The Argos Education Blog is Up — from eliterate.us by Michael Feldstein

Per Michael:

I’m trying to maintain some separation between my writing on e-Literate and content about Argos (the startup I co-founded with Curtiss Barnes). It won’t be perfect because I write about what I think about and right now I’m thinking about Argos-related stuff a lot. But I’m going to post about Argos-centric topics—the design, the thinking behind the company, etc.—on the new Argos blog. You can read my posts, posts by my colleagues (like the great one by Anita Delahay that’s up now), and news updates.

Read and subscribe here.

 


A different kind of ecosystem from Argos Education

From Argos Education:

Retaking textbooks
Several disruptive teams at Carnegie Mellon University and Arizona State University have been designing, building, and distributing next-generation digital textbook replacements.

Their products are provably effective, sell for significantly less than digital products from textbook publishers, and can generate more money for the programs creating them than they cost to create.

Argos believes this model is the future. We exist to bring that future into being.


 

 

We Wondered If NFTs Could Change Education, So We Decided to Sell This Article on the Blockchain — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey R. Young

Excerpts:

These digital tokens can essentially contain digital contracts outlining the rights on how the buyer and creator can use the work in the future.

Here’s where the smart contract part of NFTs comes in: If the person who buys one of Aguirre’s NFTs decides to sell it in the future, Aguirre gets a cut of that secondary sale—a 10 percent royalty that’s automatically paid back to her virtual wallet. In fact, she will get a royalty every time one of her NFTs are resold, even if that happens years later.

For an artist, that’s a revolutionary shift in how much control and compensation can be gained from a piece of creative work.

From DSC:
At a bare minimum…this is a highly relevant and interesting article for those involved with the legal realm as well as those involved with the worlds of education and publishing. For example, in terms of law schools, those professors who are involved with teaching property and/or contracts may want to pay extra close attention to the topic of this article.

And for Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) of all shapes and sizes, listen to this item from Mark Cuban:

“The next best application is textbooks,” he responded to my email query. “They allow digital textbooks to be easily resold but more importantly they allow publishers and authors to collect royalties for every resale. Forever.”

But it doesn’t stop there, as you can tell from this article:


For those interested in this topic, also check out:


 

 

The Great Online Migration and Curricular Materials Product-Market Fit — from eliterate.us by Michael Feldstein

Excerpts:

Third, COVID-19 will accelerate the need of colleges and universities to find ways of continuing to serve their graduates for 20 or 40 years rather than for two or four. Quite simply, they will need revenue at a time when the pace and breadth of reskilling needs in the workplace is accelerating. These students will need online or blended educational experience, which will mean that more instructors will be called upon to teach using new modalities.

Major changes in the market
This shift online will drastically shift approaches to curricular materials at both the individual instructor and the institutional levels.

Meanwhile, institutions will face two pedagogy-related challenges. First, they will have to work very hard to retain students who are under increased financial stress and may struggle in an online environment more than they would in a residential program. Since the colleges will also be under financial stress, they will need to retain every student possible. They will no longer have the luxury of simply letting faculty teach however they like and accepting that some of them are not good at helping their students to succeed.

 

 

Pearson moves away from print textbooks — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

Excerpt:

All of Pearson’s 1,500 higher education textbooks in the U.S. will now be “digital first.” The company announced its big shift away from print today, calling the new approach a “product as a service model and a generational business shift to be much more like apps, professional software or the gaming industry.”

The digital format will allow Pearson to update textbooks on an ongoing basis, taking into account new developments in the field of study, new technologies, data analytics and efficacy research, the company said in a news announcement. The switch to digital will also lower the cost for students: The average e-book price will be $40, or $79 for a “full suite of digital learning tools.”

 

Faculty Innovation Toolkit — from campustechnology.com by Leila Meyer and Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

  • 15 Sites for Free Digital Textbooks
  • 12 Tips for Gamifying a Course
  • 10 Tools for More Interactive Videos
  • 4 Ways to Use Social Media for Learning

 

FacultyInnovationToolkit-CampusTechnology-June2016

 

 

 

ThePowerofOER-WileyMarch2014

 

Excerpted slides:

 

 

CC-ChoseConditions-ViaDavidWileyMarch2014

 

CC-ReceiveLicenseViaDavidWileyMarch2014

 

CC-LevelsOfOpennessViaDavidWileyMarch2014

 

ContentAffordability-WileyMarch2014

 

 

This was a keynote address that was delivered
to the Maryland Distance Learning Association (MDLA), March 2014.

With thanks to Volkmar Langer for his Scoop on this.

 

Where is the Netflix for College Textbooks? — from medium.com by Dean Florez
A $14 Billion Dollar Textbook Industry Unscathed by Tech

Excerpt:

Why not look at an ed-tech solution modeled and offered in trade books by Oyster, Scribd, and Entitle’s eBook subscription platforms which provide access to 100,000 books for as long as you keep a subscription, much like Netflix or Hulu. It seems that as long as you are a student at a university you should have similar access to an educational platform that let’s you access all the textbooks you need and refer back to them as you proceed through your education.

Or as an alternative path, textbooks could be offered to students, much like Entitle where you pay a subscription fee and can download a set amount of books a month, but also get to keep them after you cancel your subscription.

 

PercentChangeTextbookCosts-1980-2010

Also, see these other postings at the Carpe Diem blog

 

“Student’s need a Book-of-the-Semester Club.”

 

Addendum on 2/22/14:

 

Bookless public library opens in Texas — from npr.org by Bill Chappell with thanks to Laura Goodrich/Don Tapscott for this resource

Excerpt:

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An artist's rendering shows computer stations at the new BiblioTech bookless public library in Bexar County, Texas. The library is holding its grand opening Saturday.
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From DSC:
If this is successful and takes off, can this also be achieved/made available from our living rooms…?
Addendums on 9/18/13:
 

iPad still dominates in latest tablet web usage numbers — from ipadinsight.com by Patrick Jordan

From DSC:
This is especially important data given the ever increasing trend towards mobility as well as when you are considering which ecosystem(s) to build up and around (i.e. consider things such as BYOD, what apps and platforms your students are going to develop for, digital textbooks, smartphone/tablet-based “clickers,” etc.)

 

 

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).

 

 

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

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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:

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