3 Fundamentals of UDL How to Digitize Your Textbooks By Luke Turcotte, from HackCollege. eBook readers are quickly becoming the go-to method to read print media. Perhaps the most exciting advantage is the ability to carry thousands of books on a thin device. Yes students, this means you could condense a semesters worth of heavy textbooks into a few thousand bytes on your Kindle, Nook or iPad. Textbook publishers are charging forward through this new frontier of media distribution, but unfortunately only a small portion of textbooks are available for download today. What do you do if your microbiology text isn’t available in a digital format this fall? Getty File Photo Option #1: Textbook Scanning Services There are several online services that will scan a textbook and return a PDF document of its contents. To give you a better idea of pricing, to scan three textbooks totaling 1956 pages for this upcoming semester, non-destructive scanning in color would cost me $218. Step 1: Each textbook is bound a little differently.
Universal Design for Learning Universal design provides people with disabilities greater access to the community and the workplace by removing or reducing barriers found in the environment. These principles, first outlined in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), are now being applied to instruction through IDEA '04 (Center for Applied Special Technology [CAST], 2004a). In the broadest sense, applying principles of universal design to instruction seeks to remove barriers that any individual might face when participating in instructional activities (Hitchcock & Stahl, 2003). Universal design for learning (UDL) is a way to help all students, not just those with disabilities, to access the curriculum in nonstandard ways. Most often, UDL has technology at the core of its solution to finding increased ways for students to approach and participate in instruction. UDL varies from typical special education techniques in many ways (Bremer et al., 2002; Whitbread, 2004).
The Death of Textbooks? At a recent sit-down with executives representing one of the biggest players in the textbook industry, my colleague and I felt surprisingly out of touch. The executives spent most of the meeting touting the evolving market, namely how their newfound allegiance to digital learning materials—rather than old-school physical textbooks—would place them at the forefront of the new wave of education technology. Rhetoric describing the company’s unmatched innovation pervaded the hour-long meeting; they raved about the company’s across-the-board shift to digital, how its new state-of-the-art materials comprise a "single roadmap" that is expected to make its generic, stodgy textbooks obsolete. They largely dismissed us as we—online journalists and Millennials in our mid-20s—reminisced about physical books that can be held, highlighted, and leafed through. These executives certainly seem to have popular opinion on their side. Increases in New College Textbook Prices by Percentage, 2002-2012
About UDL A short video by CAST illustrates the three principles of Universal Design for Learning. How US Federal Statute Defines UDL The Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) of 2008, passed with strong bipartisan support, established the statutory definition for universal design for learning. Read the definition UDL Series A free online collection of rich media presentations that help educators to build UDL understanding, implementa-tion skills, and leadership ability. Visit the UDL Series Resource for Parents and Teachers The UDLinks app was developed through a grant from the Maryland Department of Education to help teachers and parents search for online teaching resources aligned with UDL. UDL Now! In UDL Now!
Intel Has Acquired Kno, Will Push Further Into The Education Content Market With Interactive Textbooks We had a tip about, and have now confirmed, Intel’s latest acquisition: Kno, the education startup that started life as a hardware business and later pivoted into software — specifically via apps that let students read interactive versions of digitized textbooks. “I can confirm Intel has purchased Kno,” a spokesperson told us just now. The company is not disclosing deal terms but we’ll hopefully going to speak to John Galvin, the GM of Intel Education, to get more details. Since then, Intel has published a more detailed statement from Galvin on its site, which points to how Kno will fit into Intel’s efforts to build up its business in the education market — an effort it is making both in <a target="_blank" href=" wider efforts in hardware and software. He writes: The acquisition of Kno boosts Intel’s global digital content library to more than 225,000 higher education and K-12 titles through existing partnerships with 75 educational publishers. A Kno-win situation?
E-Books And Cost Pressures Push College Students Away From Textbooks By Ellen Lee The Department of Justice and Apple are battling in court over e-book pricing, but that's not the only high-stakes brawl that's brewing in the publishing industry. The multi-billion dollar textbook industry is also being shaken up by a slew of forces, from the publishers to tech startups, education non-profits, the government, university professors and, of course, Apple. Textbook sales, for both higher education and K-12, will reach an estimated $13.7 billion in the U.S. this year, according to Outsell, a research firm. The overall market is expected to increase over the next few years as the student population is growing, according to Kate Worlock, an analyst at Outsell. Just as with e-books, the shift comes as students turn to their tablets and smartphones for digital textbooks. If his professor asks the students to follow along in the textbook, he taps his iPad, opens a digital copy and quickly lands at the right place without thumbing through any pages. Thank You!
10 Reasons Why Students Aren't Using eTextbooks When e-textbooks were first introduced, they were supposed to be the wave of the future, and experts thought we’d see e-reader-toting students littering college campuses, and of course being adopted in droves by online university students. But they haven’t taken off quite as expected: according to market research firm Student Monitor, only about 11% of college students have bought e-textbooks. So what happened? The books they need aren’t available in digital format:For many students, e-book use isn’t about preference or price, but instead, availability.
B&N's Digital Textbook Platform Yuzu Continues to Frustrate Students This being January, a new semester is starting at many colleges across the US, and that means that many students are encountering B&N's textbook platform for the first time. Barnes & Noble hasn't officially launched Yuzu in the 9 months since they turned the platform on, but that doesn't mean they're not inflicting it upon college students. The retailer has been promoting Yuzu in the college bookstores it runs while at the same time neglecting to mention that the platform is still under development. Basically B&N has been recruiting college students to be unwitting guinea pigs in the development process, and conning them into paying for the privilege (with no refund option). And judging by the students who have shown up in my comment section, they're not too happy about the situation. Three students have left comments on this blog in the past week, all of which have complained about Yuzu. For example: I just rented my first e-book for school and of course it’s Yuzu. Yuzu is horrible.
The End of Textbooks? Those paper textbooks your students are carrying are costing you a lot of money. Typical elementary-school textbooks cost more than $100 each, and, as a result, the four largest textbook publishers rake in more than $4 billion each year. A big part of that haul, of course, comes out of state education budgets nationwide. Paperless digital textbooks, or e-textbooks, don’t have these problems. The higher-education market, unlike the K–12 arena, has begun to embrace e-textbooks. Relatively speaking, the K–12 e-textbook market remains moribund. “Ten years ago, even eight years ago, in that market, a lot of what you’d see would just be a reproduction of the book,” Chesser says. The biggest challenge for the makers of e-textbooks is to find a way to break into the K–12 market. Chesser, a former assistant director of K–12 teacher training at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says there are three main hurdles that have made today’s K–12 e-textbook situation so problematic.
Traditional Textbooks vs. eTextbooks - Pros and Cons: College Readiness LOOC There are advantages and disadvantages to both types of textbooks (traditional and ebook). The tables below will give you some good comparison information to help you make the decision as to which would be best for you!* In addition, with eTextbooks you also need to consider the device you will primarily be using to read them with. In the case of eReaders or iPads, the smaller screen size is something to consider. *Information from "Traditional Textbooks vs. eTextbooks - Which is Right for You?" Additional Resources: Advantages and Disadvantages of E-Textbooks Online: (Links to an external site.) Traditional Textbooks vs. eTextbooks - Which is Right for You? Print Textbooks vs. E-textbooks Effectiveness Studied: (Links to an external site.) EduCause - E-Textbooks: (Links to an external site.)