{"id":235,"date":"2012-01-19T17:06:31","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T17:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geofboyle.wordpress.com\/?p=235"},"modified":"2012-01-19T17:06:31","modified_gmt":"2012-01-19T17:06:31","slug":"235","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.geofboyle.net\/wordpress\/2012\/01\/19\/235\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple’s iBooks2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apple is getting into the e-textbook business<\/a> with iBooks2. However, this may not be the death knell for the big players in the industry, as a few of the big names have been working with Apple on this project. Maybe we’ll get a hint of the direction this takes textbook publishing with a new academic year this fall. Perhaps the $14.99 max price tag will save schools a lot of money compared to $100+ for many traditional textbooks?<\/p>\n

1\/25 Update: Fox didn’t agree\u00a0<\/a>about the pricing. iPads aren’t exactly cheap, even if the texts might be.<\/p>\n

My hope is that this release will seed the ground for some open source projects that really do push this idea of interactive textbooks forward.<\/p>\n

1) Nearly all of what is taught in schools is public domain. Why do schools pay for textbooks? e-textbooks should be free, and the money should go to other needs in schools. One Slate writer agrees<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2) Bill Gates was on Bill Moyers<\/a> last night, which I didn’t see, but this brief article relates what I think is THE most important, yet unrealized ability of using computers to deliver instruction: individualization. I don’t just mean a fast student taking 4 months instead 8 months to go through the same course as every other student. I mean courses that can react to student’s learning styles and adjust complexity, depth, or review of material according to a student’s grades or learning style. Individualization does not mean a course won’t be rigorous, or that every student shouldn’t have to do well on standardized test. My thought is that a great e-textbook will offer a student several paths to achieve state learning standards, or do well on the SAT or an AP exam. There is no reason a state, say California or Texas, couldn’t take 10 of their great teachers (capture the “paths” they provide in their own classrooms) and give them a year to write, say, a biology e-textbook with the help of a few graphic designers and software developers, and then provide that e-textbook for free to all the students of the state. Teachers can submit updates that go through committee to keep up with advances in research. Seems simple enough to me.<\/p>\n

3\/8 Update: Some background on e-books pricing methods in this WSJ\u00a0article <\/a>on DOJ’s threat to sue five publishers for alleged price fixing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apple is getting into the e-textbook business with iBooks2. However, this may not be the death knell for the big players in the industry, as a few of the big names have been working with Apple on this project. Maybe … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-news","category-education-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2HDb2-235","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geofboyle.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geofboyle.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geofboyle.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geofboyle.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geofboyle.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.geofboyle.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geofboyle.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geofboyle.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geofboyle.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}