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New York City schools tap Amazon for e-books
The New York City Department of Education has awarded Amazon a $30 million contract to provide digital textbooks to its 1.1 million students over the next three years, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The creator of 'XKCD' is working on high school textbooks
XKCD's Randall Munroe has done a good job of simplifying scientific and technical concepts through his comics, so it only makes sense that he would turn his attention to full-on education, doesn't it? Sure enough, that's about to happen. Thanks to the right people at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt seeing his work, Munroe will integrate segments of his book Thing Explainer (which explains concepts using the 1,000 most-used English words) into high school biology, chemistry and physics textbooks arriving this summer. Yes, the usual dry diagrams will be accompanied by Munroe's signature stick figures discussing "thinking bags" (brains) and "heavy metal power buildings" (nuclear reactors).
Amazon takes on textbook sales at major universities
Amazon is set to open distribution centers at two large US colleges and offer students next-day delivery of textbooks and other items through co-branded websites. The universities of Massachusetts Amherst and Purdue say that the deal means students will save nearly $400 annually on textbooks. Amazon is also giving the schools a 0.5-2.5 percent cut, which will net at least $1.7 million in revenue for Purdue and $1.5 million for UMass over four years, according to the WSJ. The Amazon distribution center will completely replace the UMass textbook annex, currently operated by educational specialist Follett. That store will no longer carry course materials, but will continue to sell computers, clothing and other items.
Intel acquires Kno to boost its digital education library
Intel has long been cozy with the e-textbook developers at Kno, going so far as to license their hardware and preload their software on its own tablets. The chip giant clearly wants to take that relationship further, however, as it just acquired Kno outright. While Intel isn't providing the terms of the deal, it's not shy about revealing the motivations -- it's determined to grow its educational content library, which now includes over 225,000 titles thanks to the Kno deal. Not everyone is happy with the new alliance, though. TechCrunch has discovered that Kno founder Osman Rashid turned down a chance to join Intel after disagreeing with the bigger corporation's focus on international rollouts over concentrating on North America. While that's a significant loss, we doubt that Intel is complaining much. The buyout still gives it a rich educational content ecosystem that could help fend off rivals like Amazon, which recently bought TenMarks to bolster its own schoolroom cred.
Google Play Books for iOS update includes support for textbook rental
Yesterday, Google issued an update to its free Google Play Books app for iOS, adding not only the usual "stability and performance improvements" to the app, but also providing some important new features that should be helpful for students as the school year quickly approaches. The app provides access to over 4 million books in the Google Play Book Store, with literally millions of those books available for free. New version 1.6.0 provides highlighting and note-taking for those books that are simply scans and not text files. There's a new sepia reading mode that's easier on the eyes. But the most important addition is support for rentals. Google Play recently introduced a digital textbook library, and students can now select and rent books from that library. The Google Play website notes that students can save up to 80 percent off of the cost of purchasing textbooks by renting through its service, an important factor to consider when trying to reduce the exorbitant price of a higher education.
Textbooks now available through Google Play Books in US, iOS app updated to match
Google promised us that it would offer textbooks through Google Play Books this month, and it's living up to its word. American students can now buy educational titles or rent them for six months, with prices frequently undercutting paper editions. Appropriately, Google has updated its Google Play Books app for iOS to support rentals like its Android and web counterparts. The launch is a painful reminder that the fall semester is just around the corner, but college-goers who want to be prepared can check out the source links.
Boundless unveils iPhone textbook app and premium studying upgrades
Boundless has pitched its digital textbook service as the free alternative to expensive college textbooks, but the absence of mobile support and study aids has limited its appeal. The educational startup is addressing both of those issues today. To start, it has launched a native iPhone app that optimizes the web client's highlights, note-taking and summaries for a smaller screen. The company is also introducing a premium option for students who need a little motivation. Readers who pay $20 per textbook get access to a steady stream of flashcards and quizzes, with notifications to minimize any slacking. Diligent learners can grab both the app and premium upgrades today -- at least, so long as they have no qualms with Boundless' ongoing copyright disputes.
Google intros Play Textbooks for purchase and rent
Google is clearly committed to education on mobile devices beyond Play for Education -- it just unveiled Google Play Textbooks, a dedicated category on the Play Store for learning material. The section will offer titles from the top five publishers, and students will have the choice of renting books for six months in addition to buying them outright. Textbooks should be available this August, and they'll sync across Android, iOS and the web. %Gallery-194562%
Kno launches 'Kno Me' interactive textbook metrics, lets you study your studying
It was almost a year ago that we first heard about Kno's smart textbook metrics system "Kno Me." Now the software is set to actually launch, and find its way into students' (and parents') hands. As a refresher, the system provides analytics on your (or your children's) study patterns, letting you see how long you have studied for, amount of time interacting with the subject matter, percentage of pages that have been annotated and more. Kno Me is available for all of the firm's interactive textbooks and launches tomorrow on the iPad, Windows 8 and browser platforms, with Android and Windows 7 coming by the end of the month. Kno Me is free, and will be pushed out via the existing app.
Smart textbook maker Kno introduces Kno Me, adding stats to studying
Kno turns old-fashioned educational textbooks into interactive learning experiences. Adding links, multimedia and features like flashcards and quizzes, Kno already offers a powerful experience for students. Of course there are tools for adding notes, comments and such, but each student also has their own account, so those annotations and highlights are available across devices through Kno Cloud. Kno Me, launching today, adds a slew of metrics to help students see how much they are studying and can compare those stats to other students. That might sound a little crazy, but it's really quite useful for students to see how much time they've spent reading, using flashcards and more. Of course all of this looks great on the iPad. After a few minutes of playing with a Kno textbook (they partner with publishers to bring quality, approved content in) I was suitably impressed that this wasn't a CD-ROM fallacy of advancing education. Instead of a ton of flashy elements, Kno adds just enough to the experience to make the information intriguing and useful to students. Kno Me is a great addition to a strong contender in the interactive textbook business. Full press release below. Show full PR text KNO, A LEADER IN EDUCATION SOFTWARE, ASKS STUDENTS "ARE YOU STUDYING TOO MUCH?!?" Introducing Kno Me, a Visual Dashboard for Students to Review Their Own Study Engagement and Even Share with Classmates Consumer Electronics Show 2013, Las Vegas, NV - January 9, 2013 – Today, Kno, Inc., www.kno.com, a leader in education software, launched Kno Me, a personal study dashboard that helps students measure their engagement with each Kno eTextbook they use. Students can check-in frequently to see near real time stats on their study behavior, interaction levels, time management and personal progress. And with Kno Me social sharing, students can opt-in to share their results with peers and even follow the engagement levels of other classmates (perhaps the best student in the class). "The question we want to help students answer is 'How much am I really studying?' If you're a student, you don't know the answer until you get your grade, and if it's bad, it's too late," said Osman Rashid, CEO and Co-Founder of Kno. "Now, with Kno Me, you see near real time progress and get smart feedback on your own study habits, and you can compare results with your classmates. Kno Me is like a personal learning GPS that helps you locate where you are in your studies and see where you need to go." The study insights available from Kno Me are based on Kno's proprietary analytics platform, including the average time a student spends interacting with the textbook and time within specific chapters, the percentage of pages in the chapter the student annotates, and the percentage of glossary terms the student has mastered. Kno Me is available on all Kno interactive textbooks for iPad, Windows 8, and web browsers and will soon be available for Android and Windows 7. Kno is committed to making learning more engaging and efficient. Independent research shows that making content interactive promotes engaged learning and helps students retain information. And when students use features like highlighting, journaling, and flash cards, students no longer need to spend time preparing study materials-they can simply study. Kno offers interactive textbooks for K-12 and higher education students. At Kno.com, students can find over 200,000 digital titles from 65 leading textbook publishers. Kno's digital textbooks provide over 70 interactive features that are designed to increase learning efficiencies and engagement, saving students up to 90 minutes a week in study time per book. About Kno Kno, Inc. is an education software company on a mission to make learning engaging, effective, and social for students. Osman Rashid, the co-founder of Chegg, and Babur Habib, a consumer electronics veteran, founded Kno, Inc. in May 2009. The company has received funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Intel Capital, Goldman Sachs, FLOODGATE and GSV Capital and is based in Santa Clara, California. For more information, go to www.kno.com, or follow Kno at http://facebook.com/GoodtoKno and http://twitter.com/GoodtoKNO
Kno textbooks arrive on Android with the Galaxy Note 10.1, take on a social side
Kno's post-hardware textbook platform has called the iPad its only tablet home for more than a year; it's about to spread its wings. Starting with a bundled presence on the Galaxy Note 10.1, Kno is an option for K-12 and college students who'd rather go the Android route. While all the 3D, note-taking and navigation features remain the same, there's an obvious selling point in supporting the S Pen (and hopefully other pens) to more directly put thoughts to virtual paper -- or, let's admit it, doodle in the margins. All of us, Android and otherwise, get a new Social Sharing component that lets us crib each other's notes before the big exam. We're still waiting on Kno for other Android devices as well as the already-promised Windows 7 support, but it's hard not to appreciate at least a little more variety in our digital learning.
Kno starts offering K-12 textbooks on tablets, scores industry-first deal with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (update: not as exclusive)
Kno's tablet textbooks have only ever been available to the college crowd; the younger among us have typically had to get a comprehensive digital education from either the tablet maker's own solution, like Apple's iBooks 2, or less-than-integrated options. A new deal for K-12 books is giving the students, if not necessarily the teachers, a fresh alternative. Parents can now rent books for home studying at prices under $10 per title. They're not state-specific books, but their Common Core roots will keep learners on the same (virtual) page as classmates while adding Kno's usual 3D, links, notes and videos. Just to sweeten the pot further, Kno says its current catalog centers around a pact with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt -- a publisher that hasn't offered K-12 books on any tablet platform until now, according to Kno. The initial focus is on iPad, web and Windows 7 readers, although Android-loving parents looking for that at-home edge will have to wait until sometime "soon" to leap in. Update: Although we were told otherwise at first, it's not true that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has never offered K-12 books on a tablet before: we've since learned that the publisher posted Social Studies textbooks for the iPad in May. The Kno deal is still significant as a rare cross-platform offering. %Gallery-161862%
Amazon begins renting paper textbooks
Amazon has been renting out Kindle editions of textbooks for sometime now, but not all the educational tomes you need may be available in electronic form. And, believe it or not, some people just plain prefer paper to E-ink -- especially since its much easier to take notes in the margins. Now many of the more expensive texts on the site also feature a rent option. Most are in the $30 to $60 range and are rented by the semester, which Amazon counts as 130 days. Should you need it for a bit longer, you can extend your rental period by 15 days, but only once. On the plus side, Amazon will pay for the shipping on the return of the books. For more info, check out the FAQ at the source.
Inkling now available for iPhone
Inkling is a popular virtual textbook publisher on the iPad, and it's recently expanded over to the web, allowing students to access their virtual textbooks from anywhere. Now, the company is adding one more platform to its repertoire: the iPhone. The Inkling app is now universal, which means you can browse, buy, and read textbooks from the iPad, the iPhone, or the iPod touch. I don't know how much this will add to Inkling's business. You have to think that most students do their work on a computer or an iPad rather than on the iPhone's relatively small screen. But then again, I've done quite a bit of reading on my phone while out and about, and maybe there's an audience for academic texts in the same way. If you're an Inkling user, you can update the app and enjoy the new version right now.
Inkling to sell iPad textbooks in over 900 college bookstores
Inkling is an e-book publishing platform that's currently running an app on the App Store, and while Apple has been making an official push for more textbooks in iBooks, Inkling is strengthening its own holdings. The company has made a deal with Follett to bring hundreds of Inkling titles into college bookstores, where students can buy the ebook content right there in person. The company is selling whole textbooks, or it's also offering a program called "Pick 3," which allows students to grab three chapters of a book at a time, keeping costs down if teachers or students don't need the whole book. Overall, this may not be cheaper, however -- don't forget that students who buy real books can often have a chance to resell them, or can buy them used, and with ebooks, there's obviously no resale value. The Follett deal should be ready by the time students head back to school in the fall.
Harvard tired of overpaying for research, tells faculty to open up
The grand dame of Ivy League schools is taking action against one of higher learning's pet peeves: the exorbitant price of research journals. Even though the e-reader revolution may have already touched other schoolbooks, so far academic subscription prices -- with some journals as high as $40,000 -- are becoming unsustainable, according to Harvard. To that end, it's taking the lead and pushing its own faculty toward open access publishing, and encouraging them to quit boards of journals that aren't. That could in turn prod other schools to take the same steps, and allow Harvard to focus on more, ahem, interesting pursuits.
Kindle Fire update brings sharing, 'print replica' textbooks, more to tablet
Amazon has started pushing out an over-the-air update that'll bring a slew of new features to its budget Kindle Fire tablet. Topping the list of upgrades is new sharing functionality that makes it possible for readers to send passages and notes from within the comfort of a book via social networks like Facebook and Twitter by highlighting and clicking "Share." Also on the slate is supplemental material powered by Shelfari, letting users find character descriptions, glossaries of of common terms, locations and author information from inside a text. Version 6.3 also brings "print replicas" of textbooks, which include linked tables of contents and Whipsersyncing of notes and highlights. For a full rundown of the new features, check out the source link below.
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.
Inkling launches Inkling Habitat for textbook publishing
iBooks Author was announced last month to a lot of hoopla, but left many ebook publishers wanting a textbook authoring tool that would streamline the entire book publishing process and have more features. Today, Inkling announced their new online ebook publishing tool -- Inkling Habitat -- that is designed to speed the workflow for textbook publishers. Inkling Habitat is currently on a limited distribution, but users who are accepted into the Early Adopter Program have a chance to try out the robust features of the tool. Habitat is a cloud-based tool, so authors, editors, and artists can collaborate on textbooks simultaneously from anywhere. There's infinite rollback, so every addition, change, or edit is saved. When it's time to publish the ebook, Habitat creates content for every target platform and customizes the layout for every device. Inkling notes that they're trying to treat content more like software, "shifting the industry from a page-based model to a software-based model that benefits from decades of computer science advances." There's automated error reporting built into Habitat, so any time content is published it is run through a gauntlet of tests to make sure that everything works properly. Inkling is no newcomer to the electronic publishing world, having published over a hundred electronic textbooks to date. The company was founded by Matt MacInnis, a former Apple educational marketing manager. There's no word on what the cost of Inkling Habitat will be, or if the company will grab a portion of the proceeds from each published textbook. From the company's website, it's not even clear if Habitat creates standalone apps or traditional ebook files that are compatible with existing bookstores. In the meantime, if you're a publisher, writer, or educator, you might want to sign up for Inkling's Early Adopter Program.
Switched On: You tell me it's the institution
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. Apple rose to dominate sales of digital music by more or less mirroring the way consumers acquired music in the physical world -- that is, purchasing songs, but providing a greater degree of granularity. This worked well for music and has also held true for apps and best-selling books, but hasn't been as in step with consumer media acquisition habits for other content.For example, before Apple brought sales of video material to iTunes, most consumers did not generally own TV shows except for perhaps a few cherished series on DVD. They either watched them as they aired as part of a cable-like subscription or paid a flat monthly fee for the privilege of recording them on a DVR to be viewed after they aired. Furthermore, both Blockbuster physical stores and later Netflix's DVD by mail feature relied on a system of one-time consumption via rental or subscription that eschewed ownership of movies. And today, Vevo.com offers free streaming of many music videos that Apple still seeks to sell.
