Scribd is working hard to be the text version of YouTube. Upload some text, tag it, and let the world discover it. It isn’t just unpublished novels – many copyrighted textbooks are already there via unauthorized uploads. Like YouTube, users can upload anything and the site isn’t under any legal…
Last week the New York Times published a piece titled $200 Textbook vs. Free. You Do the Math by Ashlee Vance. Today we take up the challenge posed in the title and demonstrate that Open Source Textbooks are twice as expensive as books in the K12 market. Let me state…
Richard Carey points to an outstanding article by Shane Snow on using game mechanics to power your business over at Mashable. This rings true in my personal use of social media (see here re Foursquare) as well as in a lot of the thinking that has gone into what will…
This is creative thinking at work. How do you arrest someone for cleaning a tunnel – even if it looks like graffiti? I imagine the call to Police HQ was pretty amusing and resulted in a lot of head scratching. It often takes explicit subversion of our preconceptions to reveal…
Guest blogger Mike Baum of Sophia Consulting shares his insights on ISTE 2010. By Mike Baum In the old Road Runner cartoons, there’s always a point where the slavering coyote, relentlessly and enthusiastically pursuing his dinner, runs off a cliff. But he hangs in mid-air momentarily, falling only when he…
On-line bullying has been a concern as long as the web has been around. Yet only now, with the proliferation of social networks, is it really getting its due. Today’s New York Times has an outstanding article on cyberbullying and the confusing and inconsistent ways that schools are being asked…
Yesterday the minority in the Senate ended the chances that the Extender’s Bill would pass the Senate. While 57 Senators – a clear majority – wanted to do the right thing a determined minority used procedural votes to force mass layoffs of teachers, firefighters, and police across the country (300,000-500,000).…
My take away from the first day of the Association of Education Publisher’s Content in Context Conference (#ciccon): educators have always needed Education Publishers, but they have never particularly wanted them. What are you doing at your company to remain necessary in the digital age?
It’s been four weeks and my iPad still has that new computer smell. Now that I’ve been using it in my workflow I wanted to post some additional comments on it’s utility in an educational setting. In general I think my original take holds up well – this is fantastic…
Are trade shows rising from the dead? Last week at CEC and this week at IRA attendance was up dramatically from last year. CEC went from 5,200 attendees to over 6,500. IRA was somewhere north of 12,000 depending who you believe. Activity on the show floors was strong and sessions…