Ebooks at Liberal Arts Colleges

"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."

"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."

"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."

Pew stats

Great! Another interviewee?

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."

"John William White's First Greek Book was originally published in 1896. The book contains a guided curriculum built around the language and vocabulary of Xenophon's Anabasis. This digital tutorial is an evolving edition that is designed to run on both traditional browsers, tablet devices, and phones. Each lesson includes drill and practice exercises in addition to the text itself. The site also includes tab-delimited files for all of the vocabulary and grammar that can be imported into flashcard programs."

"What often gets lost in discussions about digital textbooks is that most of them are created through processes meant to scale. Frequently, publishing companies take content intended to be printed and put it through some kind of automated conversion that turns the book into an e-text. Often the results are anemic, little more than PDF files with functions such as text highlighting thrown on top. Two professors at tiny Albion College in Michigan have concluded that the results aren't good enough. Neither instructor has a background in mobile application development, but they've each developed an app for their respective courses that is helping their students become more engaged in the content they're teaching."

We should definitely interview these guys.

"When Rowe, professor of English at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, and Elliott Visconsi, associate professor of English at Notre Dame, co-designed The Tempest iPad app, they did more than re-imagine a single play, they re-imagined reading."

Nice article. Into the next Future Trends it goes.

Nice OECD report on ebook world.

"OpenStax College, the nonprofit, open-access publisher out of Rice University, announced the launch of its first iBook text Monday, becoming the latest publisher to try to make the free-with-paid-options model sustainable. The interactive, iPad-based version of OpenStax's free-to-read online College Physics text is available through iTunes for $4.99."

Launched: http://gutenberg-technology.com/index.php?page=mybookfactory Cloud-based?