An iPad and Apple TV can combine to provide an advantageous alternative to more expensive, traditional interactive white boards.

Guest writer and High School Principal David Mahaley is using this approach and offers his insights, and observations from educators in his school.

With the integration of the iPad into the instructional environment, teachers and students have discovered many new ways in which the device can expand and enhance the learning environment. With the iPad, the Apple TV can offer a flexible, complete, and cost efficient alternative to the traditional interactive boards populating our classrooms.

Image by K.Walsh, Apple TV logo source: www.apple.com/appletv

As a school administrator and teacher, I have explored the Apple TV and its offerings as an alternative to one of the many types of interactive whiteboards currently available to instructors. We have committed our school to issuing every high school student and instructor an iPad. All instructors are expected to explore and integrate the device in their instructional setting to maximize the learning experience and student/professional productivity.

Historically, we have relied upon the interactive boards as a way to infuse the technology of the computer and software to the learning objectives found in the various content areas of our curriculum. Married to this idea is the use of the laptop, that is tethered to the projection device for the board. This inherently ties the teacher to one location or space in the classroom. Immediately, this presents some problems when professional educators are asked to circulate and monitor student activity around the room.

The use of the Apple TV in combination with an iPad in the instructor’s hand provides a mobile platform from which classroom activities can be initiated. Through the use of several apps, teachers can provide notes, display steps and processes to problems, initiate the display of media (pausing and resuming as needed from any location in the classroom), and allow students to participate from their own seats in a variety of interactive activities. This is different than the remote control of a connected teacher laptop to a traditional interactive board. Movement within and between apps is measurably better than the laptop interface, and navigation on the iPad screen directly to the Apple TV is visually more intuitive.

I am not looking to marginalize and discount the various software applications that can connect your mobile device to a laptop and thus to an interactive board.  Interactive whiteboards are a solution, however, through my experiences, a much more cumbersome one than our exploratory use of the iPad and Apple TV. We should explore the instructional and budgetary implications of a move towards this new option.

Any administrator who is charged with the responsibility of observing and commenting on teacher performance in the classroom finds themselves looking for moments throughout the class period where the instructor demonstrated their ability to circulate and monitor the students as they participate in the lesson. Freeing the instructor from the string of cords is a step in the right direction. With the Apple TV, the teacher connects wirelessly to the device and can be in any location in the classroom – in fact, they can be anywhere that they can continue to be connected to the network. Secondly, you now offer the teacher the opportunity to switch quickly and efficiently between applications via the iPad without having to dash to the front of the room to manipulate the programs on a laptop tied to a stationary location. With applications available today, and more coming around the corner, students have the capabilities to connect to the Apple TV configuration from their own device in order to share and present their own work.

A quick cost comparison of the hardware and software required between the traditional interactive whiteboard and Apple TV will show the potential savings with little to no loss in quality of the final product. I have found that the typical interactive board with projection system and document camera runs typically three times the cost of the Apple TV combination. Apple TV requires the purchase of a flat screen television (wall mounted), the Apple TV box, document camera – if desired (plug and play), and the necessary connection cords.  I have put together the Apple TV combination for less than $1,200 in my classrooms. My local rep waiting to sell me more interactive whiteboards has no comparative alternative that can compete with this price.

Other issues begin to surface through a closer examination of the training and compatibility of the various interactive boards. To learn to use the interactive board effectively requires many hours of training, revolving around their proprietary software tools.  Many of these are not directly transferable between technology platforms. The Apple TV opens the door to the instructor to use any of the thousands of applications available in the classroom without compatibility issues. This puts the control of content and presentation back into the hands of the teacher and releases them from the limitations of proprietary software provided by the interactive whiteboard companies.

I recently asked my instructors who were long standing Smart and Panaboard users in my school to come give the Apple TV a try. Overwhelmingly they believe that the applications and freedom provided by the iPad and Apple TV combination is a much better solution for their instructional needs. One asked about the software package that is touted as a key component with all of the interactive boards. While much time and effort has been spent developing these for the interactive boards, largely as a selling point by vendors to school systems, much of the offerings of the software can be duplicated by a small set of applications for the iPad available for download now. At the end of the comparison, I could not justify that the software bundle with any of the interactive whiteboards could justify the thousands of dollars difference between this and the Apple TV arrangement.

It is time to get financially and instructionally “smart” in the classroom when it comes to interactivity and technology. The Apple TV, in conjunction with the use of the iPad, offers new possibilities to our teaching professionals and at a tremendous cost savings.

David Mahaley is currently the Principal of the Franklin Academy High School in Wake Forest, NC. He directs several iPad initiatives in his and other schools. He received his Master’s Degree in Instructional Technology Leadership from George Washington University.

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The year of the iPad in Education: they’re being distributed in more schools every day.
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Applications and methods for creating and delivering digital course materials, so you can experiment with flipping the classroom.

Over the last 6 months, I’ve researched and written a number of articles about Reverse Instruction. I’ve also lectured on the subject and am looking forward to presenting at The College of Westchester later this month, and at Campus Technology 2012 this summer. (For a primer on Reverse Instruction and how teachers are using it, check out the post, “7 Stories From Educators About Teaching In The Flipped Classroom”).

My writings and discussions on this topic so far have focused on the many ways in which instructors are using “flipped classroom” techniques, and their reasons for doing so. Once teachers become interested in the topic, they are often still hesitant to consider trying it because of concerns like, “creating online content looks difficult and complicated”, or, “I don’t have the skills or the time to do it”.

The good news is that you can start small, creating and testing the concept with short bits of content, and evolve at your own pace and comfort level. You can also start with digital materials you have already developed. Cost can be another concern – but there are free tools that you can get started with.

In this article (the first of several on the topic) we will kick off our effort to learn about tools and techniques that instructors can use to create online content by focusing on ways to leverage existing materials you’re already using. Once available online, these learning materials can consumed by students outside of the classroom, freeing up valuable classroom time for review, reinforcement, or working through assignments that might have typically been homework.

Using What You Already Have
There are many free tools available today that can be used to create online versions of content that you have traditionally delivered in the classroom. You may also find that this encourages you to evolve that content a bit to make it more effective as stand-alone learning material.

Here are a few free applications that let you share digital learning materials:

Slideshare (www.slideshare.net)
Slideshare is an easy, popular, and free tool for putting PowerPoint or OpenOffice slides, as well as many other file formats like PDFs and Word docs, online. The viewer doesn’t need to have PowerPoint or whatever app the original file was created with, they only need web access (free Slideshare accounts only allow for public uploads, meaning they will be available to everyone. For private uploads, one needs to upgrade to a Pro account, which starts at $20/mo.).

Of course, simply putting a slide presentation online may not make for particularly exciting delivery of content, but there are ways to improve on this. It is certainly possible for a slide-deck to constitute good delivery, as in this award winning presentation (about Cigarettes, great for a health class or even some science lectures), but your slides may need some work to play better as a stand-alone presentation. Another common technique to take your presentation to the next level is to add voice over, but this requires different tools (more on that next week).

For a quick introduction to using Slideshare to share course materials, check out this 4 minute Youtube video from instructor D. Caskey.

Google Docs (docs.google.com)
Another easy way to put pre-existing digital content online is to upload and share them via Google Docs. Google Docs is free and accepts many different file formats. There are plenty of advantages to using Google Docs, including collaboration capabilities. Check out this overview or the “Get Started” page to learn more about Google Docs.

For a more in depth examination of Google Docs, here’s a great series of Webinars and videos focused on Google Apps for Education (these also get into other free Google apps that are being used in education).

This segues nicely into another common approach to sharing course content …

Wikis
Many practitioners of reverse instruction utilize a Wiki website for delivery of course materials. While this may sound complicated, there are plenty of easy to get started with wiki sites, and it’s not as challenging as you might think. This video, “Getting started with Sites as your class wiki” explains how to get started using Google Sites as a classroom wiki where you share materials, and gradually build on that over time to create a more robust course participation web site.

For some great examples of wikis being used in the instructional setting, check out “Best Educational Wikis of 2010”, from Wikispaces.

Course Management Systems and Learning Management Systems
I have to mention that the CMS/LMS tool set is a great way to deliver course content, so if your school has one, it’s a great place to get started. If you don’t have one but like the idea of using this type of tool for course content delivery, you might want to try Edmodo or Room21 (check out this article to learn more about these and other social learning platforms that provide some CMS/LMS functionality).

What if students don’t have Internet access at home, or have limited computer access?
Not every student will always be able to access online materials across the web, and it is important to keep that possibility in mind. There are ways to be prepared for this, such as burning content to jump drives or emailing content (not links, but the content itself) to students. If students have access to computers on campus or in a local library this may also be an acceptable solution. Some students may not have easy access to a computer, but do have smart phones on which many types of content can be consumed, so that’s another possibility. The bottom line is that this needs to planned for if it is a potential issue with any of your students.

To Be Continued …
In the next few weeks we’ll dig deeper into applications and techniques, including tools for creating new content or building on existing course materials (like screen casting apps that let you lecture over your digital materials), creating your own ‘flipped’ text book, taking advantage of the thousands of open source free lectures already available online, and many other ways to get started with “the flip”.

In the meanwhile, don’t forget, readers love to learn about other teacher’s perspectives on topics like these, so if you have questions, ideas, or experiences you want to share, don’t hesitate to comment! Thanks.

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
Succeeding With Reverse Instruction – One Instructor’s Inspired Approach
Education Technology Leadership Spotlight: Celebrating the Work of Salman Khan
7 Stories From Educators About Teaching In The Flipped Classroom

With the continued growth of online education, the challenge of staying motivated in self-directed study is something more students struggle with. Here’s a few tips to help.

Guest post from Amanda Tradwick.

Taking courses online provides flexibility for a wide range of students. Working adults can balance the demands of study with other commitments such as career and family. Students with different learning styles can create their own program of study. Those with financial difficulties can take classes part-time while working to pay for tuition.

Image source: www.schoox.com/blog/?p=605

While the flexibility of online study creates these options for many students, it can also lead to lost focus and struggles with motivation. Online study is primarily self-directed, and finding ways to stay motivated is key to success. These ideas can help you stick with it for the long haul.

1. Set a Realistic Schedule
Excitement over beginning a program of study can cause some students to set big goals and to take on more than they can handle. It can become easy to schedule more classes and more commitments than can reasonably be managed, causing feelings of being overwhelmed that can cause you to give up. In order to stay focused and motivated, you need to create a more realistic schedule of tasks that can actually be completed in the time allotted. Completing these small goals will create a sense of accomplishment that will inspire you to keep working.

2. Take Breaks
All work and no play makes Jack a very unmotivated boy. You need to give yourself a breather every now and then so that you can are focused and energized when it’s time to study. Schedule time for activities that you enjoy so that you can get a break from intense work and so you can have something to look forward to in your schedule. Knowing that you can enjoy a movie or a night out with friends guilt-free if you finish your project can motivate you to keep going and to finish more quickly.

3. Become Social
Studying online can be isolating for many students. You don’t see your instructor or your classmates every day like you would in a traditional classroom. You can help bridge this gap by interacting with your instructor and your classmates in other ways — through online discussion forums, video conferencing, and phone calls. Build an online support community to help you connect to others who are going through a similar experience. You can get inspiration and support from one another by talking about ideas, offering each other study tips, and more.

4. Make Connections
Sometimes, it can seem like you’re studying in a vacuum. Passing a test can seem like a means unto itself. It can be difficult to keep in mind how what you’re doing will lead to real-world results, such as the type of job you will have or the type of lifestyle you will be able to provide for your family. Find motivation by connecting what you’re studying to what you will be doing once you graduate. Learn about how what you’re studying connects to what is happening currently in your field, how it is used by working professionals, and more. Don’t let your studies be limited by the classroom.

5. Review Goals
Why did you decide to get your degree? What made you choose the field you are studying? Why did you elect to take your courses online rather than in a traditional classroom setting? Remembering the answers to these questions can help you stay motivated in your studies. Regularly review your personal goals to remember why you are doing what you are doing. This can help you remember that you aren’t studying for this test just to pass a class, but that you are doing it because you are passionate about becoming a designer, or because you want to be a role model for your children, or because you want to prove to yourself that you can meet the challenge.

Finding ways to stay motivated while you are studying for your degree online is critical to your academic success. Setting a realistic schedule, making time for fun, keeping your goals in mind, and finding support can all help you to stay motivated when you find yourself feeling overwhelmed by your studies.

About the author: Amanda Tradwick is a grant researcher and writer for CollegeGrants.org. She has a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Delaware, and has recently finished research on grants and scholarships and applying for college grants.

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Next Generation Learning Challenges is accepting grant applications through June 8, 2012.

Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) is an exciting grant awarding collaboration between five education technology organizations, and they are currently on their third round of grants. Last year, NGLC awarded $17.5 million in grants to 48 organizations, including research universities, community colleges, start-up companies, state agencies, associations working with school districts, and more.

NextGenLearning.org

The NGLC is governed by EDUCAUSE, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the League for Innovation in the Community College, the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Wave III: Breakthrough Models for College Readiness and Completion
The latest round of grants (accepting proposals through June 8 of 2012) is focused on the development of new blended learning models that will, “provide support to educators and innovators who have a coherent vision for highly engaging learning pathways that span secondary school through postsecondary completion and that will prepare students for economic, social, and civic success.”

Wave III features two separate Request for Proposals: one for the postsecondary level and one for the secondary level (grades 6-12). The NGLC’s vision for Wave IIIa, “Breakthrough Models for College Readiness”, is to identify fundamentally redesigned scalable models that combine the best aspects of brick and mortar and online learning to result in more personalized learning and demonstration of subject mastery (application instructions here).

Wave IIIb grants will “spotlight innovative delivery models that generate high student outcomes at an affordable cost”, encouraging the development of next generation online and blended programs leading to associates or bachelor’s degrees (application instructions here).

Past Grants
The first two rounds of grants focused on “Building Blocks for College Completion”.

Wave I consisted of four challenges: deployment of open core courseware, scaling of blended learning programs, encouragement of deeper learner engagement and mobilization of learning analytics. Winners are listed here.

Wave II was comprised of two interdependent elements – next generation approaches to learning content, and next generation assessments. Winners are listed here.

Future Opportunities
NGLC appears to be in this for the long haul, so if you have some creative ideas about technology solutions that help students prepare for college or succeed in their postsecondary education, keep your eye on the Next Generation Learning Challenge’s website for future grant opportunities.

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Emerging technologies are not limiting teacher’s roles – they are expanding their tool kits, improving their availability, and empowering them in many exciting new ways.

Imagine a class of 50 students preparing for a biology exam on a digital learning platform. Patterns emerge from the students’ annotations in the cloud: perhaps more students are highlighting and discussing sections in the book related to Mendel’s Model of Inheritance than any other topic. From course analytics, the instructor can see which discussions are more likely to lead to an improvement on the exam, and which ones are correlated with discussions and exam outcomes in other subject matter. The result: the instructor can tailor his or her course curricula, and student understanding of Mendelian inheritance improves.

With more colleges using predictive analytics, this scenario has powerful consequences for the efficacy, affordability and relevance of a new model for the American university. There is always skepticism that disruptive technologies will harm the core of a profession, from music videos’ disruption of pop music to the online world’s perceived threat to quality journalism. In the case of higher ed, digital learning and the insights from these technologies can only be successful by improving the human element of education and enhancing the role of the professor, not diminishing it.

A visualization of what the Internet looks like, in its entirety. With dramatic increases in digital information-sharing between students, mapping collaborations between peers in a single college course can look similarly complex. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

In Arizona, Rio Salado College has been able to predict via online activity – with 70 percent accuracy by the eighth day of class – whether a student will score a C or better in a course, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. In one Harvard course, software algorithms match up students in groups based on their performance. Recently, eCampus News highlighted the role of analytics technologies in campus decision-making as one of the top educational stories of 2011. Many predictive analytics systems in education are currently focused on student actions in a vacuum, such as how often they view online material compared with their assignment completion rates.

As technology evolves, predictive analytics can be used to increasingly improve our understanding of student communication (whether to other students or professors) and the impacts on comprehension and subject retention. That will in turn give educators more knowledge on how to structure course curricula, develop assignments, and incentivize student engagement. This is particularly important as higher education faces a crisis of relevance to the increasingly advanced, globally competitive job market new college graduates are entering.

As Inside Higher Ed wrote: “A growing body of research has all but obliterated the notion that distance education is inherently less effective than classroom education.” Indeed, a well-publicized review by the Department of Education – updated last year – of more than 1,000 empirical studies of online learning found that students performed modestly better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.

When more courses incorporate digital materials, there is less and less distinction between in-person learning and digital learning. Far from replacing the human aspect of education, this improved understanding of communications patterns and comprehension can lead to greater empathy and a more productive classroom. Consider two important factors:

• Technology can make instructors more accessible, not less. The rapid evolution of technology is helping instructors develop curricula more effectively and run courses more efficiently. Be it through the predictive analytics mentioned earlier or more powerful mobile devices capable of running sophisticated interactive educational software, technology continues to improve the efficiency and accountability of curriculum design and student assessment – in addition to simplifying the administrative demands of running a class – allowing professors more time to devote their attention to students on an individual level.
• Technology is removing the barriers to entry of communication. “Frictionless sharing” is a big concept in social networking. It also has applications for the classroom. Simply put: as new features like annotations or rating systems make it easier for students and educators to quickly give and receive feedback on material, classroom participants’ information sharing rises on a massive scale. When fostered in the right learning environment, that information sharing leads to productive discussions that result in better comprehension, plus new insights for teachers.

The conversations around education technology are probably not forward-thinking enough. Last month, IBM predicted the end of the digital divide in five years, as well as the availability of new smartphones linked directly to your brain. Think of the likelihood of mind-reading iPhones and Internet availability to seven billion people, and it may help to put our current frame of mind around ed tech into context. It can also put into context every generation’s concerns about disruptive technologies.

Looking back, video didn’t kill the radio star; it created a new vehicle for artists to reach and connect with their fans. For higher education, rapid advances in technology suggest that far from being replaced, the human element of learning will become more understood, more crucial and more effective. This monumental shift is a win for students and a win for their future employers.

Guest post by Andrew Clark, CEO of Bridgepoint Education. Clark was a recently featured speaker on technology’s effects on the landscape of higher education, at the HigherEdTECH Summit of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

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Elaine Hirsch is kind of a jack-of-all-interests, from education and history to medicine and videogames. This makes it difficult to choose just one life path, so she is currently working as a writer for various education-related sites and writing about all these things instead.

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A look at the learning science behind flipping the classroom, through the lens of a fictional tale.

Last week we were introduced to Kieran Mathieson and the CoreDogs approach to the flipped classroom. This week we further explore the resources Mathieson has made available through CoreDogs, and how to leverage Reverse Instruction techniques to improve student learning outcomes.

Kieran has produced a variety of media to help to introduce and explain CoreDogs and the advantages of the flipped classroom, such as this video, “Teaching Web Stuff is Hard”. Another fun way in which Mathieson has introduced these ideas is through a story titled, “A Tale Of Two Students”, in which fictional university students Mike and Eric take the same “Web100” Web Development course with two different professors who use very different approaches to instruction.

While the tale is fictional, it is firmly grounded in Mathieson’s successful utilization of reverse instruction and what he has observed while employing the technique. In it, he offers insights into the learning science that informs the successful outcomes that flipping the classroom can help to produce.

Fictional instructor “Prof. Ishenul” uses the traditional lecture-based approach to delivering course content, using a standard, robust (i.e. lengthy and large) text book from an academic publisher. In contrast, “Prof E. Fective” uses on enhanced online textbook that covers the core concepts of web development in depth, and is organized around tasks, rather than specific technology concepts. Professor Fective’s course is blended, or “hybrid” - combining online learning and exercises with face-to-face classroom time that focuses on reinforcing the content learned by working through assignments and helping students understand material that challenges them.

The following excerpt from an interview section in the story provides a sense of the shortcomings that can sometimes come with traditional lecture based course delivery:

Ann: How did the course go this semester?
Mike: Not good. The professor went so fast, it was hard to keep up. His examples were complicated. I didn’t understand them.

Ann: Did you read the book before class?
Mike: Sometimes. But there was too much to read. Maybe 50 pages per class. Usually, I only had time to skim. When I did read, there was so much going on that I got confused.

Ann: How about the projects?
Mike: People goofed off. Jim, on my team, left all the work to the rest of us. I didn’t want to grade him low on participation, because we’re going to be in other classes together.

Ann: Did Jim learn much?
Mike: No, but he got a good grade. He pulled all-nighters before the exams. I don’t think he remembers much now, though. Don’t ask him to make a Web site for you!

Ann: Do you know how to make a Web site?
Mike: I hate to say it, but no. I know some HTML tags and stuff, but I don’t know how to use them to build a site. Maybe I’m just not cut out for this.

In contrast, these excerpts from an interview with fictional student Eric give a sense of how the flipped classroom approach can be quite challenging, but highly effective:

Ann: How was WEB 100?
Eric: Tough. More work than I expected. Stuff to turn in every week. You had to keep up.

Ann: Ever get frustrated?
Eric: (Laughs) All the time. Making good Web pages isn’t as easy as it looks. When you use the Web, you don’t see all the work that goes into a good site. You have to think about goals. You have to learn how to find bugs and fix them. The HTML and stuff are only part of it.

Ann: What about the class itself? The textbook and such. Was that OK?
Eric: … The class was mostly online, easy to fit in my schedule… the thing that stressed me was that I had to do a lot of exercises. It helped being able to meet Prof. Fective in person. We could sit down and go over something.

Ann: Anything you particularly liked about the course?
Eric: Yes, I did like making my own site, the eMe. It’s pretty good. You can check it out. It’s at http://erictawney.com. Oh, and CoreDogs was the cheapest textbook I’ve ever had. Some profs make me spend ten times what I spent on CoreDogs, for books I hardly used.

The story goes on to provide further insights into the theory and benefits of reverse instruction. The following edited content from ”A Tale Of Two Students” is intended to convey some of the ideas shared there, and whet the reader’s appetite to click over to the CoreDogs web site and learn more!

Active Skill Learning
Research in the learning sciences suggests that the traditional approach has significant limitations, and the frustrations expressed by student “Mike” are common with the traditional model. Prof F. used a different approach, combining features of deep learning, outcome-based learning, and active learning. Let’s call it Active Skill Learning (ASL).

ASL courses are designed around learning outcomes. The author/instructor identifies skills students should possess by the end of the course, and then works backwards. Only material that helps meet course outcomes is included in the course. CoreDogs is a good example of outcome-based learning. Each chapter is about a task, like “Creating a Web page with text.” The chapter covers only the HTML tags and CSS rules that help with that task, and nothing more.

Traditional publishers don’t design textbooks around outcomes, instead they attempt to cover every topic that professors might think important. The result is that so many topics are included that few if any can be covered in depth. The course is “a mile wide and one inch deep.” Students only have time to learn facts, they don’t really have time to learn how to apply what they’ve learned.

Combining Summative And Formative Learning
Researchers often contrast “summative” and “formative” learning assessment and feedback. Summative feedback is separate from learning, with the goal of measuring how much students have learned in the recent past, versus formative assessment, in which students submit work, and get feedback about what could be improved. Students are then able to correct and resubmit their work. Summative and formative feedback can work best when used together. Formative feedback to help learning, and summative measures to assess student achievement. However, many professors only give summative feedback.

ASL makes heavy use of formative feedback. Students complete exercises every week, and submit them through the ASL software. Instructors assess the work, and ask for improvements. Students can change their solutions, and resubmit. The cycle continues until the grader is satisfied, and the student then gets a completion badge or other grade or ‘award’ for the exercise.

Wrapping Up
“A Tale Of Two Students” also discusses Deep Learning and Metacognition in the context of ASL and reverse instruction, and all these discussions are more in depth and informative than what we’ve summarized here, so please click over and give it a read.

Kieran Mathieson is currently working on creating the site flippedtextbook.com, where teachers can create their flipped classroom content. We look forward to sharing more about this as the site evolves.

In closing, you know the drill … we love to hear about your experiences with this topic, so please comment and share you thoughts, experiences, or questions. Thanks!

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
Succeeding With Reverse Instruction – One Instructor’s Inspired Approach
7 Stories From Educators About Teaching In The Flipped Classroom
The Khan Academy (offering 1100+ free tutorial videos)

Part two of our interview with CourseSmart’s Chief Marketing Officer.

Last week we published Part 1 of this interview, in which we learned a great deal about digital course materials and CourseSmart, and this week we continue this learning journey with Part 2 of the dialogue.

In this interview we examine the following:

• What is it going to take for electronic textbooks to become the dominant distribution method, displacing paper text books?
• What are the key hurdles that digital textbook vendors have to overcome to make electronic texts the norm rather than the exception?
• Are there key areas, like specific academic subjects, types of institutions, or other market segments that have seen a higher adoption rate with digital course materials?
• How much of a challenge does reading device dependence present in terms of the proliferation of the eTextbook?
• What kinds of exciting developments can we look forward to from CourseSmart in 2012?

Our thanks once again to Jill Ambrose and CourseSmart for providing this in depth interview!

As always, readers are encouraged to share their insights and experiences with this topic, so please don’t hesitate to comment and share your thoughts!

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
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Catching up on today’s digital textbook market and eTextbook functionality with CourseSmart’s Chief Marketing Officer.

This week on EmergingEdTech we’re delighted to publish an interview with Jill Ambrose. This is the first of a two-part video conversation in which we discuss CourseSmart’s offerings, and the future of the evolving electronic textbooks marketplace.

In this interview we discuss:

• eResourses – the future of digital course materials
• CourseSmart’s innovative new Offline Reader functionality
• Their effort to ensure device-agnostic access, making electronic textbooks and other digital course materials “easy to access anywhere, anytime, on any device, in the environment you’re already in”
• CourseSmart’s extensive offerings (they offer over 90% of the core textbooks in use in higher education institutions in North America today!)
• CourseSmart’s free instructor-specific web site and the functionality it offers
• And much more …

We hope you enjoy the interview and all it has to offer, and come back for Part 2, in which we discuss the following topics:

• While electronic textbooks are certainly gaining momentum, they still have a long way to go to overtake the printed textbook market. What are the key hurdles that digital textbook vendors have to overcome to make electronic texts the norm rather than the exception?
• Are there key areas, like specific academic subjects, types of institutions, geographic regions, or other market segments that are experiencing a higher degree of success than others in terms of gaining a foothold with digital course materials?
• How about reading device dependence? How much of a challenge does this present in terms of the proliferation of the eTextbook?
• What does the future of digital course materials look like?
• What kinds of exciting developments can we look forward to from CourseSmart in 2012?

Thanks again to Jill for taking the time to work with us to put together this insightful and informative interview.

Remember, other readers and viewers appreciate reading observations and feedback from colleagues, so please don’t hesitate to drop a comment and share your thoughts on this topic!

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
Instructional Designer James Hill Discusses the Ups and Downs of Technology (Interview)
10 Internet Technologies Educators Should Be Informed About – 2011 Update
The year of the iPad in Education: they’re being distributed in more schools every day

Further examining educator’s technological preferences and commentary.

In Sunday’s post we examined some of the results from last month’s survey, which looked to gather educator’s insights into the question, “Which technologies can most impact student learning?” Today we wrap this up by looking at some additional data from the survey.

Top Votes for “Second Most” and “Third Most” Potentially Impactful Technologies
After focusing on technologies ranked as “Most Impactful” in our last post, we now move on to those chosen as either 2nd or 3rd most impactful. For “second most impactful“, one technological concept rose well above all the others: Technology-enabled Project Based Learning. For “third most”, a different technology rose slightly above all the others: Tablet Computers (iPad, etc.).

Here’s some of what educators had to say about why each of these technologies can make a meaningful difference in student learning:

Technology-enabled Project Based Learning

“Project based learning is the future of education as it allows for creativity and direct[s] students to learn what is needed to be successful, with the support of technology.”

“Project-based learning moves students into the realm of create, analyzing, and collaborating.  These skill are vital as they get ready for the “real world” and using technology to accomplish this will increase engagement, motivation, and involvement on their part.”

“Student based projects really touch on all 21st century learning skills”

Tablet Computers (iPad, etc.) 

“The possibilities for tablets [are] unlimited as far as I can see.  The flexibility, functionality, and usefulness of these are just now being explored.”

“Mobile and tablet will shape the way learning is delivered, not only for distance students, but on campus as well. They will promote a kind of engagement that has not been seen before. Although there are risks, the net benefit will be [a] higher standard of learning and efficiency.”

“Tablet PC’s are a gut call.  They haven’t been around enough to know for sure, but they [can] be used for inputting, sharing, retrieving, storing, and outputting information in a simple to use & portable way.  I’m betting these will be the biggest game changer since the Apple II.”

“ipad – innovative must have resource”

Combined Votes
The one thing that jumps out when we add votes for Most, Second, or Third most impactful and rank the technologies based on total combined votes is that “Technology-enabled Project Based Learning” moves from the number 9 slot (in this ‘most impactful‘ category ranking) to number 2, further supporting it’s importance.

(Please click on the pic to open a larger image)

 

Does the ability of education technologies to make an impact on student learning vary widely for different grade levels and/or in different subjects?
Nearly two thirds of survey participants responded “yes”. If we run this survey again next year to see how trends evolve, we’ll offer an incentive to get more feedback, which should yield larger sub-sets of data, which will then allow for easier comparison and contrast of how educators at different grade levels perceive the potential impact of different technologies.

Thanks again to all survey respondents for completing the survey and providing this great feedback!

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Note to readers who submitted feedback to the 11/6/11 post, “iPad App Developer Seeks Teacher Input On New App (Plus, Win The App For Your School By Naming It!)” – Mobile Simplified has announced the winner of the app naming contest – click on over to the post and scrool down to the comments to read more!

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Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
10 Excellent iPad Applications for Teachers
The Education Technologies That Educators Believe Can Have The Biggest Impact On Student Learning (Survey Results)
Using The iPad As A Digital Whiteboard (Plus 4 Cool Free Apps To Try It Out)