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.

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)

I love a bench player with a good attitude.

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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)

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.

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)

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on graduation day. UCLA 1969. Source: Camille Reads

Filed under: Staff Musings ]]> http://campusmediagroup.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/kareem-abdul-jabbars-on-graduation-day/feed/ 0 Jason Bakker kareem_graduation http://campusmediagroup.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/what-facebook-looked-like-on-the-day-it-launched/ http://campusmediagroup.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/what-facebook-looked-like-on-the-day-it-launched/#comments Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:41:11 +0000 Jason Bakker http://campusmediagroup.wordpress.com/?p=3057 ]]> Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The Web site’s membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students when it launched in February 2004, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University.

As of July 2011, Facebook had more than 800 million active users.

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Source: USA Today College

If you know someone who is stuck  in the “Friend Zone,” send them this.

Cover of The Hunger Games

I have never been a fan of fiction/fantasy literature. I read one “Harry Potter” book and about a chapter of the first “Twilight” book before I got bored and turned back to my standard reading fare, which consists of mostly nonfiction from the likes of Jon Krakeurer and Chuck Klosterman. A couple of days ago, I saw the trailer for “The Hunger Games” movie coming out in March, and it piqued my interest enough that I decided to give the first book a go. Forty-eight hours later, I am done and can’t wait to start the sequel; it is one of the most engrossing books I have ever read.

The story revolves around a post-apocalyptic United States with twelve different “districts” that are all ruled by an oppressive government that resides in the “Captiol.” Once a year, two “tributes” — a teenage male and female — are sent to fight in the annual Hunger Games, which is an all-out fight to the death among the 24 tributes; the games do not end until 23 of them are dead.

“The Hunger Games” is just the latest in the young adult (YA) genre literature to gain traction with a wider audience. The YA genre is consistently an area of the publishing world where sales continue to be strong. In 2009, adult hardcover sales were down 17.8%, whereas children’s/YA hardcover sales were up 30.7%. The college market likely had a lot to do with this (Carpenter, 2010).

There are several reasons the YA genre has become so popular, including: easy-to-understand plots, fast-paced character development and nostalgia for one’s own youth. The most common theme in YA literature is the classic coming-of-age story, even if vampires, wizards and fights to the death are mixed in.

The following is a list of the top ten best YA books for those of us who may be long past that YA stage. If you are in youth marketing, burying your nose in one of these books this winter should be part of your homework assignment.

Carpenter, Susan. “Young adult lit comes of age.” The Los Angeles Times 8 March 2010

Related articles

• The Hunger Games Movie Trailer (bookwormsreadmorebooks.com)
• Best Young Adult Books of the Year (omnivoracious.com)

Some very serious looking Quidditch players at Emerson College.

Quidditch. The invention of writer J.K. Rowling has begun to magically appear as a club sport on college campuses. An article by USA Today earlier this fall showed the “sport” is catching on among real-world students at an astonishingly high number of schools around the world.  College kids play on the ground instead of in the air, but take on the various roles described in JK Rowling’s books including keepers, seekers, chasers, and beaters.

Currently, hundreds of teams have formed at schools in almost every state and more than a dozen countries.  A Quidditch World Cup is even held.  The NCAA recognizes the sport.  Rivalries have begun to form as well, including between KU and Mizzou.

Here are the Top 10 college teams ranked by The International Quidditch Association.

No. 1 Middlebury College

No. 2 University of Kansas

No. 3 Louisiana State University

No. 4 Texas A&M

No. 5 Emerson College

No. 6 University of Rochester

No. 7 McGill University

No. 8 University of Pittsburgh

No. 9 Villanova University

No. 10 Marquette University

Click here to see the rest.

Related articles

• Carleton Quidditch – a semester in review (quickquotes.wordpress.com)
• Your Front Row Seats to a Real Quidditch Game (collegecandy.com)
• “Brooms Up!” Chestnut Hill College’s Quidditch Team to Compete in Two Events in New York City (prweb.com)

Challenge: Convince college students to travel with other young adults to alternative trip locations that they might not otherwise consider.

Campaign Goals:   (1) Promote and give away a 13-day trip for two to Chile and Argentina.  (2) Increase new trip sales among students 18-24. (3) Increase brand awareness of Intrepid Travel to college students.

Media challenge: Utilize media that college students consume to share the opportunity for unique travel – all on a limited budget.

Sample Facebook ads used in campaign

Campaign Reach: Promoted on 32 colleges and universities across the U.S. in the spring of 2011. Total enrollment of all schools involved was 864,000+.

Media used: Targeted student email blasts, Facebook ads, and college newspaper inserts

Campaign Message: “Find a bigger world in smaller places…”

Results:

• Increased Facebook “Likes” 265% over the duration of the campaign
• Delivered a 891% increase of leads for their “Enter-to-Win” trip program
• Increased new travel bookings 155% from the previous year

“Over the years we tried varied tactics to reach the college market with no success. We worked with Campus Media to develop our Spring campaign and saw the best results we’ve ever seen for this segment and blew all of our KPI’s away!” – Gina Kelly, Intrepid Travel

*** View College Newspaper Insert Sample here