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“It’s almost like they want to find the content by themselves,”

Ms. Morgan borrows the phrase “free-range learning” to describe students’ behavior, and she finds that they generally shop around for content in places educators would endorse. Students seem most favorably inclined to materials from other universities.

They “don’t want to ask librarians or tutors in the study center or stuff like that,” she says. “It’s more the informal networks that they’re using.”

Thirty percent of those reading electronic content and 40  percent of those who have owned an eReader device for a year or more say they read more.

The Pearson Foundation sponsored the second-annual survey, which asked 1,206 college students and 204 college-bound high-school seniors about their tablet ownership.

One-fourth of the college students surveyed said they owned a tablet, compared with just 7 percent last year. Sixty-three percent of college students believe tablets will replace textbooks in the next five years—a 15 percent increase over last year’s survey. More than a third said they intended to buy a tablet sometime in the next six months.

There's been some dispute to these numbers. Lee Wilson, a veteran of the education industry, blogged exhaustively that Apple e-textbooks actually cost six-to-seven times more than print textbooks. Using estimated data from his own experience and from technology directors, he determined Apple textbooks cost $71.55 per student, per class, as opposed to $14.26 for print textbooks. He factored purchase of the devices into cost. (I urge you to read his post, and his follow-up, and judge the numbers yourself.)

Either way, if the price tag for iPads and e-textbooks ends up being too costly and districts aren't seeing much of a different from their print past, meeting Arne Duncan's digital textbook goals may be tough.

tablet owners more than quadrupled among college-bound high school seniors during the past year, with 17 percent surveyed this year claiming a tablet device as their own.

It also more than tripled among college students, with a quarter of this year's respondents owning a tablet.

69 percent of high school seniors and 63 percent of college students said they believed tablets would effectively replace textbooks within five years,

i-Ready’s two components, adaptive diagnostic and standards preparation, provide a visually appealing and fun approach to educational materials. Both programs allow teachers, parents and administrators to follow the progress of every student down to the skill level. The diagnostic program not only identifies the grade level a student is at, but pin points the skills needed to improve and adapts lessons accordingly.

Big data policy:  more measures for improvement and accountability.  Specific issues: school accountability, teacher evaluation, instructional improvement, and student matriculation.

Customized learning: emerging strategies for adaptive, personalized and social learning.  Specific issues: role of curriculum architects, mixing open and proprietary content.

Improving conditions & careers: how blended learning is improving the teaching profession. Specific issues:  evaluating in a team-based differentiated environment, managing a distributed staff with dynamic scheduling, and a really big issue–providing rich JIT PD during the shift.

“What we are seeing today is a certain amount of familiarity for the millennial generation around using technology. Whether it is a mobile phone, a tablet or computer, or also doing things with television, video recordings, gaming, there is a particular set of skills that they have developed,” says Akhtar Badshah, senior director of Global Community Affairs at Microsoft Corp. “However, we also know that just because you’ve had familiarity with the use of a device, it may not necessarily lead to proficiency in the use of technology where youth are effectively using technology to better their lives through a job, start something, or undertake further studies.”

This year’s entering college class of 2016 was born into cyberspace and they have therefore measured their output in the fundamental particles of life: bits, bytes, and bauds. They have come to political consciousness during a time of increasing doubts about America’s future, and are entering college bombarded by questions about jobs and the value of a college degree. They have never needed an actual airline “ticket,” a set of bound encyclopedias, or Romper Room. Members of this year’s freshman class, most of them born in 1994, are probably the most tribal generation in history and they despise being separated from contact with friends. They prefer to watch television everywhere except on a television, have seen a woman lead the U.S. State Department for most of their lives, and can carry school books--those that are not on their e-Readers--in backpacks that roll. 

They have always lived in cyberspace, addicted to a new generation of “electronic narcotics.”

Having grown up with MP3s and iPods, they never listen to music on the car radio and really have no use for radio at all.

1. It has been predicted that 44 percent of college textbooks will be digital by 2017. 2. Florida is making K-12 textbooks completely digital by 2015. 3. Even the federal government is taking a strong stance — it released the “Digital Textbook Playbook” to show districts why and how they should make the move toward e-textbooks. 4. The transition to digital content is undeniably taking place in classrooms and on campuses, and will only accelerate in coming years.

2012 Q2 Special Report: The Textbook Reformation & Digital Content

Converge 2012 Q2 Special Report Supplement: Funding and Professional Development