Author: Oscar Retterer

Five states, including Pennsylvania, have been awarded more than $300-million in grants to expand broadband access at colleges.

[Source: Chronicle of Higher Education]

Readers can modify content on the Web, so why not in books?

In a kind of Wikipedia of textbooks, Macmillan, one of the five largest publishers of trade books and textbooks, is introducing software called DynamicBooks, which will allow college instructors to edit digital editions of textbooks and customize them for their individual classes.

Professors will be able to reorganize or delete chapters; upload course syllabuses, notes, videos, pictures and graphs; and perhaps most notably, rewrite or delete individual paragraphs, equations or illustrations.

While many publishers have offered customized print textbooks for years — allowing instructors to reorder chapters or insert third-party content from other publications or their own writing — DynamicBooks gives instructors the power to alter individual sentences and paragraphs without consulting the original authors or publisher.

[Source: New York Times]

Major textbook publishers are firing the first shots in a format war over their electronic editions, with several players hoping to control distribution to students and to make used textbooks extinct in a future they see as increasingly digital.

Macmillan Publishers is planning an unusual publishing platform for electronic textbooks that it hopes to lure other publishers to use as well (in exchange for a cut of their sales). And to entice faculty members to assign the books, the company will even pay some of them (if the professors enhance the volumes).

The system, called DynamicBooks, lets any professor make a customized version of one of the company’s existing titles. That means that chemistry professors can take one of the company’s chemistry textbooks, rewrite some parts, add their own papers or chapters, or embed videos or homework questions they’ve created. Any passage added or changed is clearly labeled as not part of the original book, so students know what is original and what is customized—a concession that was made to textbook authors.

[Source: Chronicle of Higher Education]

Vook, a company devoted to adding video, photos and sound to e-books, has raised a round of seed financing.

[Source: New York Times]

IBM will be opening up its software portfolio online to academia to enable faculty to incorporate technology into their curricula. The company said it’s working with 20 United States colleges and universities to help them use a new “academic skills cloud” that includes both software and courseware. IBM said it expects to add additional schools over time.

[Source: Campus Technology]

The Digital Media and Learning Competition, supported by a grant from the MacArthur Foundation, was designed to find “and to inspire” the most novel uses of new media in support of learning. Projects explore how digital technologies are changing the way people learn and participate in daily life. Awards have recognized individuals, for-profit companies, universities, and community organizations using new media to transform learning.

A recent study explored the effect that providing lecture recordings to two different classes of Biology students would have on attendance.

[Source:
/journal/vol13/beej-13-c2.pdf”>Bioscience Education]

Students are increasingly agitating for free online publication of university lecture videos and research papers, but some professors are resisting.

[Source: Chronicle of Higher Education]

Free 25 GB online storage means you can Store, access, and share your files online with friends or co-workers, from anywhere. With SkyDrive, you can embed public or shared folders on Windows Live Spaces. Everyone can see what’s public, but only people you’ve granted permission can see your shared folders.

Learn more…

Disenchanted with commercial products, a few colleges have started to build their own online environments.

[Source: Chronicle of Higher Education]

North Carolina State University Libraries paid about $1,500 to purchase the site license for the textbook, and a library official says he hopes to make more textbooks available online for students.

[Source: Chronicle of Higher Education]

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, AthenaWeb invites you to discover this tremendous videos that will tell you everything about appearance and beauty in the choice of a partner. The series will be soon available on AthenaWeb.

[Source: AthenaWeb]

Backchannel communication is a secondary conversation that takes place at the same time as a conference session, lecture, or instructor-led learning activity. This might involve students using a chat tool or Twitter to discuss a lecture as it is happening, and these background conversations are increasingly being brought into the foreground of lecture interaction. Digital technologies allow background discussions—which have always been a component of classes, conferences, and presentations—to be brought out of the shadows and, perhaps, incorporated as a formal part of learning activities. Instructors and presenters alike should be aware of this dynamic and the opportunity it presents to add another dimension to learning.

[Source: EDUCAUSE]

Google announced it will start testing a new broadband network that will deliver speeds of more than 100 times faster than traditional broadband.

The Internet search giant is aiming to link up with states and municipalities to build and test a fiber-optic network that will offer download speeds of about 1 gigabit per second. Google said that speed would be fast enough to download a high-definition, full-length feature film in less than five minutes.

[Source: CNN Money]

Hope College, a liberal arts institution in Michigan, isn’t afraid to put technology in the classroom and to get faculty involved in the process.

[Source: Campus Technology]

Most students still prefer print to digital, and even if they didn’t, textbook publishers and authors have made very few titles available online.

[Source: Philadelphia Inquirer]

Two studies find that while digital collections may save on library costs, they face significant challenges in implementation. Students and professors prefer physical stacks over digital copies.

Taken together, these studies point to twin conclusions: The sooner professors and students embrace e-books, the sooner their libraries can start saving money — but that might not happen for a while.

While Henry and Spiro acknowledge that libraries seem to be headed in the direction of primarily digital infrastructures, they also note that the journey is slow going.

[Source: Inside Higher Ed]

A professor assigns students to create podcasts and learns a few lessons himself.

[Source: Chronicle of Higher Education]

A new web site, Open Educational Resources Center for California, brings together information on free and open textbooks and course materials in one location. Though the Web site was designed for California’s community-college faculty members, it could be a useful resource for anyone trying to find learning materials in the public domain.

[Source: Chronicle of Higher Education]