McgrawHill
Latest
McGraw Hill VP bullish on $399 iPad 2 for students
At Apple's education keynote in January, McGraw Hill Education was announced as one of the partners in the initiative to move textbooks to a digital format. The company's vice president of new ventures, Vineet Madan, is impressed with the power and display of the new iPad, but says he thinks that the newly discounted iPad 2 gives more schools a chance to deploy iPads to their students. In an interview with Talking Points Memo, Madan said that "I've long thought that the tipping-point price for a tablet is between $200 and $300. Now that the entry-level iPad 2 has dropped by $100, and it's now $399 for a 16 gigabyte version, we'll see much more uptake." McGraw Hill currently has five K-12 textbooks available, as well as over 50 iPad textbooks aimed at the higher education and professional market through partner Inkling. Although the existing e-textbooks use interactive features, Madan feels that the new iPad's Retina display, 4G network support and 10-hour battery life can make life easier for textbook readers and creators. Speaking about LTE, Madan said "You could be anywhere and can immediately pull up all sorts of high-res, data-rich content. You can stream it instantaneously and you don't have pulling down gigs and gigs of content and storing it on the app locally." Madan also sees the high resolution Retina display as a way to "really unlock the potential of 'pinch to zoom' functionality" in textbooks.
Select McGraw-Hill educational apps for iPhone and iPad free until 4/16
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is holding its annual conference this week and in honor of this event McGraw-Hill has dropped the price on select iOS educational applications. The sale started earlier this week and extends until the conference ends on April 16. During this time, the following applications will be free: Everyday Mathematics Addition Top-It: 0 to 10 basic addition and number comparison game Everyday Mathematics Subtraction Top-It: 0 to 10, 2-digit subtraction and number comparison game Everyday Mathematics Name That Number: Computation and order of operations game Everyday Mathematics Monster Squeeze: Octopus monster-themed number comparison and recognition game Everyday Mathematics Equivalent Fractions: Fraction flashcard game Everyday Mathematics Tric-Trac: one or two-player addition game Everyday Mathematics Beat the Computer: Multiplication (0-10) game Everyday Mathematics Baseball Multiplication 1-6 Facts: Baseball-themed multiplication game Everyday Mathematics Divisibility Dash: Number multiples and division practice eFlashcards: Vocabulary flashcards If you have elementary school-aged children and younger, this sale is a no-brainer. Normally, each app is priced at $1.99 and will jump back up to this price when the sale ends. These apps require iOS 3.0 or later and are compatible with the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.
Major textbook pubs partner with ScrollMotion for iPad development
Putting traditional print publication on an iPhone screen is old hat for ScrollMotion, and now it's taking that know-how to a larger screen. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Kaplan, Pearson Education, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt K-12, and the educational sector of McGraw-Hill have all made deals with the company to develop textbook apps and test-prep / study guide apps for the Apple iPad. No other details are given and we unfortunately lack any timeline. It certainly makes the machine more classroom-viable, but we'll hold judgment until we see what actually comes of this partnership -- your move, Kindle.
Ballmer: Zune's future might be as software on non-Zune devices
Fear not, Zune lovers, your beloved media player isn't going anywhere just yet. Interviewed at the McGraw-Hill media conference, Microsoft's head honcho Steve Ballmer said that the hardware will continue to improve, but reaffirmed that its future may be as software / ecosystem found on other devices. "I won't say full steam ahead because that implies acceleration of investment," he said, "but we're going to sustain our investment." It's unclear from the transcription -- much of it paraphrased by The Wall Street Journal -- whether or not Ballmer had given any indication as to the future of the hardware itself. Of course, should one of those mentioned hardware improvements managed to take a notable bite out of Apple's iPod business, we reckon those investments will see an uptick. We've already heard that the service would find its way on non-Zune devices sometime this year, but mum's still the word on any details thereof.
