Jetpack by Purdue University. Pearson and Knewton Team Up to Make Learning Personal. One of the largest textbook publishers in the world is making its digital course offerings more data-driven and individualized. Pearson announced Tuesday an extensive partnership with Knewton, a startup that specializes in adaptive learning technology. The technology personalizes the presentation of educational material based on students' strengths and weaknesses. Pearson, McGraw-Hill and other publishers have developed products that incorporate this kind of technology. Knewton plans to power Pearson's product MyLabs, which has more than 750 titles. In addition, Knewton and Pearson will work together to develop full course solutions that facilitate blended learning in classrooms. Students in these courses use the computer during class time to work through material at their own speed.
"There's relatively little controversy in theory, but it all depends on the execution and how the teaching system integrates into classroom and school or college practices," she says. Courseload - Any Textbook. Any Content. Any Device. CourseSmart Launches HTML5-Based Reader for Etextbooks. CourseSmart Launches HTML5-Based Reader for Etextbooks CourseSmart announced the beta launch of its newest reader platform providing users with online, offline, anything, anywhere access to their eTextbooks. The first in the industry to utilize HTML5 technology for etextbooks and coupled with the latest version of Mozilla Firefox 5.0, this cloud-based offering now provides the same productivity features whether users are online or offline. Students who have active online etextbook digital rental access will immediately enjoy the benefits of the new offline capabilities.
Additionally, instructor textbook evaluation services will also be available on the new reader platform, allowing instructors free access to evaluate more than 90% of all core higher education etextbooks whether online or offline. The new reader experience also extends to CourseSmart’s productivity tools allowing users to highlight, search, copy, paste, take notes, share and print while offline. Source: CourseSmart. Ingram Vital Source expands etextbook acquisition VPG Integrated Media : Page 1 of 2. June 30, 2011 (Press Release) NASHVILLE, TN – Ingram Content Group Inc. today announced that Vital Source has grown its e-textbook offering with the acquisition of VPG Integrated Media (VPG), a leading developer of award-winning enhanced e-textbook applications, interactive learning objects and e-whiteboard content, and state-of-the-art video, audio, and animation production services for educational publishers.
The acquisition of VPG has expanded the ability of Vital Source to further enhance the digital learning experience. Vital Source and VPG, together, present an unmatched e-textbook offering that meets the demands of publishers, educators, and students in this new era of learning opportunities. The joining of VPG’s ability to turn a textbook into an interactive experience, Vital Source’s proven e-textbook platform and its strong relationships with publishers, institutions and students will streamline the creation and distribution of digital books globally. Amazon lets students rent Kindle textbooks | Crave. Amazon today unveiled a textbook rental service for the company's Kindle e-reader. Students can rent e-textbooks for as few as 30 days and extend rental periods in one-day increments. A key feature is you can keep annotations and highlighting after the rental period ends. The notes are stored in the Amazon cloud and can be automatically synced if you re-rent a textbook.
The amount of storable highlighting allowed is determined by the individual publishers, according to an Amazon spokesperson. Of course, the devil is in the details. John Wiley & Sons isn't saying how much highlighting they allow you to store. "We do support a student's need to retain a meaningful portion of their highlighted content after their rental has expired," said a company spokesperson. Other participating publishers include Elsevier, Taylor & Francis and Oxford University Press. Related links Amazon's Nook Color killer shipping soon? I'm not sure about the wisdom of giving students a financial incentive to cram. Amazon will rent textbooks on Kindle. Jul. 18, 2011 12:44 PM USA TODAY SEATTLE -- In an effort to snag a larger segment of the college textbook market, Amazon.com Inc. has begun renting textbooks on its Kindle e-reader. On Monday, the leading online retailer said students can rent tens of thousands of textbooks from its online Kindle Store, which Kindle users can access on the e-reader.
Amazon said its rental prices are as much as 80 percent lower than the list prices for the books. Seattle-based Amazon said books are available from publishers including John Wiley & Sons, Elsevier and Taylor & Francis. Students can rent the books for as little as 30 days or as many as 360 days, and can add an extra day or buy the book if they want, Amazon said. According to the National Association of College Stores, which represents more than 3,000 college bookstores, over 2,400 of its member stores offered rentals of physical textbooks in January, and nearly all are expected to do so by this fall. McGraw-Hill Education is First to Provide Universal Access to Its Digital Content and Tools Directly From Any Campus Portal.
Online Education Now Required In NY State Schools | EducationNews.org. A sweeping new policy, set to take effect this year, will mandate that public schools in the state of New York spend significant amounts of time online The world of the 21st century is one in which those who hope to succeed are going to need to know how to navigate the information superhighway.
In the state of New York, education officials have some ideas about how best to accomplish this. High school will become a virtual learning experience for more New York teenagers under a sweeping new state policy that promotes online instruction. The Board of Regents approved new rules easing the “seat-time” requirements that spell out how long a student must physically spend in a classroom to earn course credit. From The New York Post: The regulations also lessen requirements for face-to-face interactions between students and teachers. For example, a student will be able to take a virtual course in a subject that is not physically offered in his or her school because of a shortage of instructors. Students Expect More Technology in School, Survey Says. Each day, students use phones and computers to find information and communicate.
And now, they want to use more technology in school, according to the 2011 CDW-G 21st-Century Classroom Report. In an online survey of 1,000 high school students and faculty as well as district IT professionals, 86 percent of students say they use technology more at home than at school. And most of them also use that technology to work on class projects or study outside of the school day. In comparison, 39 percent of students say their school meets their technology expectations. Keep reading to find out how Hornell City Schools in New York is trying to meet students' technology expectations.
The funding challenge This year, 65 percent of IT professionals say they plan to upgrade or improve classroom technology in the next two years. But their greatest education technology challenge is lack of budget. Students can access resources, apps and networked resources through cloud computing at any time with ClassLink. Blackboard Buyer Providence Equity Acquires Personalized Online Learning Platform From PrepMe. Digital learning company Ascend Learning is acquiring PrepMe’s adaptive learning platform and virtual classroom SaaS. Ascend is actually owned by Providence Equity Partners, which just acquired Blackboard for $1.64 billion.
Financial terms of the PrepMe deal were not disclosed. As we wrote in our review of PrepMe’s offering, Coursification is a web-based application for personalized online learning courses. What differentiates Coursification from other course management and online learning platforms is that it helps teachers offer a tailored, personalized curriculum to each student based on their performance and learning schedule. Each online course begins with a diagnostic assessment that identifies student learning gaps (specialized to the subject). As students complete their assignments online, their comprehension is evaluated in short quizzes and longer tests online. Press releases. Press Releases. A College Education for All, Free and Online - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education. By Kevin Carey All around the world, people have been waiting for someone like Shai Reshef to come along. Reshef is the founder and president of the University of the People, a tuition-free online institution that enrolled its first class of students in 2009.
UoPeople strives to serve the vast numbers of students who have no access to traditional higher education. Some can't afford it, or they live in countries where there are simply no good colleges to attend. Others live in rural areas, or identify with a culture, an ethnicity, or a gender that is excluded from public services. UoPeople students pay an application fee of between $10 and $50 and must have a high-school diploma and be proficient in English. The university takes advantage of the growing body of free, open-access resources available online. Rather than deploy the most sophisticated and expensive technology, UoPeople keeps it simple—everything happens asynchronously, in text only.
That seems realistic. Nolan Bushnell aims to disrupt schools with edutainment. Game entrepreneur Nolan Bushnell, the father of video games, said that he plans to disrupt education with a new startup aimed at getting kids to learn via technology and games. Bushnell delivered his announcement onstage at this week’s GamesBeat 2011 conference with the panache of the original game industry huckster that he is, lacing his talk with raunchy jokes, grandiose predictions of the future, and outright bragging. Bushnell is a true character and one of the most prolific entrepreneurs in the history of games and technology, best known for creating the video game industry’s first boom times with the founding of Atari. His speech wandered everywhere, and it was very illuminating.
“What am I working on?” He said. “I want to fix education in the world. As soon as I work on that, I am going to work on world hunger and then world peace.” Through his startup Speed to Learn, Bushnell will try to get kids to learn faster by integrating game play directly into education plans. Copyright Clearance Center's Academic Pay-Per-Use Services Offer Entire Book Reuse Rights. Ingram’s Vital Source acquires VPG Integrated Media, specializing in enhanced e-textbooks. From an Ingram Press Release: Ingram Content Group Inc. today announced that Vital Source has grown its e-textbook offering with the acquisition of VPG Integrated Media (VPG), a leading developer of award-winning enhanced e-textbook applications, interactive learning objects and e-whiteboard content, and state-of-the-art video, audio, and animation production services for educational publishers.
The acquisition of VPG has expanded the ability of Vital Source to further enhance the digital learning experience. Vital Source and VPG, together, present an unmatched e-textbook offering that meets the demands of publishers, educators, and students in this new era of learning opportunities. The joining of VPG’s ability to turn a textbook into an interactive experience, Vital Source’s proven e-textbook platform and its strong relationships with publishers, institutions and students will streamline the creation and distribution of digital books globally.
Open Textbook Groups Join Forces. E-Textbooks | News Open Textbook Groups Join Forces By Dian Schaffhauser06/22/11 The colleges in 15 states and one Canadian province that make up the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) will now be able to tap into the collection of open textbook resources compiled by the international group of institutions that make up the OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCW Consortium) and vice versa in a new partnership.
The community college consortium, which represents 200 schools, has become an associate consortia member of OCW Consortium, and its advisory board will effectively act as a voice for the two-year colleges within the global consortium's organization. The goal of both groups is to raise awareness of open educational resources, including textbooks, video curriculum, and other materials. Among the 22 institutional members of the OCW Consortium are Arizona State University, Tufts University in Massachusetts, and the University of Michigan. About the Author. Publishers Launch First Digital-Only Textbook for K-12. Hats Off to California! (Part 1) OER Commons: An Education Ecosystem Using Knowledge Sharing | College Open Textbooks Blog. ISKME’s work in OER since 2005 has focused on identifying key opportunities for deepening the impact of OER adoption and use through research and practice that support enhanced teaching and learning.
For example, our research has shown that access to high quality, adaptable resources provides the flexibility needed for educators to develop innovative, localized content as well as pedagogical practices that are more collaborative and peer-based. Our OER Commons network is a curated collection of over 30,000 educational resources—including open textbooks—that can be shared, adapted, and remixed to fit individual teaching and learning needs. The overarching goal of OER Commons has been to create an education ecosystem built around the open sharing of resources and knowledge that can support improvements in teaching and learning.
In our ongoing efforts to meet this goal, we continue to create new features and tools on OER Commons. The Bookmark Button. The OER Toolbar. OER Search App. Amid Reports Of IPO Plans, Chegg Acquires Lecture Note Marketplace Notehall. We’re hearing that online textbook rental service Chegg has completed its third acquisition today, snapping up lecture notes and study guides service Notehall for an undisclosed amount of cash and stock. Chegg, which has received over $219 million in financing and hit revenues in the ballpark of $130 million in 2010, is also reportedly “deep in talks” with bankers regarding its plans to go public. Notehall, which like a micro-Chegg congruously offers a platform for students who want to buy and sell course materials, will be Chegg’s third acquisition after it snapped up other education-related startups Courserank and Cramster last year.
Notehall was founded by University of Arizona students Sean Conway, Justin Miller, Fadi Chalfoun and D.J. Stephan in 2008 while they were still at the university. Notehall currently offers its services at 54 universities across the US and pre-acquisition was expected to grow 400% this year, hoping to hit 750K users by the end of 2011. Reinventing the College Textbook. News & Commentary - News Story. Ebrary’s Academic Complete E-book Database Surpasses 70,000 Titles : Fri, 24 Jun 2011 : Publishers Newswire™ Palo Alto, Calif. /Publishers Newswire/ — To continually support the needs of researchers throughout the world, ebrary®, a leading provider of e-books and research technology, today announced it has added more than 16,000 titles in all academic subject areas to Academic Complete™.
The industry’s largest and most affordable e-book subscription database now includes a growing selection of more than 70,000 e-books from over 500 trusted publishers. With unlimited access and the unique ability for libraries to upload and integrate their own digital content from local computers with DASH! ™ (Data Sharing, Fast), Academic Complete provides a cost-effective and comprehensive foundation for any digital library. Recently named to the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Titles (OAT) list, e-books in Academic Complete are also now discoverable on the ProQuest platform. Key features and benefits of the ebrary platform include: · Available any time through any web-enabled device including the iPad. Market News Story. Blogs Elbow Up to Journal Status in New Academic-Publishing Venture - Wired Campus. Playing with Reality at the Learning and Entertainment Evolution Forum.
Knewton's "Adaptive Learning" Technology Spreads To Tens Of Thousands Of Students At ASU, Penn State, SUNY, More. Making Education Accessible. Kno - Instantly Get Textbooks for iPad and Save 30%-50% Want Your Kids To Stop Asking For An iPad 2? Here's What You Need To "Kno" McGraw-Hill eBook Library Debuts As Its Etextbook Platform. Aptara Signs Inkling For Digital Textbooks - eBookNewser. Apps › Education. BenchPrep bets on textbooks (and more) beyond the iPad. 6 Technologies That Will Change Education. Education Department Clarifies E-Reader Accessibility Rules - Wired Campus. The Quiet Revolution in Open Learning - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education. 6 Companies Aiming to Digitize the Textbook Industry.
Random House Buys Digital Agency. A free app that helps you remember. AcademicPub Opens Custom Textbook-Building to Faculty. Push Pop Press — Al Gore's Our Choice.