Students Produce Ed-Tech E-Text for iPad

Nine graduate students at Georgia College and State University, Milledgeville, produced an e-textbook that just might be the starting point for more educational technology, according to this article in eCampus News. The group introduced its free e-textbook for iPads, Using Technology in Education, through the Apple iBookstore last January.

The e-text is full of video and images covering topics ranging from use of social media to advances in assistive technology to e-readers in higher education.

“This movement toward electronic textbooks and tablet computers could revolutionize K-12 and higher education,” said Chris Greer, associate professor of instructional technology at the John H. Lounsbury College of Education at Georgia College and instructor for the students who produced the e-text. “Digital textbooks are inexpensive and can be updated more quickly and easily. Our textbook strives to look at technology and education together.”

Greer added he believes textbooks for iPads will be even more useful once more educators adopt e-readers. That day may be coming, as more than 600 school districts around the country have iPad programs in place, according to Greer, while a recent Student Monitor survey found that six in 10 college students and seven of 10 high school seniors think tablet computers will replace traditional printed textbooks within five years.

Another e-text scheduled to be available for this fall term is Introduction to Sociology from education startup Highlighter and the 20 Million Minds Foundation. This e-book is being described as the “first student-faculty interactive textbook” because it offers social highlighting and commenting features that can be shared.

Highlighter expects the e-text will allow professors to track a student’s progress through its note-taking feature. Plus, the app is HTML5, which makes it compatible for use on all devices.

“I recently wrote that the latest round of textbook-related news was banal at best,” Audrey Watters said in her Inside Higher Education blog. “But the social components (of the Highlighter project), along with the OER materials and the flexibility therein, do offer something a lot more interesting here, I think.”

Students Ready for More Tech in the Classroom

The latest CDW-G student survey on education technology found just 23% of those polled were satisfied with the way instructors use class time. Those who were satisfied tended to listen to fewer lectures and use technology more.

“I do learn more with a mixed style, where the class is opened up to group discussion,” said Hannah Davis, a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was part of a student panel during the Learn Now, Lecture Later: The New College Experience session at the Campus Technology 2012 conference in Boston.

The report surveyed 1,015 students, faculty, and IT staff at the high school and college level last May and June. Technology is employed more in college classrooms than high school, with 74% of college students using digital content, 55% making use of smartphones, and 53% taking advantage of recorded lectures.

“I like having the lecture online, so I can pause it and rewind,” said panelist Mario Solorzano, a student at Arizona State University. He told of an English professor at ASU who uses Skype to connect with students after office hours and of a grad student who created a Facebook study group.

In addition to greater opportunities to use technology in the classroom, students say they would like to see digital formats become standardized and the price of e-books come down.

“I find e-books priced much the same as textbooks and can’t bring myself to buy it for the same price as a hardcover, even though I would find them beneficial,” said Tyler Hughes, a student at the University of Michigan.

There are plenty of other challenges for IT and faculty to work out. Andy Lausch, vice president of higher education at CDW-G and moderator of the student-panel session, pointed to budget constraints, class size, and time for professional development as the biggest obstacles. Another hurdle could be faculty mindset, since the survey also found that 88% of respondents view moving away from traditional lectures as a challenge.

“Students say classroom time is moving in the right direction, but they want a greater mix of learning models, with more hands-on assignments and more virtual learning,” said Lausch. 

Blogger Wonders What's the Rush to E-Text?

It's probably shouldn't be a surprise that students aren’t flocking to electronic textbooks. After all, most have been handed print textbooks at the beginning of every school year for most of their academic lives. Besides, they are consumers who tend to look for low price first, and e-textbooks don’t always offer much savings.

Now, Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, weighs in on the subject on his blog. He observes that while popular e-books are written in a narrative style and are read for pleasure, textbooks deal with difficult material that is being read to learn and remember.

Willingham points to research which shows that while all the videos and hyperlinks that e-texts are able to provide can certainly be an advantage to students, they can also be a distractions that actually limit understanding.

He’s not trying to suggest there’s no reason to replace the printed format. He’s just asking what the rush is.

Friending the new first-year students

College stores once had near exclusive reach to incoming first-year students.   Today that is not so much the case, with social media and the reach of mobile devices.   Fast Company had an interesting article this week about the importance of building a relationship with these new students, and some suggestions on how to (and how not to) do it.  As technology changes the medium of our core product as well as the transaction mechanism over the next decade the focus now is on market share. 

The Class of 2015, the article notes, are:

hyper-connected, tech savvy thinkers with a budget and their own personal brand to uphold. [...]  Their outlook on life has been dramatically altered by world events and social media. Technology has enabled their own personal brand-building, beginning from the time they were old enough to click a mouse. And when they say something, it’s not a handful of the select few who hear them, it’s hundreds upon hundreds of “friends” with open ears and fingers just itching to text or tweet.

Coupled with this observation, the article provides five pieces of advice for understanding the needs of the new first-year students who will make up the Class of 2015.

1. HELP THEM EXPRESS THEIR PERSONAL BRAND -- and they will embrace yours.


2. INTEGRATE ORGANICALLY INTO THEIR WORLD -- and go to where the customer is (i.e., online)


3. GET IN GOOD WITH THEIR FRIENDS -- and understand social networking


4. BECOME AN ON-DEMAND BRAND -- aggregate the services they need and make it easy


5. GET TO KNOW THEM AND DON’T ASSUME -- values change, and trust is more important than ever

Each of the above suggestions in the article is coupled with an example of a "company that is getting it right."  The message here to stores is that if you are not yet thinking about social media, it is just another way in which you are losing out on market share and the relationship which was traditionally the retailer's strength.

 

Now more than ever it is time to skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.

 

Rethinking Education Video - M. Wesch

Michael Wesch videos related to anthropology, the web, and higher education are always interesting. Here is one he created a while back, but which I had not posted here before. It is called Rethinking Education. He has another in production on the Visions of Students Today 2011 that is looking for student submissions.

Rentals Keep Print the Top Choice on Campus

A survey from Student Monitor found that devices such as the Apple iPad are making gains on campus, but the printed textbook remains alive and well thanks to rental options. The study, detailed on Inside Higher Ed, found that 24% of the surveyed 1,200 full-time students at four-year institutions rented course materials, up from 12% the year before.

Those who rented saved an average of $127. The rental trend should continue to rise, since 36% of underclassmen said they are likely or very likely to rent a textbook next year. Campus bookstores remain the most popular source for rentals, thanks to their efforts to get out in front of the trend. Yet students said they were most satisfied with their experience using the textbook rental site Chegg.com because of price, punctual delivery, and ease of use.

On the electronic side, just 5% of those surveyed said they purchased access to an e-textbook during the spring, and only 2% bought e-texts for more than one class.

However, that may be about to change. The survey found that while just 8% of the students owned an iPad, nearly half expressed interest in buying the device. Students also placed the iPad alongside coffee—but behind beer—when asked to rate media and “lifestyle” choices.

In fact, “drinking beer” was the only nontech pastime students listed in the top five, alongside Facebook, iPhones, texting, and laptop computers. More than half (54%) of those surveyed own smartphones, up from 41% from a year ago, reinforcing the notion that print rentals may be a short-term solution.

Digital Happenings

While the blog highlights many of the digital happenings affecting our industry, there is often more going on than we have a chance to cover. Here are some links to interesting articles from the past few days.

• Apple sold 4.19 million iPads last quarter bringing its total sales to almost 7.5 million since April. Interestingly, the iPad sales last quarter were greater than the sales for the entire line of Macintosh computers which also hit a record high at nearly 3.9 million units. Some analysts are now predicting that Apple will sell up to 40 million iPads next year.
• According to an article from Adage, Apple has also expanded distribution for the iPad to retailers such as Target, Walmart, Sam’s Club, and Best Buy. Previously, the iPad was available at 300 Apple stores and now it will be available at 8,000 stores across the country.
• A recent survey of students by the Associated Press and mtvU found that 57 percent of students said that life without computers and cell phones would be stressful but 25 percent said it would be a relief.
• An article from The New York Times says that Sharp is scaling back its laptop operations to focus on tablets. Sharp plans to launch 5.5-inch and 10-inch screen Android tablets in December. In addition, Sharp will launch an e-book store that will give users access to 30,000 e-books, newspapers, and magazines. A second article from MacWorld provides more information about the tablets.
• According to a TechCrunch article, Amazon says that it continues to sell more Kindle books than print books. Amazon says that it has sold more than three times as many Kindle books from January to September of this year than it did for the same nine months of 2009. Amazon also says that sales for its latest Kindle device have already surpassed total Kindle device sales from the holiday season last year (October through December 2009).
• A recent article from Publishers Weekly discusses the challenges associated with formatting e-books.