The Xplanation

Here are the articles we have been reviewing most recently.

Internet Archive Blogs | A blog from the Collections Team at archive.org 2012/05/15
The Internet has put universal access to knowledge within our grasp. Now we need to put all of the world’s literature online. This is easier to do than it might seem, if we resist the impulse to centralize and build only a few monolithic libraries. Centralization can lead to price controls, censorship without due process, lack of reader privacy, and resistance to innovators. We need lots of publishers, booksellers, authors, and readers—and lots of libraries. If many actors work together, we can have a robust, distributed publishing and library system, possibly resembling the World Wide Web.

Ingram’s E-Textbook Platform Adds Learning Outcomes Tools | Digital Book World 2012/05/15
As more institutions implement sophisticated online learning programs for faculty and students, Vital Source®, the leading provider of e-textbook solutions in education, today announced their conformance certification for IMS Global Learning Consortium’s Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) v1.1 with learning outcomes, a widely-used global technical standard for educational applications.

Textbook policies in an increasingly digital age | A World Bank Blog on ICT use in Education 2012/05/15
The current policy dates from 2002. My first reaction when I heard that the World Bank would be revising its “textbook policy” was to the term itself.  In 2012, surely we should be thinking beyond just 'textbooks', more broadly encompassing a wide variety of educational resources than the traditional conception of a printed book landing with a thud on the desk of a student? Despite regular proclamations from certain quarters about the impending ‘death of the printed book’, printed textbooks – especially in the developing countries where the World Bank is active -- aren’t going away any time soon. That said, there is no doubt that the landscape of and business climate for ‘educational publishers’ is changing radically in much of the world, and that this change is being fueled in large part by the increased distribution and adoption of a variety of disruptive technologies, which are increasingly to be found in schools and local communities, even in some of the poorest.

Inkling and ClassBook.com Announce Digital Distribution Partnership for the K-12 Market 2012/05/15
ClassBook.com, one of the nation's leading digital textbook distributors, and Inkling, the creators of the standard for interactive learning content, have announced a partnership for distributing titles to the independent secondary school market. "For us, it's a powerful thing," said Tony Pfister, president and CEO of ClassBook.com. "If people adopt the wrong types of digital books, they're liable to go back to printed texts. When they have the Inkling experience, they stay committed to the digital world. When students use Inkling textbooks in high school, they're going to expect and ask for that same experience at college." Now ClassBook.com is the first channel focused exclusively on K-12 market with whom Inkling, the leading platform for interactive learning content, has partnered. The agreement allows Classbook.com to further bolster the strength of its full digital solution for independent schools with the Inkling catalog of titles for AP and honors curricula. "ClassBook is committed to promoting the use of next-generation digital learning tools," said Matt MacInnis, CEO of Inkling. "We are pleased to work with ClassBook to offer the most engaging digital textbook platform on the market today to the K-12 independent school market."

Inkling will sell iPad textbooks in over 900 college bookstores — paidContent 2012/05/15
iPad textbook publisher Inkling is partnering with college bookstore provider Follett. Starting this fall, Follett will sell “hundreds of Inkling titles” in its over 900 college bookstores — including Stanford and UC Berkeley — and on its website. Titles include popular undergraduate textbooks as well as specialized MBA, medical and scientific titles. Students can purchase the entire textbook or “‘Pick 3′: a cost-saving alternative that allows students to buy just three chapters for a fraction of the price of a full textbook.” Then they can read the textbooks on the Inkling iPad app or on Inkling’s soon-to-be-launched web platform.

Turnitin: 10 types of unoriginal work #turnitin #edtech – eLearning Blog Dont Waste Your Time 2012/05/15
1. Clone: Verbatim copying without additions/subtractions. 2. CTRL C: Largely verbatim copying from a single source with minor changes. 3. Find-Replace: Verbatim copying with key words/phrases changed, often automatically. 4. Remix: Paraphrasing content so that it flows seamlessly with other work. 5. Recycle: Plagiarizing from older works of your own (self plagiarism). 6. Hybrid: Combining correctly cited material with non-cited material in the same passage. 7. Mashup: A mix of copied and original content from various sources without attribution. 8. 404 Error: Including citations that do not exist or are inaccurate. 9. Aggregator: Properly cited material that contains little original content. 10. Re-Tweet: Includes proper citation but uses too much of the original wording, content that should have been quoted but was paraphrased.

The complete 1-to-1 laptop or iPad pre-deployment survey | Technology with Intention 2012/05/14
As part of the event, we put together a list of resources, from multi-iPad management tools to educational apps to digital learning communities (embedded after the jump for website viewers). I also attempted to take the past year’s experiences

Educational Technology Guy: Language Immersion for Chrome - helps you learn a foreign language 2012/05/14
Language Immersion for Chrome is an extension for the Chrome web browser that helps you learn a foreign language through immersion. It will switch certain words and phrases on websites you visit from English into your chosen language. You can get a more contextual and realistic experience of the language you are trying to learn.

Purdue Kicks Off Global Online-Education Project - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education 2012/05/14
"Purdue University today joined the group of universities that have recently announced plans to experiment with online courses aimed at a global audience. The new effort, called PurdueHUB-U, will serve up modular online courses with video lectures, interactive visualizations, and tools for students to interact with their peers and the professor. The project’s leaders hope it will improve face-to-face classes and bring in revenue by attracting students around the world. PurdueHUB-U grew out of a course taught this year on Purdue’s nanoHUB, a collaborative platform for nanotechnology research. The course, on the fundamentals of nanoelectronics, was broken into two parts that lasted a few weeks each. It attracted 900 students from 27 countries, most of whom paid $30 for the class and a certificate of completion. Students also had the option to turn their certificates into continuing-education credits for an additional $195."

McGraw-Hill Partners With University of Minnesota on E-Book Distribution Program | Digital Book World 2012/05/14
" As universities and educational publishers grapple with the challenge of driving acceptance and adoption of e-books on college campuses, McGraw-Hill Higher Education has come one step closer to reaching the e-book tipping point through a new partnership with the University of Minnesota Bookstores. The partnership allows the company to provide e-books to large numbers of students at reduced prices, helping to make college more affordable and improve student performance. Through this two-year partnership, McGraw-Hill Education will provide its complete catalog of e-books and adaptive learning products to University of Minnesota students at a significantly discounted rate. In this new business model, the bookstore – which has access to enrollment information and the course materials assigned for each course at the university – will identify the digital materials each instructor requires for their classes and then directly bill students’ bursar accounts for those materials. The end result is that students will see significant savings and will have automatic and immediate digital access to their course content through their college’s learning management system on any browser-enabled device."