It’s this relationship with the textbooks that needs to be carried over to the digital world.

Also see:
Kno dual-screen tablet appears at D8, we go hands-on — from Engadget

The iPad, E-books, and Innovation — from The Xplanation by Rob Reynolds

Also:

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The transformation of textbook publishing in the Digital Age — new business models — from Xplana by Rob Reynolds

Introduction
In April, we published a report on Digital Textbook Sales in U.S. Higher Education, in which we outlined sales for e-textbooks over the next five years based on current trends and variables. This series — The Transformation of Textbook Publishing in the Digital Age — provides an in-depth look at textbook publishing in Higher Education, and offers a roadmap for evolution and profitability in the industry. In this first installment, we will discuss New Business Models. In subsequent installments, we will explore New Product Models, New Authoring Models, and New Production Workflows.

My goal with this series is neither to extol nor criticize the textbook industry, but rather to provide an understanding of the business as it exists today, and to offer a digital success strategy for the companies that comprise that industry. By doing so, I hope to lay the groundwork for our subsequent summer series on The Transformation of Learning Systems, and The Transformation of Learning Content.


Strategies for New Business Models for a Digital Age

The majority of this post has been about existing practices and product/business models in the textbook publishing world. These practices and models are based on a print-centric paradigm that will be outdated within three years, and are also the result of old assumptions about Higher Education and learning in general.

While the path to digital transformation will be unique for the different publishing companies, there are some constants that will be part of any successful plan for Higher Education learning content in the coming years. The surface chatter will continue to be about e-textbooks — reaching 18%-20% of the new textbook market by 2014 — but the strategies that drive success will all take the following elements into consideration.

  • The Disaggregation of Content — Future profitability will be incumbent on publishers’ ability to conceive of and produce meaningful content at a more granular level and disaggregated from the notions of textbooks. It is not that they should produce less or different content, necessarily, but rather that content must become agile, malleable, and designed to be mashed up easily by customers — institutions, instructors, and students. This means thinking at the key concept or learning objective level. It also means arriving at new revenue streams that are also disassociated from textbooks and ISBNs.
  • A Focus on Lifelong Learning — New estimates have social media sites accounting for two-thirds of U.S. Web traffic withing five years. This growth and dominance is related to a sense of personal connectedness and long-term residence that users associate with such sites. Textbook publishers must find ways to move past outdated notions of students and instructors bound within narrow windows of consumer opportunity, and learn to embrace lifelong learning and see every adult citizen as a potential customer.
  • Embracing Self-Publishing — In the new world order of business in publishing, self-publishing will be a primary avenue for partnership and revenue. And unlike the stigma associated with self-publishing in trade fiction, the educational content market already recognizes self-published content as valuable and embraces it. In the future, textbook publishers should plan on abandoning much of their current content authoring model in favor of aggressive self-publishing services. This will lead to broader partnerships throughout the educational community as well as to more sustainable models for revenue.
  • Partner with Open Content — Make no mistake about it. Open content and open educational resources (OERs) will become leading alternatives to proprietary textbooks for at least 25% of the Higher Education market within five years.  There are many services than can be offered around OERs and there is great value in mapping OERs to existing publisher content. Textbook publishers must take advantage of this opportunity to make their content and services more relevant, or they will see the value of their businesses diminish.

In next week’s installment, I will discuss specific new product models that textbook publishers will need to embrace in order to remain competitive in the coming years.

Unthethered 2010

Apple invites authors to self-publish on the iPad bookstore

Inkmesh

inkmesh.com

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