Group items tagged

"Net Texts: The App for Replacing or Supplementing Textbooks Net Texts helps schools replace or supplement textbooks with customized multimedia courses delivered to students' iPads, Android tablets, and laptops!"

Educators overwhelmingly vote yes to replacing textbooks with laptops. 

Edutopia article on textbooks.

open textbooks... make your own textbook

Open and electronic textbook resource page on compiled by the Drake University Library. 

Online physiology textbook

The typical textbook description of the legislative process, though technically valid in some respects, is woefully inadequate in describing the fascinating, vibrant, often "messy" reality of how a bill becomes law. This module allows you to compare the typical textbook process with the more realistic "dynamic" process, and you will see how our untidy process has produced solid results.

"The Open Educational Resources Research Hub (OER Research Hub) provides a focus for research, designed to give answers to the overall question 'What is the impact of OER on learning and teaching practices?' and identify the particular influence of openness. We do this by working in collaboration with projects across four education sectors (K12, college, higher education and informal) extending a network of research with shared methods and shared results. By the end of this research we will have evidence for what works and when, but also established methods and instruments for broader engagement in researching the impact of openness on learning. OER are not just another educational innovation. They influence policy and change practices. In previous research (OpenLearn, Bridge to Success and OLnet) we have seen changes in institutions, teacher practice and in the effectiveness of learning. We integrate research alongside action to discover and support changes in broader initiatives. Our framework provides the means to gather data and the tools to tackle barriers. The project combines: A targeted collaboration program with existing OER projects An internationalfellowship program Networking to make connections A hub for research data and OER excellence in practice The collaborations cover different sectors and issues, these include: the opening up of classroom based teaching to open content; the large-scale decision points implied by open textbooks for community colleges; the extension of technology beyond textbook through eBook and simulation; the challenge of teacher training in India; and the ways that OER can support less formal approaches to learning. By basing good practice on practical experience and research we can help tackle practical problems whilst building the evidence bank needed by all."

e-textbooks aren't well liked unless students use annotation and collaborative features.

a new service for custom textbooks

Globe and Mail visual graph: Is technology a boon or burden in the classroom? As the world becomes increasingly digital, school boards are trying to negotiate technology's role in the classroom. Some have embraced digital tools, enhancing their classrooms with Smartboards, cell phones and social media. Others have favoured tradition, claiming technology is a distraction and a nuisance. Where do Globe readers stand? Each dot on this graph represents one person's response colour-coded by age group.

Keep in mind that this experiment was focused on "classroom use" of Kindles, not necessarily "library use." Libraries have never supplied the resources used directly in the classroom for literature study (students don't markup library books!). At Cushing Academy, we are using Kindles to support recreational and personal interest reading rather than directly supporting the curriculum. In that role, they have worked very well.

Well, maybe not just like plain old books. Ebooks have many nice advantages for libraries, such as 24/7 access, always pristine and readable copies for the user, built-in dictionary (which our students tell us they really like) and, for the library itself, very efficient use of space and staff time.

"Last fall, Princeton launched a small experiment, replacing traditional textbooks with the Kindle DX, Amazon's large e-book reader. Almost from the beginning, the 50 students participating in the pilot program expressed dissatisfaction with the devices. Yesterday, a university report offered some more definitive findings. On the upside, students using the Kindle DX ended up using far less paper. (Paper consumption was generally reduced by 54%.) On the downside, students complained that the Kindle was fundamentally "ill-suited for class readings.""

This 10-week course for non-science majors focuses on a single problem: assessing the risk of human-caused climate change. The story ranges from physics to chemistry, biology, geology, fluid mechanics, and quantum mechanics, to economics and social sciences. The class will consider evidence from the distant past and projections into the distant future, keeping the human time scale of the next several centuries as the bottom line. The lectures follow a textbook, "Global Warming, Understanding the Forecast," written for the course. For information about the textbook, interactive models, and more, visit: http://forecast.uchicago.edu/

Research report emphasizing cultural change to iPad for e-reading sharing/collaborative work (e.g., Dropbox and iAnnotate) but online final exam still chose laptops (since not collaborative effort?)

tips on how to highlight or mark in a textbook, as well as tips on how to abbreviate when taking notes