McGraw-Hill & Kno offer a peek into the future of textbooks: They’re dynamic, vocal, adaptive & bring stats to studying — from techcrunch.com by Rip Empson

Excerpt:

The suite leverages adaptive learning technology — one of the hottest topics in education this past year — which, simply put, seeks to personalize the educational experience by collecting data on student comprehension (knowledge, skill and confidence), employing algorithms to create customized study plans/paths based on that data. The goal being to keep students engaged (and improving) by helping them to identify and focus on areas where they’re struggling.

 

Prediction from DSC:
I’d like to take these developments one step further…

These developments will find their way into our living rooms, via second screen devices and interactions with Smart/Connected TVs. Highly-sophisticated, back-end, behind the scenes technologies will continue to develop (think Next Gen Knewton or IBM’s Watson) — aiding in the fulfillment of one’s learning objectives. Personalized, digital playlists will be presented and will feature multimedia-based content, with chances for more choice, more control, interactivity, social learning, and more. They will meet us where we are at (i.e. in our Zone of Proximal Development), and encourage us to keep learning via game-like interfaces…but will try not to overwhelm or discourage us.  But live persons will either be instantly available to assist, and/or will help us walk through the steps, and/or perhaps we’ll go through these types of exercises in virtual cohorts (that come together quickly, then once finished with the badge or exercise, will disband).

 

 

From DSC:
The other day, I mentioned how important it will be for institutions of higher education to increase the priority of experimentation. Clicking on the graphic below will give you an example of the kind of vision/experiment that I’m talking about.

(Though, more practically speaking, to operationalize this type of vision would actually require a series of much smaller experiments; I just wanted to present the overall vision of how these pieces might fit together).

 

DanielChristian--Jan2013-Experiment-with-Apples-Ecosystem

NOTE:
This 11″x17″ image is a 10MB PDF file, so it may take some time to appear.
Feel free to right-click on the graphic in order to download/save/print the file as well.

 

Also relevant is this upcoming event from educause:

 

1/8/13 addendum resulting from a Tweet from a great colleague, Mr. Travis LaFleur (@travislafleur), UX Designer at BiggsGilmore

 

 

Internet2 eTextbook Spring 2012 Pilot: Final Project Report
August 1, 2012

Participating Institutions:

  • Cornell University
  • Indiana University
  • University of Minnesota
  • University of Virginia
  • University of Wisconsin

 

 

The Digital Classroom
Via:
Accredited Online Universities Guide

Addendum on 2/14/12 — also see:

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

.
Also see:

Blowing out the digital book as we know it– from MindShift by Tina Barseghian

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Inkling also produced the epic The Professional Chef by the Culinary Institute of America. The book in its entirety costs $50, but you can also purchase individual chapters for $3 a piece. The new model makes book buying much like buying music — choose only the pieces you like best.  MacInnis fluidly demonstrates how to float from one chapter to the next, launch videos, close in on images, tap on sidebars and recipe instructions. It’s like watching a magician performing sleight-of-hand tricks.

From DSC:
Books — and textbooks — will continue to be more cloud-based, interactive, multimedia-based, and will be able to be completely up-to-date as they move more towards becoming like apps (vs. hard copy books/textbooks). I see more experimentation in terms of the implementation of social media tools as well as in trying out different business models.  However, when all’s said and done (at least for this next phase), I hope that we can get to the iTunes-like purchasing model mentioned above. I think students, faculty, and staff at educational institutions would benefit greatly from this. 

Presentations from the Digital Book 2011 Conference — from idpf.org with a special thanks going out to Mr. Steven Chevalia — who had pointed me to a great presentation by Liisa McCloy-Kelley:

Learning to Juggle and Picking the Right Balls
(AKA adapting organizations for the future of digital publishing)

Liisa McCloy-Kelley

Liisa McCloy-Kelley
VP, Director of eBook Production Strategy & Operations, Random House, Inc

Liisa McCloy-Kelley is VP, Director of eBook Production Strategy & Operations at Random House, Inc. where she has been an eyewitness to an evolution in the way that books are produced, marketed and sold for more than 20 years. She currently leads the team responsible for eBook development and production and keeps Random House on a focused strategic path for digital product development. She has spoken at a variety of conferences and has taught at Wellesley, NYU and Yale. As a digital book evangelist, she has given up reading in print form to become an expert in the variety of digital reading systems and the ways they can present content.

Example slide:


Indiana University tries to drive down textbook costs with eBooks — from eCampusNews.com by Dennis Carter
Online textbooks initiative comes as student activists clamor for more affordable options nationwide

 

From DSC:
Consumers’ expectations from entertainment may likely spill over into education

  • Why the future of TV is all about personalization — from stunmedia.com 
    Excerpt:
    Fueled by the explosive development of smartphones and tablets, video clip viewing routines have [been] forever modified. It’s no surprise that buyers, who have been speedy to embrace video clip providers like HBO GO, Netflix and Hulu, are now expecting a a lot more personalized, interactive and seamless viewing experience across their traditional TV, laptops, gaming consoles, and connected TVs, as well as on smartphones and tablets (emphasis DSC). Here, we’ll discuss the present state of personalised cell video and what customers can anticipate in the future.

From DSC:
In the near future, if I can see what I want on whatever device I want — and it’s personalized/customized for me — won’t that affect my expectations for other types of content that I want to review — such as educational content? 

Yes…I think it will. Whatever discipline I want, on whatever device I want, whenever I want it — available 24x7x365 with online tutoring available (which may or may not be from the same organization that posted the original content).

 

 

From Daniel Christian: Fasten your seatbelts! An accelerated ride through some ed-tech landscapes.


From DSC:
Immediately below is a presentation that I did for the Title II Conference at Calvin College back on August 11, 2011
It is aimed at K-12 audiences.


 

Daniel S. Christian presentation -- Fasten your seatbelts! An accelerated ride through some ed-tech landscapes (for a K-12 audience)

 


From DSC:
Immediately below is a presentation that I did today for the Calvin College Fall 2011 Conference.
It is aimed at higher education audiences.


 

 Daniel S. Christian presentation -- Fasten your seatbelts! An accelerated ride through some ed-tech landscapes (for a higher ed audience)

 


Note from DSC:

There is a great deal of overlap here, as many of the same technologies are (or will be) hitting the K-12 and higher ed spaces at the same time. However, there are some differences in the two presentations and what I stressed depended upon my audience.

Pending time, I may put some audio to accompany these presentations so that folks can hear a bit more about what I was trying to relay within these two presentations.


Tagged with:  

Inkling 2.0: When a textbook becomes more than a textbook — from hackeducation.com by Audrey Watters

From DSC:
Audrey explores the trend that “books” are becoming more “app” like — and will likely be increasingly available as downloads via the Internet/cloud.

 

 

What the Kindle textbook rental program portends for higher education — from xplana.com by Rob Reynolds

Excerpt:

Almost as soon as the press release hit the Internet yesterday, I began fielding questions about Amazon’s new Kindle textbook rental program. What does this mean for publishers? How will this affect textbook prices? What impact will it have on institutions and their students?

While the general answer to all of these questions is “We don’t know yet,” there are a number of projections I think we can make based on current market trends. Before launching into those projections, however, let’s take a quick look at what the Kindle textbook rental program actually offers.

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