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"Even though e-textbooks make up a small portion of the bookseller's business, that market is likely to grow in the next several years, and teaming up with Microsoft will strengthen its ability to grab a larger share of the college bookstore market, Mr. Iannone said. One of the first new features the joint venture will offer is a Windows 8 application for Nook, Barnes & Noble's e-book reader."

Article on Ontario College of Art and Design - adopting Canvas.

"At a recent retreat to mark the tenth anniversary of the New Media Consortium's Horizon Project, which produces an annual report on technology trends affecting higher education, participants identified 28 important metatrends. The 10 most significant are: the world of work is increasingly global and increasingly collaborative; people expect to work, learn, socialize, and play whenever and wherever they want to; the Internet is becoming a global mobile network -- and already is at its edges; the technologies we use are increasingly cloud-based and delivered over utility networks, facilitating the rapid growth of online videos and rich media; openness is moving from a trend to a value for much of the world; legal notions of ownership and privacy lag behind the practices common in society; real challenges of access, efficiency, and scale are redefining what we mean by quality and success; the Internet is consta ntly challenging us to rethink learning and education, while refining our notion of literacy; there is a rise in informal learning as individual needs are redefining schools, universities, and training; and business models across the education ecosystem are changing"

"I've been hesitant to dive into using Windows Live because I've already become so familiar with GoogleDocs. However, there are good reasons for me to start learning. For one thing, my students and colleagues are, for the most part, already using Microsoft Office in their work, and Windows Live doesn't require them to learn yet another interface. (Yes, I know that GoogleDocs isn't really that different, but I've frequently found that people consider the need to switch interfaces off-putting.)"

Should we be considering using MS Live instead of google docs?

This is from the comments below the article "When I tried this I ran into a problem with it not working cross platform with Mac. This made it useless in an academic environment." We would likely need to do some initial testing to see if it viable to make the switch. If it makes instructors more comfortable then it should be seriously looked at.

"Thinking developmentally is one of those instructional design issues that we don't do often enough. We understand that different learning experiences are appropriate for students at different levels. We expect a higher caliber of work from seniors than from those just starting college. But how often do we purposefully design a progression of learning experiences? "

There is a small town, about 12 miles east of Austin, Texas, where a high school devoted to teaching every subject to every student through project-based learning (PBL) opened five years ago. On its own, this would not have been a noteworthy event. The list of schools across America deepening the learning process through PBL has been growing for quite some time. But few schools have fine-tuned the process like Manor New Technology High School in Manor, Texas, where 98 percent of seniors graduate and 100 percent of the graduates are accepted to college

"The result? "We find that learning outcomes are essentially the same-that students in the hybrid format pay no 'price' for this mode of instruction in terms of pass rates, final exam scores, and performance on a standardized assessment of statistical literacy," the report concluded."

Given that a recent viral video on Youtube found that most young people wouldn't give up the Internet for a million dollars, schools need to find new ways to engage students using the technology that they relate too best.

Very cool announcement. It will be interesting to see if textbook prices will drop? I have been super impressed with some books on the iPad and others are super lame. With the new authoring tool it will be interesting to see what we can do with our own content!

I think this post puts the iBook announcement (and Apple's role in education) into perspective: http://www.hackeducation.com/2012/01/19/apple-and-the-textbook-counter-revolution/

Create a short audio message and then generate a QRcode for it that will play back on the device with which scanned it.

Ever wonder how much work you actually do in a day? There can be a lot of distractions between meetings, your manager's questions, impromptu pot-lucks and gab fests. Some days it can feel like it's impossible to get anything done. That's because according to Jason Fried it IS. Jason is the co-founder of 37 Signals, a company that builds web-based collaboration tools. He's also the co-author of the bestseller Rework - a book all about how to make work work better. Although he himself is a manager, Jason has no problem blaming workplace inefficiencies on meetings and managers. (Runs 22:49)

Some studies reveal deep doubts among students and faculty that distance learning ever can have the degree of interaction in a non-distance environment. Horn (1994) and Hirumi and Bermudez (1996) are among those who find that, with proper instructional design, distance courses actually can be more interactive than traditional ones, providing more personal and timely feedback to meet students' needs than is possible in large, face-to-face courses.

The next edition of the Horizon report - identifies 6 technologies that will have a profound impact on higher ed

I have always wanted to have my own blog.  I even tried a book blog once, but I couldn't read fast enough to blog often enough.  There's nothing worse than a blog that is only updated once a month!  Bill Carozza has inspired me to try again, but this time on something I do everyday and professionally.  Check out this article for a few good reasons educators should blog.

I know the tools are out there, but sometimes I feel like I don't have time to find them.  Luckily, Mohamed Kharbach did it for us!  Check out his blog learn about the skills educators should have and use the links to learn or brush up on them.