Jul
30
Too Big To Succeed?
July 30, 2009 | 1 Comment
Are large publishing firms agile enough to survive and compete with the digital textbook disruption or are they too big to succeed?
Sometimes big is bad. Consider the plight of The Learning Company (TLC), founded in 1980. This inventive educational software company created the wildly popular series, Reader Rabbit, and quickly became a market leader. Along [...]
Jul
24
“Experts split on ‘Kindle in Every Backpack” goes the headline from the July 24th eSchool News. This controversy over standardizing on an eReader platform is a nice starting point for discussing the future of books and whether we should provide students the technologies to access them. Let’s begin with Peter Von Stackelberg’s comment that “Paper-based [...]
Jul
23
CTO: Cheryl Lemke-Leadership for Web 2.0
July 23, 2009 | 1 Comment
Cheryl recommended that we access the MacArthur foundation site.
Three Perspectives on Learning
Acquisition: the individual
Participation: the group, community, network
Knowledge Creation: the innovative knowledge community
She finds some tools very compelling.
Voicethread: a place where you can post visuals and ask people to comment. She likes that students are allowed to access prior knowledge as a better way to [...]
Jul
23
CTO: The David Jakes Experience
July 23, 2009 | 1 Comment
Notes from David Jake’s keynote at the CETPA CTO event at the Sacramento County Office of Education.
Going beyond the hype of Web. 2.0.
Resources, the presentation, and his notes are on his wiki: http://jakes.editime.com
Netbooks are a game changer in education. (his is the Asus Eee PC). As technology comes down in price, we’ll see more of [...]
Jul
17
Death by Printing
July 17, 2009 | 3 Comments
Before summer began, I was asked to write an article for CETPA’s excellent magazine, DataBus, which is edited by Stanislaus’ own Wade Williams. Now that the issue is out, I’d like to share the article with you.
Death by Printing
A simple headline in the May 1st Tech&Learning magazine sums up this article’s theme: Textbook Deathwatch.
The provocative [...]
Jul
13
Digital Books: What I Need to Beome an e-Reader.
July 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment
First, this post is not about the digital textbook initiative. It’s about what it will take for me, personally, to begin reading books, magazines, etc. on an e-reader. Let’s compare my hopeful model to Apple’s successful model for digital music.
Apple didn’t invent digital music, music players, or the digital library. What they did do, though, [...]
Jul
10
Free Digital Textbook Initiative: One Very Probable Model
July 10, 2009 | 4 Comments
First, i must respond to a tweet from NECC about the textbook revolution that said, “The textbook publishers represented at #NECC09 just don’t get digital textbooks. Paper textbooks are the walking dead; adapt.” Well, yes and no. While the CD model for purchasing music is on life support, disruptive innovations don’t always kill off the [...]
