Group items tagged

Neat combination of ebook w/inquiry-based learning.

" In this course the students do not have a textbook; in fact, they are forbidden from using outside sources at any time. Instead, they are given the skeleton of a textbook. It has definitions, statements of theorems, some explanatory text, and some problems. They must prove the theorems, solve the problems, and type their work into the empty textbook. By the end of the semester they have created their own textbook."

Great example of collaborative knowledge creation! It would be interesting to replicate in other disciplines or do a seminar with others taking similar approach.

"Dr. Stephen Craig is teaching Honors Chemistry (Chem 43) using team-based learning instead of lectures and online resources instead of a textbook."

"Dive in with Duke University's Cachalot app, a novel digital textbook designed for students enrolled in Duke's Marine Megafauna class, but free for everyone, everywhere."

"Out of Print highlights the sea change underway in the multi-billion dollar U.S. K-12 instructional materials market enabled by recent technology and intellectual property rights innovations. With a focus on the ultimate impact on student learning, the report provides examples of lessons learned from recent digital and open (OER) content initiatives by leading states and school districts and offers comprehensive recommendations for government, industry, and educators to ensure that the inevitable shift to digital instructional materials improves student achievement and engagement and efficiently uses scarce resources."

"This textbook is written to introduce physics and science concepts to students in non-technical majors. Science literacy is stressed through emphasis on the scientific method, language, philosophy, and fundamental issues. Societal issues are also addressed. Mathematical rigor and problem solving are not stressed."

"BioBook mirrors the learning process of real-world biology professionals by integrating web-based research, interactive multimedia tools, and current information from professional societies and publications in a cloud-based e-textbook that is compatible with any device from a laptop to a tablet computer."

"Key Takeaways This single-class study sought to evaluate technology-enhanced student engagement by comparing the experiences of students using only an e-textbook with the experiences of those using only a standard textbook. Students were surveyed throughout the course, and more than 80 percent of the iPad users reported they "loved" using it and wanted to use it in future courses. Contrary to students' assumptions both before and after iPad use, however, students using the technology did not perform better than those using the standard textbook."

That's impressive. Maybe we should get to know these publishers better.

"Major publishers in higher education have already been collecting data from millions of students who use their digital materials. But CourseSmart goes further by individually packaging for each professor information on all the students in a class - a bold effort that is already beginning to affect how teachers present material and how students respond to it, even as critics question how well it measures learning."

Gradual growth. Interesting to see physical books declining in the same study. Is the open Web replacing textbooks?

"Brad Miller and David Ranum have opened up their eBook for general use at their new http://interactivepython.org site. This is the book whose use we have been studying for the last year as part of our CSLearning4U effort. It's a great alternative to the Udacity/Coursera model of distance education, to make a book more like a course, rather than capture the course in video. "

"We get the chance to beat the book for CS learning! Our NSF CE21 (Computing Education in the 21st Century) proposal was funded for about $990K from October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2013. The goal of this project is to create new media for learning computer science at a distance by high school teachers. We are pursuing the correspondence school model of distance learning, rather than a remote classroom model, in Sir John Daniel's terms. We want to create a medium that can be studied, within the time constraints of high school teachers (or others, like people re-entering the IT workforce.) A key idea is that we can design instruction, following principles of educational psychology, to help people learn computing better. "

" Books work. Let's make books better. Why build off lectures? Why try to "take over" courses?"

"Welcome to the Digital History Reader, an online learning experience designed to enable students to develop the analytical skills employed by historians. The Reader presents key events in U.S. and European history in the format of self-contained modules. Students learn by exploring the data presented, evaluating conflicting accounts or interpretations, and developing their own conclusions based on the evidence provided."

"Barnes & Noble is spinning off its college-textbook and digital divisions into a new subsidiary, bolstered by a $300-million investment by Microsoft, that is aimed at turning more college students on to electronic textbooks."