2011 Horizon Report from Educause & The New Media Consortium

Each year, the Horizon Report describes six areas of emerging technology that will have significant impact on higher education and creative expression over the next one to five years. The areas of emerging technology cited for 2011 are:

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Time to adoption: One Year or Less

• Electronic Books
• Mobiles

Time to adoption: Two to Three Years

• Augmented Reality
• Game-based Learning

Time to adoption: Four to Five Years

• Gesture-based Computing
• Learning Analytics

View the complete Horizon Report (1.5Mb PDF)

Webinar: The Next Big Thing: Blackboard / McGraw-Hill Partnership

This webinar is hosted by the Chronicle of Higher Education. We encourage you to register - see below...

The evolution of mobile and digital technologies has reached its next milestone within education — interactive, digital learning content. Join us as Blackboard’s Katie Blot, Senior Vice President of Consulting, and McGraw-Hill’s Doug Hughes, Director of Digital Partnerships, lead the conversation on technology changes within education and how digitally delivered content is leading educators to the next frontier of how they use technology in the classrooms. Plus, take a look inside Blackboard and McGraw-Hill’s new, integrated solution. The Next Big Thing in Digital Education: the Blackboard and McGraw-Hill Higher Education Partnership February 17, 2011 • 2pm EST / 11am PST Gain valuable insight into how digital technology can promote: Student success Educator efficiency Thriving institutions Don’t miss this exciting webinar event, register now. Please feel free to forward this invitation to anyone you believe may be interested in attending this informative Webinar. This free Webinar is presented by Blackboard and hosted by The Chronicle of Higher Education. All content presented during the event is provided by Blackboard.

Undergraduate Students and Information Technology

In the recently released report from the Educause Center for Applied Research (ECAR), they found that students owned the following devices:

• 83.8% have laptops
• 62.7% have hand-held devices with Internet access
• 45.9% have desktop computers
• 13% have netbook computers
• 3.1% have e-readers

About 42% are considered "power users". Here is the breakdown of Internet-Capable Handheld Device Use among students (click to enlarge):

About 25% of students said they use e-textbooks in their courses, but it appears they use their computers or hand-held devices to access the e-texts, not dedicated e-readers. When asked what Web-based technologies students use in their courses, they said:

• Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, etc: 36.2% — for collaborative use: 53%
• Wikis (Web pages that can be created and/or edited by a group of people): 33.1% — for collaborative use: 30.7%
• Social networking sites: 29.4% — for collaborative use: 49.4%
• College opinion sites (RateMyProfessors, etc.): 27.1%
• Textbook publishers’ resource sites: 26.1% — for collaborative use: 23.2%
• Video-sharing (YouTube, etc.): 24.3% — for collaborative use: 33.4%
• Blogs: 11.6% — for collaborative use: 37.6%
• College study support (Cramster, Turnitin, etc.): 10.9%

ECAR states the the most important take-away message from their survey is that there is "no stereotypical student when it comes to technology."

Is the iPad a Game Changer for E-Textbooks?

Have you dreamed of an an e-book reader that can handle textbooks and reduce the back-breaking load of dead-tree books that our students and children carry? The Kindle and various incarnations of the Sony E-Reader are fine for novels, but how can you have a textbook without color?

The Apple iPad has arrived with great fanfare. Is it the e-Textbook game changer? Universities are now making headlines by providing iPads for their students. Will faculty find that their favorite textbooks are available on this dream machine? Here, I've gathered links to recent articles and podcasts that cover the iPad as e-textbook platform. Do you think the iPad is the e-textbook game changer (add your comments below)?

The E-Textbook Experiment Turns A Page by Lynn Neary (listen to the story from NPR's "All Things Considered")

The game changer, according to Matt MacInnis, may be a little thing called the iPad. MacInnis is the founder and CEO of Inkling, a company that designs textbook software for the iPad. He says the iPad has allowed for the reinvention of the textbook.

As Textbooks Go Digital, Will Professors Build Their Own Books? By Jeffrey R. Young (read this article from The Chronicle of Higher Education)

McGraw-Hill Higher Education plans to announce its revamped custom-publishing system, called Create, with an emphasis on electronic versions of mix-and-match books. Macmillan Publishers this year announced a similar custom-textbook platform, called DynamicBooks. And upstart Flat World Knowledge touts the customization features of its textbooks, which it gives away online, charging only for printed copies and study guides.

Rod's Pulse Podcast #87: Special iPad in Education Edition (listen to this interview by Rod Murray)

Interview: Dr. Mary Ann Gawelek, Provost, Seton Hill University on "An iPad for Everyone" - Dr. Gawelek tells us about their Griffin Technology Advantage Program and how they prepared their faculty and IT infrastructure to handle iPads and MacBook Pros for all their incoming students.

Also from Rod's Pulse Podcast:

RPP #82: E-Textbooks: Are We There Yet? Interview with Scott Beadenkopf
RPP #83: E-Readers: Are We There Yet? Interview with Scott Beadenkopf (Part 2)

E-Textbooks: Are We There Yet?

Is this the year of the e-book? Almost everyone has heard of the Amazon Kindle by now and more news about e-book readers seem to come out every day. Barnes and Noble is about to launch their own e-book reader (Image Via Gizmodo). Amazon is releasing a new Kindle for use in Europe. Sony has been in the e-book game for years and continues to release new models, e.g., a wireless model is due this holiday season. However, the most popular e-book reader may already be in your pocket -- the iPhone.

While most e-book news tends to be focused on the readers, how about the e-books themselves or, more important for academia, e-textbooks? It's one thing to flip through black and white novels on a monochrome Kindle and another to do research and take notes using a library of colorful large format textbooks on a portable electronic device. When will our students trade in their 40 pound backpacks for a thin, light weight, colorful e-book reader? Are we there yet?

Find out by tuning into the next episode in our Academic Technology Webinar Series on Friday, October 23 at Noon. Get the details on our Campus Portal or Angel Learning System.