World-Shaker

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College Textbook Prices Increasing Faster Than Tuition And Inflation

College textbook prices are 812 percent higher than they were a little more than three decades ago, the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank, reports. Textbook costs have well outpaced the 559 percent increase in tuition and fees over roughly the same period.

"The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that textbooks and other goods made and sold abroad can be re-sold online and in discount stores without violating U.S. copyright law. The outcome was a huge relief to eBay, Costco and other businesses that trade in products made outside the U.S. In a 6-3 opinion, the court threw out a copyright infringement award to publisher John Wiley & Sons against Thai graduate student Supap Kirtsaeng, who used eBay to resell copies of the publisher’s copyrighted books that his relatives first bought abroad at cut-rate prices."

— Court Backs Student In Textbook Copyright Case

McGraw-Hill & Kno Offer A Peek Into The Future Of Textbooks: They’re Dynamic, Vocal, Adaptive & Bring Stats To Studying

Self-publishing platforms and open content resources have grown in popularity and startups have begun experimenting with new ways to present learning material, all of which has threatened the old guard, forcing them to make moves. Adapt or go the way of the dinosaur. Although they’ve been known to stand in the way of innovation. This morning, textbook publishing giant, McGraw-Hill, showed that it’s been taking these changes seriously and may just be ready to play ball. Not your average CES startup, the company unveiled its new suite of interactive and adaptive learning products that aim to personalize the learning process and help students improve their performance.

The suite leverages adaptive learning technology — one of the hottest topics in education this past year — which, simply put, seeks to personalize the educational experience by collecting data on student comprehension (knowledge, skill and confidence), employing algorithms to create customized study plans/paths based on that data. The goal being to keep students engaged (and improving) by helping them to identify and focus on areas where they’re struggling.

The Open Textbook Challenge [INFOGRAPHIC]

[source]

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The Future Of Textbooks Is Free … And It’s Now Available

Boundless just launched the public beta version of its brand new site. What is Boundless? It’s a way to easily turn all of the open source information that exists in the world into a simple easy-to-use digital textbook. And it’s free.

This looks really promising! Click through to learn more.

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What a rebel.

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infoneer-pulse:

Amazon launches rental service for paper textbooks

Juggernaut Amazon is striking another blow at the traditional textbook industry by offering semester-long rentals of physical books. The listings for a number of textbooks now include a “rent” option that’s usually around $50 for a title that sells for $170. According to Amazon’s FAQ, the books are rented out by the semester (counted as 130 days), with one 15-day extension allowed. Textbooks are shipped at standard prices, and the cost of returning them is paid by Amazon. Depending on their luck, renters might receive a book that’s new or one that’s gently used.

» via The Verge

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Ten Disturbing New Facts About Math Textbooks

Some quick takeaways from the survey (via Edudemic):

• About half (49%) of teachers surveyed believe their textbooks are ineffective for English Language Learners.
• Nearly all (89%) of K-8 math teachers say they need to supplement their text with additional materials because they’re so inadequate.
• The most widely used textbook is also the lowest rated.
• 4 out of 5 (82%) teachers feel compelled to create their own / borrow materials from other teachers.

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Mr. Cuddles is an essential member of the food chain.

"I agree that Apple’s proprietary tools and stores are limiting in some key ways to student access. Not all students will be able to buy an iPad, and certainly some families simply will never have the resources available to do this. However, if someone would have asked me five years ago how many students would have their own iPads, iPods or iPhones in my classroom, I don’t think I would have come up with close to the percentage that already have them. I do think Apple needs to be a little more forward thinking with the smaller devices (eTextbooks, like eBooks and apps should be scalable to all iOS devices) to capitalize on the established base of users, but ultimately it is teachers who are going to set the cost of the digital content students use in their classrooms. If I can design a textbook with my expertise and knowledge and offer it to my students (who I am paid to teach) for free, how can I justify making them spend money on the textbooks major publishers are offering? When I look at reports that include a $15 cost for each course on top of the cost of an iPad, I know that the general perspective on this new system is still broken. It isn’t until we break out of the paid content model and embrace open courseware, which Apple is entirely wiling to let us do, that the cost of an iPad for education becomes substantiated."

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Why I Think Apple’s eTextbook Structure Can Work

An interesting perspective.

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Also: You read this in my voice.

Is it bad that I’m amazed they got as much as $13.24 back?

"No question that interactive textbooks deliver results. A pilot study carried out for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a textbook publisher based in Boston, compared the performance of two groups of children over the course of a year at the Amelia Earhart Middle School in Riverside, California. A control group used the traditional Holt McDougal Algebra 1 textbook, while an experimental group used iPads with an interactive version of the same coursework. At the end of the year, 78% of pupils using the interactive text scored “proficient” or “advanced” on the California algebra test, compared with only 59% scoring likewise with the standard textbook."

— The future of teaching: Difference engine: Let the games begin

"iBooks Author"

— I just had a moment.