EET Learns

"The Rental Phenomenon In the past two years, the post-secondary textbook rental market has exploded. Driven by the outcry over book prices, federal legislation, readily available pricing information on the Internet, and sophisticated web-based rental management platforms, old and new competitors are disrupting the $10 billion college textbook business. Book rental isn't really a new phenomenon-a few college stores have been renting books since the Civil War. The National Association of College Stores (NACS) proclaimed fall 2010 as the "Year of the Rental." Players include long-timers like Follett and Budgetext, institutional stores and fast-growing start-ups. BookRenter, started in 2008, netted $40 million from investors in a funding round this past February. Chegg, started in 2007, has raised $200+ million in venture capital and attracted senior management from Yahoo and Netflix. The same drivers are growing trade in used books, eBooks, and online instructional content. Rental is also driving new business models for sourcing and distributing educational materials that may carry the industry forward into digital. Having book inventory isn't necessarily required-at least one high-flying firm, BookRenter, exists mainly as an online marketplace. Read on to see how this change in distribution is impacting the higher education market. Next month we'll look at what all this means for K-12."

"Get to know Canvas The simple, open LMS from Instructure * Clean, intuitive interface * Comprehensive feature set * Modern technology"

Links to many resources for enhancing PPTs, along with other technology related topics.

"If you prefer the second theory, then you might consider grades a useful instrument of positive or negative reinforcement, but the only thing that matters is what students actually learn. There is stuff that every adult ought to know, and college is the best delivery system for getting that stuff into people's heads. "

Weird. Why is this titled Evernote? Isn't it Netvibes?

Are you implying that this is my fault?

yes . .

Old vs New Ways of Thinking About…

"Social networking tools aren't going away any time soon, they appear to be here for the long term. But do these kinds of applications really belong in the classroom? I think they do, and here's a few reasons why:"

"This brief summarizes the main themes from the EDUCAUSE Mobile Computing 5-Day Sprint, held April 25-29, 2011. This learning experience brought together presenters and hundreds of participants, who exchanged ideas and information via webinars, online conversations, Twitter, and blog posts. The central message from the event are that mobile computing has enormous potential; that it requires IT departments to embrace new roles; that many of the best practices for computing generally apply equally to mobile computing; and that attention must be paid to issues including infrastructure and security in order to support an effective mobile computing program."

How to kill innovation, in five easy steps

What is a Personal Learning Environment?

"Nature Education, the educational wing of the Nature Publishing Group which also runs Scitable, one of the largest science publishers in the world - is hoping to resolve this with the release its first ever science textbook. It's called the Principles of Biology, and for a $49 lifetime access, students receive a constantly-updated biology textbook, for less cost."

"The New 3 E's of Education: Enabled, Engaged and Empowered How Today's Students are Leveraging Emerging Technologies for Learning"

"Despite their ubiquity among students, mobile phones are still viewed as contraband in most classrooms. Students are told to turn their phones off, leave them in their lockers, or leave them at home. This response to what is arguably the most ubiquitous 1-to-1 computing device available in our schools today undoubtedly led many students to list bans on mobile phones as one of the biggest obstacles to technology use in the recent Speak Up 2010 report."