https://www.wired.com/story/digital-textbooks-radical-transformation/
Pearson “digital first” strategy.
My note: see our postings
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2018/07/09/pearson-selling-us-k12-business/
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2019/04/19/change-in-the-k12-sector/
It also enables Pearson to staunch the bleeding caused by an explosion in the second-hand market. A company called Chegg launched the first major online textbook rental service in 2007; Amazon followed suit in 2012. Both advertise savings of up to 90 percent off the sticker price.
But more technology doesn’t always mean better results. Within K-12 learning environments, the digital divide means that students in low-income and rural households have less access to reliable internet and fewer connected deviceson which to complete the online portions of their homework. And while Pearson’s initiative applies only to textbooks in higher ed, the shift to digital has implications at the collegiate level as well.
Just as traditional software has a thriving open source community, textbooks have Open Educational Resources, complete textbooks that typically come free of charge digitally, or for a small fee—enough to cover the printing—in hard copy. And while it’s not an entirely new concept, OER has gained momentum in recent years, particularly as support has picked up at an institutional level, rather than on a course by course basis. According to a 2018 Babson College survey, faculty awareness of OER jumped from 34 percent to 46 percent since 2015.
One of OER’s leading proponents is OpenStax, a nonprofit based out of Rice University that offers a few dozen free textbooks, covering everything from AP Biology to Principles of Accounting. In the 2019–2020 academic year, 2.7 million students across 6,600 institutions used an OpenStax product instead of a for-profit equivalent.
The knock against OER is that, well, you get what you pay for. “One faculty member told me only half-jokingly, that OER is like a puppy that’s free. You get the free puppy, but then you have to do all the work,” says Cengage’s Hansen, who argues that traditional publishers provide critical supporting materials, like assessment questions, that OER often lacks, and can push more regular updates.
By virtue of being free, OER materials also heavily skew toward digital, with hardcover as a secondary option. (Or you can download the PDF and print it out yourself.) The same caveats about efficacy apply. But at least OER doesn’t lock you into one digital platform, the way the major publishers do. OpenStax alone counts around 50 ecosystem partners to provide homework and testing support.
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Or you could always split the difference.
That’s the territory Cengage wants to stake out. Late last summer, the educational publishing behemoth—it announced a planned merger with McGraw Hill in May; the combined company would surpass all but Pearson in market capitalization—rolled out Cengage Unlimited, a “Netflix for Textbooks” model that rolls all textbook rentals and digital platform access into a single rate: $120 for a semester, $180 for a full year, or $240 for two years. Almost a year in, the US-only program has a million subscribers.
My note: more about Cengage and McGraw Hill in this blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2017/06/22/textbook-model/
this added Sept 13, 2019:
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more on textbooks in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=textbooks
Early Adopters Pioneer Virtual Reality Use in Higher Education
Colleges deliver personalized learning experiences with custom VR content
by Erin Brereton
Arizona State University used a grant to obtain 140 Mirage Solo headsets from Lenovo. Just over one third of students have elected to receive one, at no cost, since the program piloted their use in 2018. Alternately, students can view simulations on a computer or a Google Daydream device
A lot of people wear corrective lenses. Designers may need to start thinking about how the devices accommodate glasses.”
For some disciplines and pedagogical objectives, VR experiences may not be readily available, says Dr. Matthew Bramlet, pediatric cardiologist and physician at OSF Children’s Hospital of Illinois, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria,
my note: Mark Gill, it seems similar to the WYSWYG interface you want to create:
To address that, U of I’s medical college developed its own content. Approximately 40 faculty members have created more than 250 VR lectures. The college provides access to Enduvo, a VR authoring tool Bramlet helped create, and lab space, featuring ceiling-mounted workstations equipped with HTC VIVE headsets powered by a variety of Dell, HP and other computers.
Martina, do you want to approach them and ask how willing they would be to share their learning objects for our nursing programs?
my note: Martina, do same – approach this program
Alice Butzlaff, an assistant professor with The Valley Foundation School of Nursing at San Jose State University, created original teaching exercises through a program sponsored by eCampus, a university resource that offers design and training assistance to help faculty integrate AR/VR technology, including workshops and demos of its HTC VIVE, Samsung Gear VR and other equipment.
My note: Martina
Reality Check
Keep these factors in mind when designing a campus VR lab.
Connectivity: On-campus and online students may have different considerations in order to stream VR content smoothly, so plan accordingly to ensure everyone has high-quality access.
Staff oversight: A program manager or faculty member can manage access to equipment, particularly if limited headsets are available.
Alternative options: Some users experience vertigo or “VR sickness,” says EDUCAUSE’s D. Christopher Brooks, so instructors should consider other ways they can participate in VR-based projects.
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more on VR in higher ed in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=virtual+reality+education
In 2019, does it matter where do we perform our work?
When I asked in 2009 to use e-conferencing tools (Skype, Adobe Connect back then) to allow better attendance at faculty meetings, there was a mountain of arguments why NOT to. Such attitude was clearly expressed during the slow and painful advent of “online” education, which still leans more to “correspondence course” mentality rather then synchronous and interactive modern education.
The worst part is that in 2019 the attitude still persists.
The British Journal of Educational Technology (Impact Factor 2.588) has an upcoming special section on Immersive Virtual Reality in Education. For details see:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/14678535/homepage/bjet_special_issues.htm#1
We define immersive scholarship as any scholarly work developed through or implemented utilizing technologies including Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, Visualization (i.e., large format displays and visualization walls, GIS, Tableau), and any related hardware, programs or software.
We are seeking survey participants who are employed in an academic library and who currently support immersive scholarship and technologies at their institution.
how your academic library has developed tools, implemented third party hardware/software, and in what barriers you have identified at your institution in supporting immersive scholarship.
Link to Online Survey
third Library 2.019 mini-conference: “Emerging Technology,” which will be held online (and for free) on Wednesday, October 30th, from 12:00 – 3:00 pm US-Pacific Daylight Time (click for your own time zone).
Tomorrow’s technologies are shaping our world today, revolutionizing the way we live and learn. Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, Internet of Things, Drones, Personalization, the Quantified Self. Libraries can and should be the epicenter of exploring, building and promoting these emerging techs, assuring the better futures and opportunities they offer are accessible to everyone. Learn what libraries are doing right now with these cutting-edge technologies, what they’re planning next and how you can implement these ideas in your own organization.
This is a free event, being held live online and also recorded.
REGISTER HERE
https://www.axios.com/tiktok-china-online-privacy-personal-data-6b251d22-61f4-47e1-a58d-b167435472e3.html
The bottom line: While the Big Tech behemoths of the U.S. are barred from making inroads in China, the inverse doesn’t apply. That could mark an opening front in the ongoing technological and economic war between the two rivals.
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more on cybersecurity in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=cybersecurity
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=tik+tok
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2018/10/31/students-data-privacy/
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-05-10-longtime-higher-ed-leader-and-former-u-s-congressman-argues-for-a-networked-college
Goldie Blumenstyk, called it the “embedded for-profit university” because there’s all these different for-profits operations within a nonprofit higher-ed institution.
One of the MOOC founders who said five years later, well MOOCs have failed as an educational experiment. And my comment to that was, they never were an educational experiment.
Anya Kamenetz called “DIY U” people cobbling together an education from various sources
And we are in a world of multiple new models. The work I’ve done in the last 20 years in online or technologically enhanced learning suggests that fewer than 10 percent of the people who are learners are able to self-direct—or really more like 4 percent.