Apple Textbooks

[Townsend]

No matter how much sense this makes something tells  me the Oklahoma legislature will find all sorts of imaginary faults with this:


Apple Announcement: iBooks 2 for Digital Textbooks

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/01/apple-announcement-ibooks-2-ibooks-author-for-digital-textbooks/#.TxhNOetMZlg.twitter

Apple, which changed music with its iPod and mobile communications with the iPhone, said today it was offering software that would reinvent the school textbook. It was a project inspired by Apple's late co-founder and CEO, Steve Jobs.

"There's a lot that's talked about that may be wrong with education. One thing we hear louder than all else and where we can help is in student engagement," said Phil Schiller, Apple's marketing chief, at an announcement at New York's Guggenheim Museum. "That's why we get excited when students get their hands on an iPad."

Schiller and his Apple colleagues showed off two new applications to take the information in textbooks and put it, in interactive form, on iPads and computers. One is called iBooks 2, a free download for iPads, available from Apple's app store starting today. The other, iBooks Author, is a tool he said authors and publishers — as well as students and others with an interest in education — can use on a computer to create interactive iPad lessons.

"The textbook is not always the ideal learning tool," said Schiller. "Yet their content is amazing."

He showed how different lessons — in biology, math, literature and other areas — could play on an iPad. The new interactive books would cost $14.99, far less than most of today's paper textbooks. They could be updated continually, said Apple. And it will not take a programming wizard to create one.

Students will be able to "mark up" their iPad books electronically, creating the digital equivalent of note cards as they go through lessons, said Apple. And they will be able to keep the iBooks, since they are digital files, after the courses are over.

Schiller said Apple was forming partnerships with three of the biggest publishers of school texts: Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which are responsible for 90 percent of the textbooks used in the U.S. today. DK Publishing, which publishes vividly-colored books for younger kids, is joining in as well. Apple said a first offering would be an iPad-only book, "Life On Earth," by E.O. Wilson, the famed biologist and professor emeritus at Harvard.

"With the iPad, we're making textbooks so much more engaging," said Roger Rosner, the Apple executive who has led the project.

Additionally, Apple said it was expanding iTunes U, a project it has run for colleges several years, to include elementary and high schools. Professors use iTunes U to put their lectures online.

There are major questions still to be worked out, the largest being whether schools will generally be receptive to the Apple initiative. There have been online textbooks for years, but they have not often been interactive. And the retail price for the iPad 2 starts at $499, so some educators asked if disadvantaged students would get a chance to use the new technology.

Gene Munster, a senior technology analyst for Piper Jaffray, said his firm surveyed school officials and found the major barrier to new technology was not the cost of new hardware such as iPads. Instead, he said in a phone interview with ABC News, it was control over where students went online when using school computers. At a school, an I.T. department can put up a firewall to prevent students from going to websites unrelated to learning. If students are taking school iPads home instead of books, the schools worried that they may wander around online.

Also, textbooks today go through detailed certification processes, something that is intended to ensure that they are accurate, but which also drives up their cost. Apple's initiative would broaden the number of people who can create online lessons, and some school systems may be wary.

"We hope that educators are going to look back on today's announcement and see the profound impact on education," said Schiller.

[nathanm]

I'll tell you what's wrong with it: iPads are farking expensive. How about a Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet? The hardware is half the freakin' price and Amazon and B&N both have the clout to hammer down book publishers on pricing.

Also, $14.99 is probably unsustainably low. The cost of a textbook is not mostly in paper and printing, it's in research and copyediting. Admittedly, the research and copyediting has (supposedly) been falling by the wayside over the last ten years or so.

[Townsend]

I'll tell you what's wrong with it: iPads are farking expensive. How about a Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet? The hardware is half the freakin' price and Amazon and B&N both have the clout to hammer down book publishers on pricing.

Also, $14.99 is probably unsustainably low. The cost of a textbook is not mostly in paper and printing, it's in research and copyediting. Admittedly, the research and copyediting has (supposedly) been falling by the wayside over the last ten years or so.

Have you looked at textbook costs?

Have the makers of Nook or Kindle Fire offered an option?

OK's text books will be based off the insane choices made by the TX board of education.  Schools need more options than that.

[Conan71]

For what one semester of text books costs me for one of my daughters I can almost pay for an iPad.  Plus they can use it for more than just a reader.  I was able to get my younger daughter, who is a freshman, an iPad 2 from the OU I.T. store for $510 tax included.  Cost of her books for first and second semester this year? over $700.  If I'm lucky, I can get 1/2 that back assuming none of the books have been obsoleted after that semester.

Older daughter was supposed to get one as well but her MacBook had a massive stroke in November so she got a new Mac for Christmas instead.  For her major a Mac is far more important than an iPad at this juncture (interior design).

[Townsend]

From 2008:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/19/AR2008081903230.html

Break on Cost Of Textbooks Unlikely Before Last Bell, 2010

Estimates of how much students spend on textbooks range from $700 to $1,100 annually, and the market for new books is estimated at $3.6 billion this year. Between 1986 and 2004, the price of textbooks nearly tripled, rising an average of 6 percent a year while inflation rose 3 percent, according to a 2005 report by the Government Accountability Office. In California, the state auditor reported last week that prices have skyrocketed 30 percent in four years.

[DTowner]

Some textbooks are available on Kindle - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43796121/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/t/rental-textbooks-available-kindle/

Like other industries before it, textbook publishers will face the disrupting effects of technology on their captive market business model.

[Townsend]

I'm afraid that like our elected leaders who are too retarded to understand what Sopapipa would've done, our school leaders won't understand what this could open for the students.

Much less the money savings for the state and schools.

[Conan71]

I'm afraid that like our elected leaders who are too retarded to understand what Sopapipa would've done, our school leaders won't understand what this could open for the students.

Much less the money savings for the state and schools.

I have no problem that the text book manufacturers need to charge for their intellectual property.  Even if it only cut the cost 25% the amount of waste and energy this could cut is staggering.  Besides I'm sure most book printing is being done off-shore these days.  Not like it's going to cost thousands of American jobs. 

[Gaspar]

Already done at TCC.  Nursing students get an iPad when they enroll.  It is already populated with all of their text books.  They started it last year and it has worked great!  Costs far less than the cost of books.  Also eliminates all of the logistics necessary for ordering stocking and inventorying text books.

[Townsend]

Already done at TCC.  Nursing students get an iPad when they enroll.  It is already populated with all of their text books.  They started it last year and it has worked great!  Costs far less than the cost of books.  Also eliminates all of the logistics necessary for ordering stocking and inventorying text books.

I'd imagine the lack of weight in the student's backpack is a plus.

[dsjeffries]

Instead of buying textbooks, consider renting them from a service like www.chegg.com. I used Chegg for my last two years at TU and saved probably over $1000. Rent a book for a semester for $15-30 and send it back in a pre-paid envelope. Heck, they even plant a tree for each book you rent.

[Gaspar]

The young lady that works for me says she has over 25 text books on her iPad.  If she had to purchase them they would be around $2,000.  When they do clinicals, they have access to all of their texts without lugging around a 30lb backpack.  Her professors also use Dropbox and Evernote to hand out lessons, notes, videos, and assignments.

If she has to work or can't be at the class, she can attend remote using some meeting software.

[Townsend]

The young lady that works for me says she has over 25 text books on her iPad.  If she had to purchase them they would be around $2,000.  When they do clinicals, they have access to all of their texts without lugging around a 30lb backpack.  Her professors also use Dropbox and Evernote to hand out lessons, notes, videos, and assignments.

If she has to work or can't be at the class, she can attend remote using some meeting software.

This should be the way it is across the board.  The lobbyists will push this back as long as they can.

Edited to add:  Damn you lobbyists.  Damn you.  over.

[custosnox]

Instead of buying textbooks, consider renting them from a service like www.chegg.com. I used Chegg for my last two years at TU and saved probably over $1000. Rent a book for a semester for $15-30 and send it back in a pre-paid envelope. Heck, they even plant a tree for each book you rent.

The problem with this is those on financial aid or scholarship don't have direct access to their money until 4-6 weeks after school starts.  They are pretty much forced to buy their books through the school bookstore (at least at TCC) unless they can cover it out of pocket.

[Conan71]

This should be the way it is across the board.  The lobbyists will push this back as long as they can.

Edited to add:  Damn you lobbyists.  Damn you.  over.

You forgot to berate him for lack of posting a link to a source.