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WindowsAlbumSetWhen textbooks go fully digital what will schools buy? Will they buy individual lessons, units of 2-3 weeks length, or full curriculum that span a year the way they do today? This is the $5 billion question facing our industry.

Mike Shatzkin has an excellent post on this topic over at The Shatzkin Files. His framing is concise and revealing for those of us mapping out strategy for the analog to digital transition in instructional materials.

He was on a working group preparing for a talk about copyright across different publishing markets:

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This is genius. Someone carefully thought this through and executed well. I laughed out loud several times. You have to engage as you write the story.

And we know that stories are powerful learning tools…

There is some cussing – but whether it is truly NSFW is up to you.

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E.D. Kain over at Balloon-Juice has a fascinating saunter through crime stats since video games became widely popular.

According to the FBI, since 1990 violent crime has been on a steady decline. E.D.’s basic hypothesis is that some of this can be attributed to people experimenting with rage and mayhem in video games and learning how to manage their emotions more effectively as a result.

Those of us advocating for video games in the classroom have been making a related argument. By allowing kids to experiment with activities that are too dangerous, too expensive, or too time consuming we can broaden their experience and expose them to epistemic frames they would not normally have access to. In the case of violence – it is far safer for everyone to experiment with it virtually.

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“With the right support and intervention…people with learning disabilities can succeed in school and go on to be successful later in life.” Wikipedia

Last week PCI acquired SpellRead, Momentum Math, Text Connections, Summer Ventures, and an unreleased Algebra program from Kaplan. I don’t normally use this blog to talk about what we are doing specifically at PCI, but given that this is an unorthodox move in these economic times I thought I’d lay out the case for the acquisition.

These intervention programs target reading or math and they fit snugly into our line of products for academically challenged students. They are age appropriate for middle and high school students who are significantly behind grade-level expectations and need intensive, small-group instruction.

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IMG_0069.jpgIn discussing the potential for ads in e-books – the latest hail mary pass of traditional media – Paul Carr at TechCrunch dropped this gem:

It’s a compelling argument, but like so many compelling arguments made about the future of books, it’s also hampered by consisting almost entirely of bullshit.

He then goes on to rend the idea to tiny shreds. Its an enjoyable read because he brings common sense and an attitude to area rife with guessing and angst.

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748065_piratesScribd 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 obligation to screen for copyright protection. Copyright holders have to proactively scan and search for their content. Get it taken down today – it can be uploaded again tomorrow morning.

For example, Key Curriculum Press’s “Discovering Advanced Algebra” is available for anyone to download all 888 pages for free (and has been since last August when it was posted by “skihe63”). It has been accessed 8,898 times since it was loaded less than a year ago. It is an older copyright, but still – on Amazon it sells for $25. That is $222k in value.

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NFImageImportLast 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 right up front that I’m all for using economic and technology forces to drive costs down while improving services. I agree that Open Source instructional materials have a place and will play a role in coming years in doing exactly this. But they are not the panacea painted by their advocates in the article.

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Congress finally passed some support for state budgets to make sure there are enough teachers as school opens.

Kind of “yay.” We accomplished this by planning to cut food stamps starting in 2014.

This comic succinctly captures the essence of our national experience since the summer of 2007 when all this kicked into gear. (ht balloon-juice)

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game-zenRichard 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 happen to learning materials as they migrate from print to digital.

The one thing missing from the article that I think is a critical element is narrative thread. Here are some comments of on how that applies to education.

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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 our unspoken assumptions about every day life.

Two questions for EBB readers:

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