A Textbook Revolution

Apple announced last week a major overhaul to its iBooks app for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch they are calling iBooks2 which will allow textbooks to be sold and used on their devices.

iBooks in the past sold novels and other leisure reading, but this is the first time the application will support academic textbooks. Not only will students be able to read the textbooks , there will also be many interactive features, such as videos, games and quizzes, that a traditional textbook could not support.

Image by greenasian via Flickr

Apple has said none of the textbooks will cost more than $15, which is a far cry from the usual $80-$100 price tag for most academic textbooks. The company also already has partnerships with three of the largest textbook publishers in the United States: Pearson, McGraw Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt- which combined make up 90% of the textbook market in this country. This means that all of the content that is available in traditional textbooks now will likely be available digitally in the very near-future.

While there are some pretty obvious pros to the new iBooks2, looming questions also remain: Will Apple be offering discounts on their devices in order to lure educators/students in? Will school districts be expected to provide the technology to the students free of cost or will students have to pay for their own? iPads currently run from $499.00-$829.00, which is a significant amount of money to pay up front for a delicate item that a teenager may forget on a bus. Will students have to get external hard-drives to store the textbooks? The average textbook is about 1.5 GB which means that a student would fill up a 16GB iPad pretty quickly. Will this replace courses such as biology where a significant amount of the work is done in a physical lab? Will high school students never experience the sacred ritual of fighting with your lab partner over who has to make the first cut into the poor frog at the beginning of the dissection?

Apple is not the only player in the digital textbook market, Google, Amazon and others have all tried it but so far none have really taken off.  Apple is surely looking to replicate the success and total market domination of iTunes with it’s re-launch of iBooks.

While obvious challenges and questions remain there is no doubt that iBooks2 is the future of education. It will take some pains, money and a significant overhaul in the way we look at education to get there, but

Related articles

• Apple sees over 350K digital textbook downloads, report says (venturebeat.com)
• Apple Digital Textbooks: iBooks 2 Revealed (VIDEO) (blippitt.com)
• Apple’s Big Push into Classrooms (mossandfog.com)

Seton Hall bench player is their #1 cheerleader

Seton Hall walk-on player Peter Dill goes crazy with his celebrations in the Pirates big win over UConn. SportsCenter anchors Kevin Negandhi and Linda Cohn both do a nice job covering it.

I love a bench player with a good attitude.

(via)

Sorority Sisters Arrested For Ganking a Nativity Scene

Photo: The Smoking Gun

 

A quintet of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority sisters came up with like, the best crime idea, like, EVER!

Five female students at Monmouth College in Illinois were recently arrested after stealing statues of Mary, Joseph, the Baby Jesus and several stable animals from a nativity scene in their town’s square and dumping them on the lawn of their college’s president. It’s a Christmas miracle — that they didn’t get expelled.

The quintet of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority sisters allegedly stole statues of Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, and several stable animals during the manger raid last week, according to police. The stolen figurines were recovered by cops on the lawn of the school’s president.

The ladies were busted early Friday, after they apparently (and unsurprisingly) hatched the plot following a visit to a local tavern.

The cops tracked down their getaway vehicle behind a Taco Bell (exactly where I can be found hiding after a night at the bar – and by “bar” I mean Applebee’s), and when confronted, the ladies the fessed up to their crime.

The girls booked on charges of misdemeanor theft. Their mughots above are directly below a photo from better, less inebriated times. Merry Christmas kids. You’ve made Mom and Dad proud.

(via The FW and Smoking Gun)

Blackboard Back-to-School Move-In Teams

This fall, Campus Media Group coordinated Move-In Teams at 4 campuses for Blackboard during Back-to-School.

As a company, Blackboard’s goal is to work with colleges and universities to engage students in exciting new ways, reaching them on their terms and devices — connecting more effectively, keeping students informed and involved. So it was only appropriate they hit the pavement and get in front of those students offering whatever assistance the students might need during the ever exciting and chaotic Move-In Day. The teams were on hand all day at every dorm with cool bottles of Blackboard branded water bottles to help students and parents alike. Needless to say, they were very popular, and it was a great way to educate incoming students and parents about the resources Blackboard offered at their campus.

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I remember my Move-In day like it was yesterday. It was August in Bloomington, IN (Read: It was 100 degrees). Briscoe dorm did not have air conditioning (Read: It felt like 200 degrees), only had one elevator for all 500 odd students and had a pretty serious lady bug infestation that seemed to be most aggressive in the stairwells (Read: It was my ‘Nam). Sure would have been nice if some folks came to my rescue and perhaps offered to lift some heavy boxes and give me a cool beverage. Just sayin’.

If you are looking to reach students during move-in, there are a lot of fun options. Contact us today. Lead time for a move-in promotion is about 6-8 weeks depending on the tactics used.

Related articles

• EBI’s MAP-Works Launches Building Blocks Application for the Blackboard Learn Platform (prweb.com)