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Interesting article. I am seeing a trend for truly defining an eportfolio to be a web-based application that belongs to the learner.

Apple is aggressively moving to make the iPad cheaper and cheaper to build while eyeing the situation where tablets in general, and iPads in particular, are nearly ubiquitous. When you understand these trends, the iBooks Author / iBooks 2 / iTunesU App strategy for education makes a lot more sense.

The new company, named Rafter, has also introduced a free online database that provides real-time and historical views on economic trends, adoption patterns, and reviews for more than 11 million textbooks. 

"To help you make sense of the transition, we've assembled our experts to explain where digital course materials will likely gain traction first; our philosophy about the two ways digital will evolve; and Follett's predictions for the near and long-term future of digital learning. "

As virtually every form of media from newspapers to television shows becomes more socially aware, the book remains stubbornly anti-social. Despite the rapid growth in e-books and the launch of a number of services designed to add social features to books, the act of reading is still a fairly solitary thing.

we find ourselves in an environment that is fast evolving from one based on one-to-many relationships to one based on many-to-many relationships, powered by social networking sites, consumer and cloud technologies, and mobile devices. In this brave new world, we CIOs have a lot less authority and control than we expected.

"E-textbooks show signs of finally gaining traction, although they still account for a smaller share of all textbook purchases than any method of acquiring a print textbook. Twenty percent of students in this year's survey either bought or "rented" an e-textbook this spring. Over all, electronic versions accounted for 9 percent of all textbook purchases."

"The LMS needs to become a mixing panel for all the other platforms, where the teacher as a DJ for learning, can direct learning activities and community interactions. "

This blog post touches on some of the missing social aspects of the LMS.

Check out the "why this matters", public vs private discussion.