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According to the National Association of College Stores in a 2007 survey, the average cost of a new college textbook was $53. The founders of Flat World Knowledge, which launches with its first run of college textbooks this fall, consider that too high--so high, in fact, that they'll be offering textbooks for free, at least in versions that can be read online. If the student wants to buy a printed copy of the textbook, it will be printed on demand by the company and provided in color for one price or black and white for a lesser price. For the student who prefers to listen to the book on an MP3 player, audio versions will be available too. Each format will have its own cost structure, but on average, it'll tally up to about $30.

Pearson Education gets it in this virtual world for children 6+.

Beloit College releases its Mindset List to give a snapshot of the world view of the incoming freshmen class born in 1992.

A K-12 Parent Portal connects parents and schools through the World Wide Web. This site is the home of the Implementation Guide. Add your voice to its development.

Critical Mass: How Digital Technology Will Define the Way You Live Digital communities are where you live-that's "you" as in Time magazine's Person of the Year for 2006, which recognizes and celebrates "the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter." This Digital Communities Special Report discusses how the 120 million Americans who are active online users and creators of content and services are changing the world by redefining it around their preferences and predilections, and by the technologies they use and the way they use them. Also see http://www.accela.com/products/whitepapers.asp

It's already hooked America's youth, and now Facebook is set on winning the hearts of two potentially lucrative demographics: Adults and the rest of the world. First, the adults: Facebook this week took on LinkedIn and other popular networking sites for working professionals with a new set of privacy controls that will give users greater control over who can see their profiles. Now a member can restrict who gets to see that drunken St. Patrick's Day photo - an important tool for working-age adults worried about a boss catching wind of their extracurricular activities. LinkedIn

Out to change the world and doing it. Meh.

Every Monday, All Things Considered will air its new series called All Tech Considered to explore the sometimes daunting - always changing - world of technology. Are you baffled by your cell phone? Wondering what your kids mean when they say they're tweeting on Twitter? Whatever it may be, All Tech Considered is here to explore it with you."

Will the transhuman technologies that our accelerating future promises enable us to increase our empathy to others? Or will their use decrease our ability to understand 'the other' that exists outside our own selves, families, communities and cultures? As the world grows smaller and more connected, humans will grow ever more divergent because of their possession - or not - of a multitude of transhuman technologies, and so the role of empathy grows larger and more important than ever. In theory, sensory/media input stimulates mirror neurons, which enable empathy.Practically, empathy is created through storytelling, which is not only the most successful remote means of creating social empathy, but has actually been the engine of social/cultural liberalization and change. I will demonstrate both the positive and negative affects on empathy through the increasing reliance we have on transhuman media technologies and how I believe storytelling is the key to empathy creation.

one of the most profoundly important articles I have read recently. "For educators and the schools in which they teach, the challenges of this moment are significant. Our ability to learn whatever we want, whenever we want, from whomever we want is rendering the linear, age-grouped, teacher-guided curriculum less and less relevant. "

Have you ever had the nagging sense that there's something not quite right with the adulation that follows Malcolm Gladwell - the author of Tipping Point? But you couldn't quite put your finger on it? We're here to help, dear reader.

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