No matter how much sense this makes something tells me the Oklahoma legislature will find all sorts of imaginary faults with this:
Apple Announcement: iBooks 2 for Digital Textbooks
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/01/apple-announcement-ibooks-2-ibooks-author-for-digital-textbooks/#.TxhNOetMZlg.twitter (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/01/apple-announcement-ibooks-2-ibooks-author-for-digital-textbooks/#.TxhNOetMZlg.twitter)
QuoteApple, which changed music with its iPod and mobile communications with the iPhone, said today it was offering software that would reinvent the school textbook. It was a project inspired by Apple's late co-founder and CEO, Steve Jobs.
"There's a lot that's talked about that may be wrong with education. One thing we hear louder than all else and where we can help is in student engagement," said Phil Schiller, Apple's marketing chief, at an announcement at New York's Guggenheim Museum. "That's why we get excited when students get their hands on an iPad."
Schiller and his Apple colleagues showed off two new applications to take the information in textbooks and put it, in interactive form, on iPads and computers. One is called iBooks 2, a free download for iPads, available from Apple's app store starting today. The other, iBooks Author, is a tool he said authors and publishers — as well as students and others with an interest in education — can use on a computer to create interactive iPad lessons.
"The textbook is not always the ideal learning tool," said Schiller. "Yet their content is amazing."
He showed how different lessons — in biology, math, literature and other areas — could play on an iPad. The new interactive books would cost $14.99, far less than most of today's paper textbooks. They could be updated continually, said Apple. And it will not take a programming wizard to create one.
Students will be able to "mark up" their iPad books electronically, creating the digital equivalent of note cards as they go through lessons, said Apple. And they will be able to keep the iBooks, since they are digital files, after the courses are over.
Schiller said Apple was forming partnerships with three of the biggest publishers of school texts: Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which are responsible for 90 percent of the textbooks used in the U.S. today. DK Publishing, which publishes vividly-colored books for younger kids, is joining in as well. Apple said a first offering would be an iPad-only book, "Life On Earth," by E.O. Wilson, the famed biologist and professor emeritus at Harvard.
"With the iPad, we're making textbooks so much more engaging," said Roger Rosner, the Apple executive who has led the project.
Additionally, Apple said it was expanding iTunes U, a project it has run for colleges several years, to include elementary and high schools. Professors use iTunes U to put their lectures online.
There are major questions still to be worked out, the largest being whether schools will generally be receptive to the Apple initiative. There have been online textbooks for years, but they have not often been interactive. And the retail price for the iPad 2 starts at $499, so some educators asked if disadvantaged students would get a chance to use the new technology.
Gene Munster, a senior technology analyst for Piper Jaffray, said his firm surveyed school officials and found the major barrier to new technology was not the cost of new hardware such as iPads. Instead, he said in a phone interview with ABC News, it was control over where students went online when using school computers. At a school, an I.T. department can put up a firewall to prevent students from going to websites unrelated to learning. If students are taking school iPads home instead of books, the schools worried that they may wander around online.
Also, textbooks today go through detailed certification processes, something that is intended to ensure that they are accurate, but which also drives up their cost. Apple's initiative would broaden the number of people who can create online lessons, and some school systems may be wary.
"We hope that educators are going to look back on today's announcement and see the profound impact on education," said Schiller.
I'll tell you what's wrong with it: iPads are farking expensive. How about a Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet? The hardware is half the freakin' price and Amazon and B&N both have the clout to hammer down book publishers on pricing.
Also, $14.99 is probably unsustainably low. The cost of a textbook is not mostly in paper and printing, it's in research and copyediting. Admittedly, the research and copyediting has (supposedly) been falling by the wayside over the last ten years or so.
Quote from: nathanm on January 19, 2012, 02:42:53 PM
I'll tell you what's wrong with it: iPads are farking expensive. How about a Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet? The hardware is half the freakin' price and Amazon and B&N both have the clout to hammer down book publishers on pricing.
Also, $14.99 is probably unsustainably low. The cost of a textbook is not mostly in paper and printing, it's in research and copyediting. Admittedly, the research and copyediting has (supposedly) been falling by the wayside over the last ten years or so.
Have you looked at textbook costs?
Have the makers of Nook or Kindle Fire offered an option?
OK's text books will be based off the insane choices made by the TX board of education. Schools need more options than that.
For what one semester of text books costs me for one of my daughters I can almost pay for an iPad. Plus they can use it for more than just a reader. I was able to get my younger daughter, who is a freshman, an iPad 2 from the OU I.T. store for $510 tax included. Cost of her books for first and second semester this year? over $700. If I'm lucky, I can get 1/2 that back assuming none of the books have been obsoleted after that semester.
Older daughter was supposed to get one as well but her MacBook had a massive stroke in November so she got a new Mac for Christmas instead. For her major a Mac is far more important than an iPad at this juncture (interior design).
From 2008:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/19/AR2008081903230.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/19/AR2008081903230.html)
Break on Cost Of Textbooks Unlikely Before Last Bell, 2010
QuoteEstimates of how much students spend on textbooks range from $700 to $1,100 annually, and the market for new books is estimated at $3.6 billion this year. Between 1986 and 2004, the price of textbooks nearly tripled, rising an average of 6 percent a year while inflation rose 3 percent, according to a 2005 report by the Government Accountability Office. In California, the state auditor reported last week that prices have skyrocketed 30 percent in four years.
Some textbooks are available on Kindle - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43796121/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/t/rental-textbooks-available-kindle/
Like other industries before it, textbook publishers will face the disrupting effects of technology on their captive market business model.
I'm afraid that like our elected leaders who are too retarded to understand what Sopapipa would've done, our school leaders won't understand what this could open for the students.
Much less the money savings for the state and schools.
Quote from: Townsend on January 19, 2012, 03:32:25 PM
I'm afraid that like our elected leaders who are too retarded to understand what Sopapipa would've done, our school leaders won't understand what this could open for the students.
Much less the money savings for the state and schools.
I have no problem that the text book manufacturers need to charge for their intellectual property. Even if it only cut the cost 25% the amount of waste and energy this could cut is staggering. Besides I'm sure most book printing is being done off-shore these days. Not like it's going to cost thousands of American jobs. ;)
Already done at TCC. Nursing students get an iPad when they enroll. It is already populated with all of their text books. They started it last year and it has worked great! Costs far less than the cost of books. Also eliminates all of the logistics necessary for ordering stocking and inventorying text books.
Quote from: Gaspar on January 19, 2012, 03:53:31 PM
Already done at TCC. Nursing students get an iPad when they enroll. It is already populated with all of their text books. They started it last year and it has worked great! Costs far less than the cost of books. Also eliminates all of the logistics necessary for ordering stocking and inventorying text books.
I'd imagine the lack of weight in the student's backpack is a plus.
Instead of buying textbooks, consider renting them from a service like www.chegg.com (http://www.chegg.com). I used Chegg for my last two years at TU and saved probably over $1000. Rent a book for a semester for $15-30 and send it back in a pre-paid envelope. Heck, they even plant a tree for each book you rent.
The young lady that works for me says she has over 25 text books on her iPad. If she had to purchase them they would be around $2,000. When they do clinicals, they have access to all of their texts without lugging around a 30lb backpack. Her professors also use Dropbox and Evernote to hand out lessons, notes, videos, and assignments.
If she has to work or can't be at the class, she can attend remote using some meeting software.
Quote from: Gaspar on January 19, 2012, 04:16:46 PM
The young lady that works for me says she has over 25 text books on her iPad. If she had to purchase them they would be around $2,000. When they do clinicals, they have access to all of their texts without lugging around a 30lb backpack. Her professors also use Dropbox and Evernote to hand out lessons, notes, videos, and assignments.
If she has to work or can't be at the class, she can attend remote using some meeting software.
This should be the way it is across the board. The lobbyists will push this back as long as they can.
Edited to add: Damn you lobbyists. Damn you. over.
Quote from: dsjeffries on January 19, 2012, 03:56:41 PM
Instead of buying textbooks, consider renting them from a service like www.chegg.com (http://www.chegg.com). I used Chegg for my last two years at TU and saved probably over $1000. Rent a book for a semester for $15-30 and send it back in a pre-paid envelope. Heck, they even plant a tree for each book you rent.
The problem with this is those on financial aid or scholarship don't have direct access to their money until 4-6 weeks after school starts. They are pretty much forced to buy their books through the school bookstore (at least at TCC) unless they can cover it out of pocket.
Quote from: Townsend on January 19, 2012, 04:18:24 PM
This should be the way it is across the board. The lobbyists will push this back as long as they can.
Edited to add: Damn you lobbyists. Damn you. over.
You forgot to berate him for lack of posting a link to a source.
Quote from: dsjeffries on January 19, 2012, 03:56:41 PM
Instead of buying textbooks, consider renting them from a service like www.chegg.com (http://www.chegg.com). I used Chegg for my last two years at TU and saved probably over $1000. Rent a book for a semester for $15-30 and send it back in a pre-paid envelope. Heck, they even plant a tree for each book you rent.
That sounds better than the depreciation on re-sale.
It was really a lifesaver. Go for it next semester.
I'm not saying that textbooks on ereaders are an inherently bad idea (unless your students are likely to not have electricity at home!), just that it's a complete waste of money for a school district to buy an iPad over a Nook Tablet or Kindle Fire. Had a school the size of my high school done it, expecting the kids to keep the tablet their entire run, the iPads are an extra $150,000 a year that could go to useful programs that are being cut due to budgetary issues. And that's just the one freakin' school.
Although thinking further about it I'm not sure that it's the best thing in the world for kids to be essentially staring at light bulbs even more than they already are.
Also, it's definitely not the greatest thing in the world to cheapen textbooks even further. It takes literally years for a couple of people to write a good textbook. It's all about sourcing and accuracy, which is rather time consuming.
Quote from: nathanm on January 19, 2012, 09:56:48 PM
I'm not saying that textbooks on ereaders are an inherently bad idea (unless your students are likely to not have electricity at home!), just that it's a complete waste of money for a school district to buy an iPad over a Nook Tablet or Kindle Fire. Had a school the size of my high school done it, expecting the kids to keep the tablet their entire run, the iPads are an extra $150,000 a year that could go to useful programs that are being cut due to budgetary issues. And that's just the one freakin' school.
Although thinking further about it I'm not sure that it's the best thing in the world for kids to be essentially staring at light bulbs even more than they already are.
Also, it's definitely not the greatest thing in the world to cheapen textbooks even further. It takes literally years for a couple of people to write a good textbook. It's all about sourcing and accuracy, which is rather time consuming.
iPads and e-readers don't cheapen the work whatsoever. You still pay the researchers, writers, and editors what they've always made. Heck with the variables in printing costs and transportation costs, perhaps they could make more whilst lowering the end user price of a text. You get rid of a lot of waste and environmental issues created by manufacturing and transporting text books.
I don't know if you would be old enough to remember it or not, but when they started putting PC's in classrooms, there was a similar reaction in the very early 1980's. "Those kids don't need to be playing around on a damn computer unless they plan to become a computer programmer!". Turns out within 10-12 years if you didn't have a PC or know how to use one you were at a serious disadvantage. Now 30+ years later it's hard to imagine anyone who does not have access to a computer or doesn't know how to operate one in the developed world. Tablets are the next technology to help manage life, study, and stay in contact. Ten years from now, they will be considered essential, so I don't really think it's a bad thing to get kids used to the technology.
Finally, Apple makes really good discounts for education. I was told by a friend who went through the graphics program at OSU tech that they would practically give away the hardware to the schools as they knew if the designers got comfortable using their platform, that's what they would buy when they got out of school. IOW, a school system may be able to get iPad's for 1/2 of list and the iPad offers more functionality than just a an e-reader. There is a ton of mark up in an iPhone iPad or Mac. That's why Apple's profits are so astounding quarter after quarter- basically they have a ton of mark up they can work with on discounting to schools and still make a meager profit on those units without vastly hurting their bottom line. Students also get better pricing on any Apple product, whether you buy it from Best Buy or the I.T. store on a college campus. Sort of like free crack for the future customer ;)
/Apple fanboy mode
Quote from: Conan71 on January 19, 2012, 05:33:35 PM
You forgot to berate him for lack of posting a link to a source.
I thought he was relating personal experience.
My 6 year old already carries a backpack that weighs about 8 lb.
When I was in high school mine must have weighed well over 25 lb, and I remember the sore shoulders from lugging it around.
If we want to talk about economy for public schools, Conan is right, Apple provides technology at greatly discounted prices. In many instances they provide a certain number of systems free of cost, because they know that once children are proficient with Apple products, they and their parents are likely to be customers.
Schools spend a great deal of money on the logistics of purchasing, storing, distributing, and recovering text books. Each district operates warehouses or has devoted real-estate for text book storage. Transportation is also an issue. If each student is lugging around a 10-20lb backpack that is the equivalent of adding 560 to 1,120 lb of weight to an average school bus.
Elementary school text books average from $40-$100+, so each student is carrying up to $400 +/- worth of paper. When you add the expense of warehousing, logistics, and distribution, that cost goes up. There is no reason to be a Luddite on this subject, especially when the technology also offers a vast number of capabilities not available through a static wood pulp product.
This also provides poor children, that may not be able to afford a home computer, the ability to participate in a digital world. When I was a child, IBM supplied schools with typewriters. When I went to college Apple had begun to provide schools and universities with IIe microcomputers. I was lucky, my Dad and I had already built a Heathkit in 1980, and graduated through the TRS80s and so on, but without exposure to those old Apple IIes, many of my fellow students would never have had any computer experience during their youth.
I remember when Jenks tossed the IBM Selectrics for PCs the year my little sister graduated. There was outrage among many parents because they though it would lead to children not being able to use a typewriter.
Quote from: Gaspar on January 20, 2012, 09:21:26 AM
...because they know that once children are proficient with Apple products, they and their parents are likely to be customers.
I remember when Jenks tossed the IBM Selectrics for PCs the year my little sister graduated. There was outrage among many parents because they though it would lead to children not being able to use a typewriter.
Guess who had the first Apple product in my house? My older daughter. It's metastasized since then. Now I need to get FMC on the Apple cart.
Typewriter? What's that?
Two things come to mind. How many of you still have your zip disks? What is the lifespan of the Ipad or Kindles?
And, though creatives and enlightened love their Apple products, it is still poorly accepted among most businesses isn't it?
I considered sending one of my children to a private middle school (MetroC) back in the mid nineties, but when I talked to their technology instructor, she expressed contempt for any platform other than PC. She bragged that they were total PC because there was no business future for toys like Apple produced. Alas, that attitude still exists in the business world.
Quote from: AquaMan on January 20, 2012, 10:43:00 AM
Alas, that attitude still exists in the business world.
Not in my business.
Apple mobile products are tracked and are very strong. How many iPhones were activated this last Christmas?
I often see requirements in job descriptions for PC type software experience. Lately I have seen an increase in GUI type software requirements including off the shelf stuff, but not necessarily Apple/Mac platform experience unless it is a graphics type position. I guess it doesn't matter if its used just as a research source. Just noting the bias.
I mostly worry about compatibility, lifespan, designed obsolescence and virus issues. Books may burn but its usually not all the books in a short period of time. You also don't need to keep updating, transferring and backing them up all at extra cost. I love it that I still have books from college and occasionally refer to them. And lastly, unless we all forget how to read and turn pages they still are stored and work the same way they have since Gutenberg.
Quote from: AquaMan on January 20, 2012, 10:58:25 AM
I often see requirements in job descriptions for PC type software experience. Lately I have seen an increase in GUI type software requirements including off the shelf stuff, but not necessarily Apple/Mac platform experience unless it is a graphics type position. I guess it doesn't matter if its used just as a research source. Just noting the bias.
I mostly worry about compatibility, lifespan, designed obsolescence and virus issues. Books may burn but its usually not all the books in a short period of time. You also don't need to keep updating, transferring and backing them up all at extra cost. I love it that I still have books from college and occasionally refer to them. And lastly, unless we all forget how to read and turn pages they still are stored and work the same way they have since Gutenberg.
Yet one more Apple advantage: no viruses.
It took awhile to get used to the nuances of my Mac, but everything I produce on it for work will open and read just fine in anyone else's PC here at work. I also like the availability of useful apps in the app store.
Even if someone must use a PC at work, there's a growing number of people who are going Apple for all their personal computing and communication needs.
Quote from: Gaspar on January 20, 2012, 09:21:26 AM
When I was in high school mine must have weighed well over 25 lb, and I remember the sore shoulders from lugging it around.
You had backpacks? We had to lug our books around using our arms.
Quote
I remember when Jenks tossed the IBM Selectrics for PCs the year my little sister graduated. There was outrage among many parents because they though it would lead to children not being able to use a typewriter.
Before that, parents probably complained about electric typewriters since you didn't have to strike the keys with any gusto as was required with the manual typewriters.
Quote from: AquaMan on January 20, 2012, 10:43:00 AM
Two things come to mind. How many of you still have your zip disks? What is the lifespan of the Ipad or Kindles?
Can you say 5-1/4 FDD?
Quote from: AquaMan on January 20, 2012, 10:43:00 AM
Two things come to mind. How many of you still have your zip disks? What is the lifespan of the Ipad or Kindles?
Do you think the technology will go away in a few years?
"Book of Eli" a couple of years ago with Denzel Washington. Good movie and an interesting premise.
Quote from: Townsend on January 20, 2012, 11:56:42 AM
Do you think the technology will go away in a few years?
It wouldn't surprise me if something new and incompatible with existing storage comes along.
Quote from: Red Arrow on January 20, 2012, 12:11:53 PM
It wouldn't surprise me if something new and incompatible with existing storage comes along.
From Apple?
We support thousands of clients. There is a major shift towards Apple now. The MacBook Pro, and iPad are replacing all others for mobile computing. We are a Microsoft Gold company, and even among our staff we have engineers and developers dumping the PCs. A base MacBook Pro can run multiple virtual machines without a hiccup. Connectivity, reliability, and security are all far superior on the apple product. RDC connections to terminal servers are more stable for some reason, and we have yet to encounter any disk failures. Size, durability and battery life are also light years ahead of competitive models. The entire aluminum body of the MacBook pro acts to dissipate heat from the processor, and as a result the internal fans draft less air and don't get gummed up with dust and lint. Our clients who have transitioned to Apple have little or no engineering support needs.
The Microsoft world is not going anywhere, but like what happened with IBM, they may recede from the individual client pc software market to just focus on their server software. Microsoft has had a very hard time releasing a reliable operating system, and they have become a slave to the security cottage industry that they created. Today, they compete on price and compatibility, but as that narrows, they will only be able to compete on price, and that's a very bad position to be in.
One of my clients replaced every laptop for their sales force (hundreds of them) with iPads last year. They said it was the best thing they have ever done. They purchased a Dropbox Pro account and simply put all of the necessary documents, catalog pdfs, contracts, and pricing sheets in a folder on their server, and instantly their salesforce has everything they need on each iPad. We created an order entry portal for them, and now their sales people just carry an iPad with 10 hours of battery life and everything they need, instead of a laptop, charger, air-card, and briefcase of catalogs. Most of them can go on a 4 day business trip without even packing a charger.
Quote from: Gaspar on January 20, 2012, 01:38:47 PM
A base MacBook Pro can run multiple virtual machines without a hiccup. Connectivity, reliability, and security are all far superior on the apple product. RDC connections to terminal servers are more stable for some reason, and we have yet to encounter any disk failures. Size, durability and battery life are also light years ahead of competitive models.
And once again what's new is old. Very old. Hint: "competitive model" includes the price tag. Yes, comparing a MBP to a cheap PC laptop makes the MBP look really good. Buy a PC laptop for an equivalent price, not so much. It's your clients' money, though.
BTW, if you had asked me 10 years ago if a Microsoft operating system would ever again be worth a damn, I'd have laughed in your face. Unfortunately for Windows-haters like me, Windows 7 actually works very well, even on this netbookish thing I'm presently using, which, by the way, was over a hundred bucks cheaper than a base iPad.
None of that is to say that there aren't completely pointless and overpriced PC products out there. One of my clients had a consultant recently who decided that a $1800 convertible notebook would be better than an actual tablet or a cheap notebook for salesmen. I'm not quite sure it is the convertible notebook form factor brings to the table given that the intent is to use it as a tablet all the time. The only advantage relative to an iPad is that you're not stuck with Apple's idea of a good programming language, so existing skill sets can be relied upon to produce the software. There's a reason I quit using Objective C back when we were all on the Apple death watch. But once again, what's old is the new hotness.
Quote from: nathanm on January 19, 2012, 09:56:48 PM
I'm not saying that textbooks on ereaders are an inherently bad idea (unless your students are likely to not have electricity at home!), just that it's a complete waste of money for a school district to buy an iPad over a Nook Tablet or Kindle Fire. Had a school the size of my high school done it, expecting the kids to keep the tablet their entire run, the iPads are an extra $150,000 a year that could go to useful programs that are being cut due to budgetary issues. And that's just the one freakin' school.
Although thinking further about it I'm not sure that it's the best thing in the world for kids to be essentially staring at light bulbs even more than they already are.
Also, it's definitely not the greatest thing in the world to cheapen textbooks even further. It takes literally years for a couple of people to write a good textbook. It's all about sourcing and accuracy, which is rather time consuming.
Both of those are half of the screen real estate and don't have the computing power for fluid interactive content. iPad 3 gets released in March, watch for iPad 2's to become $400 or possibly lower as they have reduced prices to schools. I know with Mac's it's like 20% off when sold to schools. That would mean an iPad would be only about $100 more than a Kindle fire and actually include things like a microphone, bluetooth, etc.
Quote from: AquaMan on January 20, 2012, 10:43:00 AM
She bragged that they were total PC because there was no business future for toys like Apple produced.
In the mid-90s, there was no reason to think otherwise. Aside from graphic design and media work, it was the worse platform. Even now, Apple makes little to no attempt to compete in the server space, nor do they put much effort into business productivity applications that most workers use day in and day out.
It's not a bad business strategy, though. Handhelds, especially ones with the Apple logo, have very high margins, and they sell in a lot more volume than high margin servers, storage arrays, and that sort of thing. The desktop is almost entirely commoditized, so there's little money to be made there.
grizz, there are other competitors that do have those things and are still less expensive, but maybe it all works out for schools after the discounting.
Quote from: nathanm on January 21, 2012, 12:44:37 AM
In the mid-90s, there was no reason to think otherwise. Aside from graphic design and media work, it was the worse platform. Even now, Apple makes little to no attempt to compete in the server space, nor do they put much effort into business productivity applications that most workers use day in and day out.
It's not a bad business strategy, though. Handhelds, especially ones with the Apple logo, have very high margins, and they sell in a lot more volume than high margin servers, storage arrays, and that sort of thing. The desktop is almost entirely commoditized, so there's little money to be made there.
grizz, there are other competitors that do have those things and are still less expensive, but maybe it all works out for schools after the discounting.
Yes, that is the point I was making. However, in terms of what school I wanted my son to go to it was an arrogant philosophy for them. Better to have understood that both had a place in the learning process and in future use. They shorted their students.
just my two cents here, but I personally think its a great idea and they are on to something.
To the person who asked if its accepted in the business world? ABSOLUTELY!
I work at the airport, we are seeing more and more business travelers with iphones and ipads. ALOT of people travel to Tulsa from Texas to go into NW arkansas for business because its cheaper to fly into TUL. On these one day trips they have nothing but their ipads and iphones. Why? because just like with the kids and their backpacks,they dont have to lug around a bag with a laptop, charger and air card or their GPS. Ipad does it all. Need access to your work computer back in the office? There are apps for that. Need to join a conf call with a webinar? The ipad can do it. My nephews are in the 2nd grade, I imagine within the next 3-4yrs they will be carrying ipads around instead of backpacks filled with huge heavy textbooks.
There are some school districts (primarly on the east coast) that mandated Ipads for their students. The parents put down a deposit of some sort (didnt give the amount) and if anything happens to it, they pay a certain fee to get it replaced. Can you imagine your child coming home with their homework already preloaded onto their ipad from their teacher? No more excuses of leaving it at home, or my dog ate it. Its loaded, ready to go. I personally see great things not just from an economic and environmental standpoint but from a learning standpoint as well. Students would be more eager to read from ipad then a book. The interactive maps, graphs, charts, etc. I am a visiual learner, so this would be great!! Time will tell I guess!
That's why I love this forum. I learn so much about how things have changed without having to leave my desk!
Can the Pell grants, scholarships etc that college students use for books, be used to buy these downloads?
Quote from: AquaMan on January 21, 2012, 01:56:22 PM
That's why I love this forum. I learn so much about how things have changed without having to leave my desk!
Can the Pell grants, scholarships etc that college students use for books, be used to buy these downloads?
Absolutely. The only thing that would cause an issue on this is that in order for a student to be able to do so before classes start is if either the school sets it up to sell them using the financial system in place, or if the school releases the monies directly to the student after tuition and fees is paid. Unfortunately TCC does not follow this practice, it takes about a month for them to do this, forcing the students to either use their own money or go through the school bookstore.
I think for it to work, schools would have to switch to a model that many schools already use now which is to provide a laptop or tablet at the beginning of school and bill it as part of the tuition.
Quote from: nathanm on January 21, 2012, 12:44:37 AM
In the mid-90s, there was no reason to think otherwise. Aside from graphic design and media work, it was the worse platform. Even now, Apple makes little to no attempt to compete in the server space, nor do they put much effort into business productivity applications that most workers use day in and day out.
It's not a bad business strategy, though. Handhelds, especially ones with the Apple logo, have very high margins, and they sell in a lot more volume than high margin servers, storage arrays, and that sort of thing. The desktop is almost entirely commoditized, so there's little money to be made there.
grizz, there are other competitors that do have those things and are still less expensive, but maybe it all works out for schools after the discounting.
Apple realizes there are better profits for them in terms of personal productivity, entertainment, and communication rather than trying to compete in an already crowded world of servers and business machines. Their best foray into the business market at this time appears to be the iPhone and iPad. I'm amazed at the number of people who have these devices paid for by their company these days.
I think the biggest issue for the iPads in schools is making sure kids don't load up on a bunch of game apps which will distract them from the studies at hand.
In first 3 days, 350K textbooks downloaded from iBooks
http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/23/10216314-in-first-3-days-350k-textbooks-downloaded-from-ibooks?ocid=twitter (http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/23/10216314-in-first-3-days-350k-textbooks-downloaded-from-ibooks?ocid=twitter)
QuoteApple's push into digital education emerged with 350,000 textbooks downloaded within the first three days of its iBooks 2 textbook store debut.
Using information from Apple trackers Global Equities Research, AllThingsD shows what appears to be an early indication of success in the company's latest initiative.
As msnbc.com reported last week, Apple's Jan. 19 education event unveiled iBooks 2, which sells digital textbooks from top educational publishers such as Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, priced at $15 or less. Apple also gave educators two more tools: the ability to make their own textbooks (iBooks Author) and a revamped iTunes U app that gives them the means to use the iPad to post office hours, stream lectures and list assignments.
Global Equities Research found that 90,000 downloads of iBooks Author were made as well in the same time period.
The information comes via Analyst Trip Chowdhry, who had, prior to the Jan. 19 announcement, predicted Apple "may capture 95 percent of digital textbook market, while Amazon.com may only participate in 5 percent of the market," due to Apple's "very strong following" with all the key players in the textbook publishing industry: authors, publishers, faculty and students. (Many who've attended college since the late 1980s have already been indoctrinated into Apple's world through school bookstores.)
Chowdhry is so bullish on Apple's potential in this niche that over the next 5 years, he expects digital textbooks could make up $4.9 billion of iTunes revenues.
More than 1.5 million iPads are now being used in education, with access to 20,000 education apps on the iPad. But as we've mentioned, U.S. Census statistics show that is a small dent, as there are well over 57 million enrolled students between the ages of 5 and 19 in the U.S., as well as countless other college and pre-school students, not to mention teachers and parents.
If you haven't already, might not be a bad time to add Apple to the portfolio ;)
No Textbooks in NYC Schools: Coming Soon?http://shine.yahoo.com/financially-fit/no-textbooks-nyc-schools-coming-soon-192700016.html (http://shine.yahoo.com/financially-fit/no-textbooks-nyc-schools-coming-soon-192700016.html)
QuoteSchools without textbooks? It could become reality in New York City, which is floating an idea to instead use tablets in all 17,000 public schools. That would put the city in step with hundreds of other school systems across the country, where books and paper have gone the way of the mimeograph machine.
We currently spend more than a hundred million dollars a year on textbooks," said New York City Council Speaker and 2014 mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn, who made the tablet proposal Tuesday while addressing how to improve the city's school system. "That's enough money to buy tablets for every student in New York City public schools, and cover staff costs to make sure these online texts are meeting rigorous standards."
The move to replace hefty textbooks with feather light, programmable iPads or other tablets represents a growing national trend that's happened in places from small-town Kentucky to the suburbs of Boston and the city of San Diego. And, while it represents a major leap forward and would be a boon for your kid's aching back, the loss of textbooks has also been controversial.
"We do not believe the textbook will remain a central pillar of learning," LeiLani Cauthen, vice president at the Center for Digital Education, a research institute focused on the intersection of education and technology, told Yahoo! Shine. But teachers have been building lessons around textbooks forever, she said, and with tablet-based learning, teachers can just have kids log in and have virtual lessons begin.
"This shift means they're not lecturing, they're facilitators," she explained. "It's a behavior shift of monumental proportion, and so has been rejected by many teachers and districts. It's an argument against progress based on how it's always been done, and no one seems to have the complete answer."
Also, Cauthen said, there has been pushback over tablet plans because of fears it could lead to learning from home, through virtual classrooms. "Six-year-old kids could not have been shot and killed if they were not penned together in physical buildings, but were learning online from home or in small neighborhood groups," she said. "The controversy over the a model that is 'placeless' will probably rage for the next 20 years, but has a certain inevitability."
A soon-to-be-released 2012 study by the Center shows that nine percent of school districts across the nation now mandate the use of digital content.
Another survey, the Project Tomorrow Speak Up National Research Project, which looked at the results of more than 400,000 surveys from K-12 schools, showed that in 2011 (the most recent year available) 43 percent of district administrators were considering online textbooks instead of traditional ones as a way to save money.
And Apple reported in October that 2,500 U.S. classrooms were using iBook textbooks.
It all follows efforts by the FCC, through a 2012 Digital Textbook Collaborative, to encourage and accelerate digital learning in K-12 education. And policy changes in a number of states—including Florida, which mandates the adoption of digital learning tools for all public schools by 2015-201—-reflect the trend, as well.
In November 2012, ProCon.org, a non-partisan research organization devoted to critical thinking on controversial issues, collected info from a plethora of studies and media reports to launch a website, "Tablets vs. Textbooks," focused on the most-discussed pros and cons of schools going all digital.
Proponents of tablets, the site point out, say that they are much lighter than print textbooks, and that they improve standardized test scores. Furthermore, ProCon.org notes, "They say that tablets can hold hundreds of textbooks, save the environment by lowering the amount of printing, increase student interactivity and creativity, and that digital textbooks are cheaper than print textbooks."
Opponents of tablets, though, say that they are "expensive, too distracting for students, easy to break, and costly/time-consuming to fix. They say that tablets contribute to eyestrain, headaches, and blurred vision, increase the excuses available for students not doing their homework, require costly WiFi networks, and become quickly outdated as new technologies are released."
In New York City, Quinn explained why tablets would suit the public schools there so well. "So a teacher in the Bronx can pull together the most relevant information for his class, and update it throughout the year to stay current," she explained. "He can incorporate videos and interactive multimedia assignments that better engage kids living in a digital world. By using tablets instead of textbooks, the possibilities really are limitless."
Still, some remain doubtful. Eric Nadelstern, a professor at Columbia University's Teachers College and New York City's former deputy chancellor, told the Daily News that tablets represent just one of many useful tools. "Will it take the place of all printed matter? Definitely not," he said.
Anyone who has bought a textbook nows how big of a racket they are. If they can provide a tablet not just to read from, but also do and turn in assignments on, it will be a huge improvement. My kids are 8 and 6 and the amount of paperwork they go through is obscene. I almost think they go through more paper than I go through email in a day.