AcademicPub Opens Custom Textbook-Building to Faculty E-Textbooks | News AcademicPub Opens Custom Textbook-Building to Faculty By Dian Schaffhauser04/26/11 A company with technology for creating digital-to-print books is getting into the textbook market. AcademicPub, a division of SharedBook, has introduced a service that enables instructors to create digital and print texts by compiling materials from multiple sources: copyrighted works, faculty-created material, and resources the company has in its own library. The service also enables the instructor to collect royalties on the materials he or she personally provides in the textbooks. Permission to use copyrighted information from outside the library is provided by the Copyright Clearance Center. AcademicPub offers a searchable library that includes content from multiple publishers, including EBSCO, Foreign Affairs, and the American Institute of Physics.
The Human Face of Big Data The Human Face of Big Data App Download the free mobile app and learn about yourself, how you compare to others, and what your phone can tell you about your life. Compare answers about yourself, your family, trust, sleep, sex, dating, and dreams with millions of others around the world. Find your Data Doppelganger. Map your daily footprint, share what brings you luck, and get a glimpse into the one thing people want to experience during their lifetime. Mission Control On October 2 you'll be able to see an extraordinary three-dimensional snapshot of humanity in a way never possible before. Data Detectives Young people will live in a world shaped by Big Data. The Book Since March 2012, approximately 100 of the world's leading photographers in over 30 countries have been searching out and capturing images that illustrate The Human Face of Big Data. The iPad App An innovative app with enhanced stories brings The Human Face of Big Data to life.
6 Companies Aiming to Digitize the Textbook Industry The world's readers purchased an estimated $966 million of ebooks in 2010, and Amazon has been selling more ebooks than paper books since January. But students have yet to catch on to the digital book revolution with the same fervor. A 2010 study by OnCampus Research found that 74% of college students surveyed still prefer to use a printed textbook. Where some see non-adopters, others see untapped markets, and thus large and small players alike have long been targeting the digital textbook niche. Here are some of the ways they're looking to get students to trade their print for pixels. 1. CourseSmart was launched in 2007 as a joint venture with five publishers, including McGraw-Hill and Pearson. The CourseSmart approach is pretty standard (as the products of huge companies tend to be). 2. Follett-owned CafeScribe sells books with built-in study networks. 3. VitalSource is a combination between CourseSmart and CafeScribe. 4. enTourage Systems 5. 6.
Seth Godin's Blog for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and iPad on the iTunes App Store The Quiet Revolution in Open Learning - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education By Kevin Carey In the late days of March 2010, Congressional negotiators dealt President Obama's community-college reform agenda what seemed like a fatal blow. A year later, it appears that, remarkably, the administration has fashioned the ashes of that defeat into one of the most innovative federal higher-education programs ever conceived. Hardly anyone has noticed. Obama originally called for $12-billion in new spending on community-college infrastructure and degree completion. Two days later, negotiators found $2-billion. Then, the Education and Labor Departments decided to do something highly uncharacteristic of large federal bureaucracies: They began to talk. The concept is simple: Community colleges that compete for federal money to serve students online will be obliged to make those materials—videos, text, assessments, curricula, diagnostic tools, and more—available to everyone in the world, free, under a Creative Commons license. That still leaves the problem of credit.
Smule Launches Strum, A Social Video App With Musical Filters The latest product from music startup Smule isn’t what I was expecting — instead of releasing another music-centric app like Ocarina or Magic Piano, it’s launching a social video app called Strum. Music still plays a role in the app, but it’s not center stage here as it is with Smule’s other products. Prerna Gupta, CEO of Khush (another music startup that was acquired by Smule last year), said Strum comes from the same ideas that she told me about in August. At this point, you may be underwhelmed at the thought of yet another social video competitor. That’s the reasoning behind Strum’s most novel feature. To give you an idea of how the filtered videos look and sound, here’s one of video blogger iJustine. Are these filters just a novelty? Still, Strum has other selling points. You can download Strum from the Apple App Store here.
Education Department Clarifies E-Reader Accessibility Rules - Wired Campus The U.S. Department of Education today released a new guide to laws and rules colleges must follow to ensure e-reading devices and other emerging technologies are accessible to all students. It focuses on students with vision problems, a group whose access issues have triggered official complaints against colleges. The document, in the form of “Frequently Asked Questions,” was published in response to the department’s “Dear Colleague” letter to college presidents on the subject last June. If colleges use e-readers, or other emerging technologies, blind students “must be afforded the opportunity to acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as sighted students,” according to the department. The department doesn’t discourage the use of emerging technologies but indicates that colleges should assess whether a new technology is accessible, or could be modified to be accessible, before using it. An audio book might not do the trick, though.
Granta: Os Melhores Jovens Autores Brasileiros - Vol. 9 Granta: Os Melhores Jovens Autores Brasileiros - Vol. 9 Reúne textos dos 20 melhores jovens escritores brasileiros com menos de 40 anos. Os nomes foram selecionados por um grupo de sete jurados, a partir de contos e trechos de romance inéditos enviados à Granta. São escritores que contribuirão para mudar o panorama das letras no país. O projeto foi anunciado em julho de 2011, quando foram abertas as inscrições para os escritores de prosa, nascidos a partir de 1972, que tivessem publicado no Brasil pelo menos um texto ficcional. As listas dos melhores: É a primeira edição de Granta dedicada aos melhores jovens escritores brasileiros. A Granta no mundo: Os textos reunidos no volume Melhores jovens escritores brasileiros compõem um mosaico surpreendente de estilos e temas, e chamam a atenção pelo vigor e apuro estilístico. Informações Técnicas
6 Technologies That Will Change Education Ed Tech Trends | Research 6 Technologies That Will Change Education Over the next five years, six technologies will have a profound impact on teaching and learning, according to a new report released Tuesday by the New Media Consortium (NMC) in collaboration with the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), "2011 Horizon Report K-12 Edition." The annual Horizon Report focuses on the key technology areas that researchers identify as likely to have a major impact on educational institutions and other learning-focused organizations within the next five years, broken down into the technologies that will have an impact in the near term, those that are in the early stages of adoption (two to three years out), and those that are a bit further out (four to five years). The report also identifies trends and "critical" challenges facing education in the near future. Near-Term Technologies In the near term--one year or less--those technologies include cloud computing and mobile devices.
BenchPrep bets on textbooks (and more) beyond the iPad Chicago startup Watermelon Express has been building educational apps since 2009, but now it’s pursuing a new strategy and giving itself a new name to match — BenchPrep. Under its previous model, Watermelon Express worked with educational publishers like McGraw Hill and John Wiley (which publishes the CliffNotes series) to build standalone apps for interactive textbooks and test prep material. Chief executive Ashish Rangnekar told me that the company currently has 75 apps in Apple’s App Store, but it decided that offering a single, free app (called BenchPrep, where users can browse the entire BenchPrep library and purchase whichever titles they want) made more sense. There are already some higher-profile textbook startups on the scene, including iPad-focused Inkling and Kno, which reportedly shifted focus from building its own tablet to building software. However, Rangnekar highlighted two main differences.
McGraw-Hill eBook Library Debuts As Its Etextbook Platform On May 12, 2011, McGraw-Hill Professional announced its new ebook platform, the McGraw-Hill eBook Library, described as “a state-of-the-art platform delivering unparalleled access to the publisher’s premium content for institutions around the world.” According to the website, the product was initially scheduled to launch in March 2011. Company officials plan appearances at library-related conferences throughout the coming year to demo the new ebook service, geared to the needs of professional and academic markets. Sold as a service, this provides “flexible one-to-four-year subscription basis with free-of-charge monthly updates and unlimited concurrent usage.” At launch, the service offers more than 1,000 titles in five general subject areas initially: Student Study Aids and Test Prep; Business; Computing; Engineering and Medical and First Aid ( Added user features include note taking and bookmarking. The Professor Made Me Do It?
Want Your Kids To Stop Asking For An iPad 2? Here's What You Need To "Kno" Monday, 06 June 2011 10:15 Nicole Ferguson The iPad 2 is great choice for viewing media, surfing the web and playing games, however it is more geared towards being a toy than an actual educational tool despite the numerous education apps out there. If your child is below the age of 8, you can get by with preloading some educational apps and seeing them develop cognitive and motor skills, as well as general knowledge. However if their older than that then don't expect to further their education as much using the Apple tablet. The iPad 2 just became a lot more educational thanks to Kno's Textbooks Well that's until know. Santa Clara, CA – June 6, 2011 –Today Kno, Inc., an education software company, unveiled a beta version of Textbooks, an innovative learning application that marries the world's largest catalog of digital textbooks with an industry leading set of features for Apple's iPad. Kno is pushing the boundaries of how a student interacts with textbooks and learning materials. Source
Making Education Accessible Accessibility & the Web | Features Making Education Accessible By Bridget McCrea06/09/11 Accessibility for all students is a key concern in IT in higher education, one tied to the core mission of education and underscored by recent federal activity reinforcing the need for compliance in all aspects of technology implementations. Dartmouth College isn't alone in its ongoing efforts to address accessibility, but it has recently ramped up those efforts to meet the goal of addressing the needs of all students across its online media. Designing an Accessible Presence Last fall, Dartmouth's Arts and Sciences Faculty's Committee of Chairs formed an "Accessibility Steering Committee" that is now working to identify strategic initiatives to improve the overall student experience. The committee's initial review produced several key recommendations, according to Horton. "We are currently interviewing for that position," said Horton.
Knewton's "Adaptive Learning" Technology Spreads To Tens Of Thousands Of Students At ASU, Penn State, SUNY, More At the Venture Capital in Education Summit yesterday, Jose Ferreira, CEO of Knewton, announced the first big partnerships that will have tens of thousands of students trying the adaptive learning platform he's been building for the past five years. What he calls a "data interoperability engine" promises to take any kind of educational content, break it down and present it to students at exactly the sequence and pace they need, while giving detailed feedback on performance to both students and professors. "We can classify students by ability level down to the concept," Ferreira tells Fast Company. "Professors get a profile and they know exactly what people know coming in." Using content from giant publisher Pearson, Knewton built a math "College Readiness" course that is both remedial and diagnostic. It's online and self-paced so students can take it prior to registration or in their first semester. Adaptive learning is a buzzword in educational technology these days.